John Adams Courthouse, home of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Appeals Court. (Photo: Swampyank via Wikipedia) 'Opinion Is Clear as Day': Philip Morris Argues 2020 Ruling Requires High Court to Toss Wrongful Death Claims as Time-Barred
The full Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments Monday on whether a wrongful death claim is time-barred if the statute of limitations for personal injury claims had already expired at the time of death.
March 07, 2023 at 11:47 AM
5 minute read
What You Need to Know
- The full Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments Monday on whether a viable wrongful death claim must be filed before the statute of limitations runs out on the decedent's personal injury claims.
- Shea T. Moxon, a shareholder at Brannock Humphries Berman in Tampa, argued that the lower court's ruling should be reversed because the legislature has made its intent clear that the only time limit that has any bearing on the viability on a wrongful death action is the one set forth in the wrongful death statute: three years after death.
- While Philip Morris never disputed that the plaintiff's wrongful death action was filed within three years of Ralph Fabiano's death, the tobacco company argued that the wrongful death action was time-barred because the three-year limitations period for Ralph Fabiano to bring a personal injury suit had expired by the time of his death.
Nearly three years after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that wrongful death actions are derivative, the state high court must now consider whether a lower court erred in dismissing a family's wrongful death action against Philip Morris because the decedent "could not 'have brought an action for the injuries that caused [his] death at the time he died.'"
The full Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments Monday in two similar cases, Michael Cuddy v. Philip Morris USA Inc., and Mary Fuller v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. In both cases, the parties asked whether the Superior Court erred in dismissing the complaint in a wrongful death action, where the complaint was filed within three years of the decedent's death but the statute of limitations on the decedent's personal injury claims had expired.
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