Godshall v. Peterson (July 20, 2026, No. D086572) ___ Cal.App.5th ___ [2026 WL 2322087]
In October 2016, Cecilia Godshall saw Dr. Drew A. Peterson for numbness and tingling in her right hand. Dr. Peterson diagnosed her with probable recurrent right carpal tunnel syndrome and recommended carpal tunnel release surgery, which he performed on January 30, 2017. Dr. Peterson assured Godshall that the surgery was successful and her post-surgical symptoms were normal. In April 2021, Godshall sought treatment from a different physician for her worsening symptoms. The new doctor found that Godshall’s distal transverse ligament, supposedly released in the 2017 surgery, was still intact, and recommended a revision carpal tunnel release. In 2022, Godshall sued Dr. Peterson for medical malpractice. The trial court granted summary judgment for Dr. Peterson, ruling Godshall’s suit was untimely under MICRA’s three-years-from-injury limitations period. (Code Civ. Proc., § 340.5.)
The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that triable issues of material fact remained as to the date of Godshall’s injury. Under section 340.5, the time to commence a medical malpractice suit “shall be three years after the date of injury or one year after the plaintiff discovers, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury, whichever occurs first.” The court held that the trial court erred when it determined that Godshall’s “physical manifestations of harm” in the months after her 2017 surgery were sufficient to trigger the three-year statute of limitations period. Drawing an analogy to delayed diagnosis cases where latent injuries later manifest, the court reasoned that Dr. Peterson’s assurances of a normal surgery and post-surgical symptoms created a question of fact about when Godshall should have become aware that the 2017 operation caused her continued symptoms.
(Note: the opinion deepens an existing split of authority that developed after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Bleiberg (1982) 32 Cal.3d 426, 430, 437 & fn. 8, about what constitutes an “injury” triggering the three-year limitations period.)
