Mount v. City of Vermillion

250 N.W.2d 686, 1977 S.D. LEXIS 144
CourtSouth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 17, 1977
Docket11699
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 250 N.W.2d 686 (Mount v. City of Vermillion) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering South Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mount v. City of Vermillion, 250 N.W.2d 686, 1977 S.D. LEXIS 144 (S.D. 1977).

Opinions

DUNN, Chief Justice

(on reassignment).

This action was instituted to recover $165,000 in damages for personal injuries incurred in a Vermillion city park. After considering depositions presented to it, the First Judicial Circuit Court granted summary judgment for defendant city, ruling that plaintiff had not complied with the sixty-day notice requirement of SDCL 9-24-2.1 Plaintiff appeals that order. We reverse.

On the evening of April 23,1974, plaintiff was using a swing in the Lyons Park in Vermillion when a part of the chain or seat fastener slipped or broke. Plaintiff fell, landing first on his tailbone and then striking the back of his head. For the next week, plaintiff had soreness in his back and throughout his body. When he developed cramps in his stomach, he saw his doctor who prescribed some medication for a “nervous stomach.” The stomach pains continued for an additional week. During that time, plaintiff sought relief through painkillers administered as an outpatient at the local hospital. He continued to work during this time. The pains continued until hospitalization was necessary on May 19, 1974. During his stay, plaintiff’s spleen, which had ruptured, was removed. He remained in the hospital until May 26, 1974.

Plaintiff was readmitted to the hospital on May 29, 1974. He was subsequently transferred to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa, where a second operation was performed to remove blood clots from his intestines. Plaintiff was released June 16,1974, and returned to work July 9,1974. By a letter dated November 4, 1974, plaintiff filed a notice of the April 23rd incident with the city auditor.

Plaintiff attacks the constitutionality of SDCL 9-24-2, alleging the classifications of municipal tort-feasor and private tort-fea-sor are arbitrary, constitute special legislation, and are a denial of due process. As part of this argument, plaintiff claims the trial court denied him relief and due process by not applying SDCL 9-24-3, which reads as follows:

“Where the person injured is a minor, or is mentally or physically incapacitated, the court in its discretion, may grant leave to serve the notice required by § 9-24-2 within a reasonable time after the expiration of the period of disability, provided that the application for such leave is made within a year from the happening of the event upon which the claim is based.”

Plaintiff contends that because of his physical incapacity during the sixty-day requirement of SDCL 9-24-2 the court should have allowed him leave to file the claim under SDCL 9-24-3.

The court held that SDCL 9-24-2 was constitutional and that, although plaintiff was admittedly physically incapacitated during a portion of the sixty-day period, he was not “unable, by reason of his disability, to give the notice within the period fixed by Statute.” Because plaintiff admitted competency during thirty-five of the sixty days the court found he had a “reasonable time” in which to comply with the notice requirement.

We cannot agree with the court’s interpretation of SDCL 9-24-3. Following his fall, plaintiff was dazed and sore; however, there was nothing about the incident that indicated serious injury until the stom[688]*688ach cramps developed more than a week after the incident. These were initially diagnosed as being caused by tension, which would hardly alert plaintiff that they were caused by the fall. It was not until May 19, 1974, that the seriousness of the incident became known, and, at that time, plaintiff was hospitalized and physically incapacitated. The court’s holding would require plaintiff to give notice of an injury before it was known or within six days after his final release from the hospital. We hold this interpretation is unreasonable and inequitable, resulting in the same type of anomaly recognized in Burkard v. City of Dell Rapids, 1955, 76 S.D. 56, 72 N.W.2d 308, i. e., that a city may escape liability by rendering its victims sufficiently disabled to prevent a claim within sixty days. Our legislature in 1961 adopted what is now SDCL 9-24-3 which we construe as tolling the sixty-day limitation not only where a victim is injured for the whole sixty days but also where, as here, physical incapacity occurs following a belated discovery of the injury within the sixty-day limit.

We must endeavor to determine whether plaintiff should have been granted leave to serve notice under SDCL 9-24-3. This court in Brandner v. City of Aberdeen, 1960, 78 S.D. 574, 105 N.W.2d 665, and in Burkard v. City of Dell Rapids, supra, stated that an incapacitated person must give the statutory notice within a reasonable time after removal of the disability. SDCL 9 — 24-3 provides precisely the same thing so long as the application is made within one year of the accident. The purpose both of allowing SDCL 9-24-3 to toll SDCL 9-24-2 and of allowing a reasonable time after the disability is to place the incapacitated person in the same position as someone injured but not incapacitated. In furthering this purpose, we hold that what is a reasonable time within the absolute statutory limit of one year from the date of the accident is a question to be determined from all of the circumstances surrounding an injury and recovery. Therefore, we remand the case for examination by the trial court of the reasonableness of the November 4, 1974 notice, doing so in the light of all of the facts and circumstances of this case. Because of our disposition of this issue, we need not rule on the constitutionality of SDCL 9— 24-2 at this time.

Plaintiff additionally contends that the city had actual knowledge which should prevent it from utilizing SDCL 9-24-2. He cites Inlagen v. Town of Gary, 1914, 34 S.D. 198, 147 N.W. 965, and Hagberg v. City of Sioux Falls, 1968, D.C.S.D., 281 F.Supp. 460, in support of his position. In Inlagen, the city received a letter from the plaintiff’s attorney requiring settlement and calling to the clerk’s attention the time, place and cause of the injury. In Hagberg, the city had knowledge of the event minutes after it occurred.

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, Wilson v. Great Northern Ry.

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Mount v. City of Vermillion
250 N.W.2d 686 (South Dakota Supreme Court, 1977)

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Bluebook (online)
250 N.W.2d 686, 1977 S.D. LEXIS 144, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mount-v-city-of-vermillion-sd-1977.