Plaintiff Simon King claimed to have suffered personal injuries from a motor vehicle accident that happened on August 12, 2019. He filed a complaint against the driver of the other vehicle, Renay Tripp, and Stonewood Tavern as a result of his alleged injuries. The issue in King v. Tripp, 2023 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1072 (App. Div. June 28, 2023) was whether the complaint was barred by the two-year statute of limitations due to the complaint being filed one day after the expiration of the two-year statute.
Plaintiff did not file his lawsuit until August 13, 2021, which would be one day after the expiration of the two-year statute of limitations. Plaintiff argued that his complaint was timely filed or, in the alternative, the doctrine of substantial compliance should allow his complaint to proceed. Specifically, he argued that he took reasonable steps to comply with the statute of limitations and contended that any delay in filing was due solely to his counsel’s legal secretary incorrectly recording the statute of limitations expiration date as August 15, 2021 in the firm’s calendaring system.
Also, plaintiff relied on an October 5, 2020 e-mail from defendant’s insurance company to a legal secretary at plaintiff’s counsel’s law firm, in which an adjuster confirmed speaking with her and requested plaintiff’s social security number, as well as plaintiff’s medical records. Plaintiff argued that, based upon this e-mail, the defendant was on notice of his potential claims because the defendant’s insurance adjuster was in touch with plaintiff’s counsel at least as early as October 5, 2020.
At the trial court level, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment based upon the statute of limitations. The trial court initially found that the doctrine of substantial compliance was applicable and the defendants could not claim prejudice because the complaint was quickly and timely served. Hence, the trial court initially found that plaintiff had substantially complied with the statute of limitations.
However, defendant filed a motion for reconsideration and, ultimately, the trial court determined that plaintiff had failed to satisfy the elements needed to establish substantial compliance or establish any equitable exceptions to the statute of limitations recognized by our case law. Hence, the trial court did dismiss plaintiff’s complaint with prejudice. This appeal ensued.
Upon appeal, the plaintiff continued to argue that the doctrine of substantial compliance should be invoked to avoid the dismissal of his complaint. He argued that human error prevented him from timely filing his complaint and that defendant could not establish undue prejudice in the late filing because it did have prior notice of his pending claim for personal injuries. In the alternative, plaintiff maintained that he did timely file his complaint based upon the calculation of the statute of limitations, which should not include the day of the event in the time period.
The Appellate Division noted that statute of limitations are created by the legislature with the purpose to “eliminate stale claims and to appeal the exercise of a right of action so that an opposing party has a fair opportunity to defend.” The substantial compliance doctrine is invoked “to avoid technical defects of valid claims.” Under the Supreme Court case of Negron v. Llarena, 156 N.J. 296 (1998), the following five elements must be established to invoke this doctrine:
- The lack of prejudice to the defending party;
- A series of steps taken to comply with the statute involved;
- A general compliance with a purpose of the statute;
- A reasonable notice of petitioner’s claim; and
- A reasonable explanation why there was not a strict compliance with the statute.
The Court noted that the doctrine of substantial compliance has been utilized where litigants have mistakenly filed a pleading in the wrong forum. It had also been used in a situation which the plaintiff’s attorney learned the identity of a fictitious defendant before the statute of limitations expiration date and forwarded a summons and complaint to the substituted defendant to advise that it was being sued before the expiration of the statute of limitations, even though the amendment to the complaint to add the new defendant was not filed until after the statute of limitations expired.
In this case, however, the Appellate Division agreed with the trial court that the plaintiff had not satisfied all five elements of the substantial compliance doctrine. Plaintiff had failed to prove general compliance with the purpose of the statute because the record lacked any evidence that plaintiff initiated legal proceedings within the statutory time frame. Further, the only evidence of communications between the parties during the statutory time period was the October 5, 2020 e-mail between defendant’s insurance company and plaintiff’s counsel. Although this e-mail would be indicative of a notice of a potential claim, it could not reasonably be interpreted as a formal notice of pending litigation, nor could it serve to toll the statute of limitations.
Further, the Appellate Division rejected plaintiff’s contention that the complaint was timely filed on August 13, 2021. The Court agreed that in computing time under the statute of limitations, the day on which the cause of action accrued is not to be counted. However, applying this methodology to plaintiff’s case, and excluding the date of the accident, August 12, 2019, from the computation of the two-year statute of limitations, under that measurement, a complaint filed on August 13, 2021 would be outside the applicable statute of limitations window by one day. Hence, even excluding the date of the accident, the Court found that plaintiff failed to file his complaint within the two-year statutory period.
Although the Court noted that this result may be viewed as “harsh,” as plaintiff was time barred from asserting his claims against defendants through no fault of his own, the Appellate Division found that it could not “ignore a clear, statutorily imposed limitations period, or apply equitable principles absent support in the record.” Hence, the trial court’s decision was upheld, and the complaint dismissed.
