Kent Stahle v. CTS Corporation

817 F.3d 96, 2016 WL 806087
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedMarch 2, 2016
Docket15-1001
StatusPublished
Cited by119 cases

This text of 817 F.3d 96 (Kent Stahle v. CTS Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kent Stahle v. CTS Corporation, 817 F.3d 96, 2016 WL 806087 (4th Cir. 2016).

Opinions

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge FLOYD wrote the opinion in which Judge WYNN joined. Judge THACKER wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment. .

FLOYD, Circuit Judge:

At issue in this appeal is the scope of North Carolina General Statutes Section 1-52(16), which at the relevant time provided:

Unless otherwise provided by statute, for personal injury or physical damage to claimant’s property, the cause of action, except in causes of actions referred to in G.S. l-15(c), shall not accrue until bodily harm to the claimant or physical damage to his property becomes apparent or ought reasonably to have become apparent to the claimant, whichever event first occurs. Provided that no cause of action shall accrue more than 10 years from the last act or omission of the defendant giving rise to the cause of action.

The Supreme Court of North Carolina has ■explained that this statute “establishes what is commonly referred, to as the discovery rule, which tolls the running of the statute of limitations for torts resulting in certain latent injuries,” although “such actions remain subject to the [10-year] statute of repose provision.” Misenheimer v. Burris, 360 N.C. 620, 637 S.E.2d 173, 175-76 (2006).

Appellant Kent. Stahle was diagnosed with leukemia. He subsequently brought a complaint against Appellee CTS Corporation (CTS). Stahle alleges that CTS was responsible for dumping toxic solvents from an Asheville-area manufacturing plant into a local stream, and that childhood exposure to the contaminated stream water many years ago caused his leukemia. The district court dismissed Stahle’s complaint, holding that the statute of repose in Section 1-52(16) barred his action.

We disagree. The Supreme Court of North Carolina has not yet directly resolved whether Section 1-52(16) applies to disease claims. As a federal court sitting in diversity faced with an unresolved ques[99]*99tion of state law, we must predict how the question would be decided by that state’s highest court. Because we understand that under North Carolina law a disease is. not a “latent injury,” we conclude that the Supreme Court of North Carolina would not find Section 1-52(16) applicable to Stahle’s claim. Accordingly, we reverse and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.

I.

CTS is a Delaware corporation that was licensed to do business iñ North Carolina. CTS purportedly ownéd CTS of Asheville, Inc. (CTS' of Asheville),' a now-dissolved North Carolina corporation. From 1959 to 1983, CTS of Asheville operated a manufacturing facility in Buncombe County, North Carolina. As part of its manufacturing operations, CTS of Asheville used various toxic solvents, including trichloroe-thylene. CTS of Asheville allegedly dumped large quantities of these toxic contaminants onto its property and into a stream known as Dingle Creek.

From 1959 until 1968, Stahle lived with his family on a property on Dingle Creek, downstream of CTS of Asheville’s manufacturing plant. During this period,' Stahle was exposed to the contaminated water of Dingle Creek. Many years later, Stahle was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia.

On February 20, 2014, Stahle filed a one-count complaint against. CTS in the Western District of North Carolina. Stahle alleges that CTS of Asheville’s negligence in dumping toxic chemicals into Dingle Creek caused his leukemia. CTS moved to dismiss Stahle’s complaint, principally on the basis that it was time-barred under North Carolina General Statutes Section 1-52(16), the second sentence of which provides that “no cause of action shall accrue more than 10 years from the last act or omission of the defendant giving rise to the cause of action.” CTS argued that the last possible relevant “act or omission of the defendant” occurred in 1968 when Stahle moved away from Dingle Creek; as such, the statute applied to bar any action by Stahle not brought by 1978. Stahle responded that precedent of the Supreme Court of North Carolina and de-. cisions of this Circuit established that statutes such as Section 1-52(16) do not apply to claims arising from disease.

The magistrate judge recommended that CTS’s motion to dismiss be granted. The magistrate judge found that the statutory text of Section 1-52(16) was unambiguous and did not contain an exception for diseases. The district court agreed with the recommendation and dismissed Stahle’s action with' prejudice. Stahle timely appealed. *

II.

We review a district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss de novo. Johnson v. Am. Towers, LLC, 781 F.3d 693, 706 (4th Cir.2015). This appeal presents a question of statutory interpretation, which we also review de novo. Food Lion, Inc. v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., 194 F.3d 505, 512 (4th Cir.1999).

Because federal jurisdiction'in this matter rests in diversity,1 our role is [100]*100to apply the governing state law. See BP Prods. N. Am., Inc. v. Stanley, 669 F.3d 184, 188 (4th Cir.2012). “It is axiomatic that in determining state law a federal court must look first and foremost to the law of the state’s highest court, giving appropriate effect to all its implications.” Assicurazioni Generali, S.p.A. v. Neil, 160 F.3d 997, 1002 (4th Cir.1998). If, as here, the state’s highest court has not directly addressed the issue, a federal court “must anticipate how it would rule.” Liberty Univ., Inc. v. Citizens Ins. Co. of Am., 792 F.3d 520, 528 (4th Cir.2015).2 In other words, our task here is to anticipate whether the Supreme Court of North Carolina would rule that North Carolina General Statutes Section 1-52(16) bars Stahle’s action.

III.

A.

This is not the first time we have anticipated North Carolina law on the subject of disease claims and personal injury statutes of repose. In Hyer v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp. we articulated our understanding that “the [North Carolina] Supreme Court does not consider disease to be included within a statute of repose directed at personal injury claims unless the Legislature expressly expands the language to include it.” 790 F.2d 30, 34 (4th Cir.1986) (quotation omitted). Hyer is still the law in this Circuit, and we are bound to follow it here. E.g., Demetres v. E.W. Constr., Inc., 776 F.3d 271, 275 (4th Cir.2015); United States v. Collins, 415 F.3d 304, 311 (4th Cir.2005) (“A decision of a panel of this court becomes the law of the circuit and is binding on other panels unless it is overruled by a subsequent en banc opinion of this court or a superseding contrary decision of the Supreme Court.” (quoting Etheridge v. Norfolk & W. Ry. Co., 9 F.3d 1087, 1090 (4th Cir.1993))).

Section 1-52(16) functions as a statute of repose directed at certain personal injury claims. The North Carolina General Assembly has not expressly expanded the language to include disease. Therefore, under our understanding of North Carolina law as articulated in Hyer,

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817 F.3d 96, 2016 WL 806087, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kent-stahle-v-cts-corporation-ca4-2016.