Godshall v. Peterson (July 20, 2026, No. D086572, certified for publication August 11. 2026) ___ Cal.App.5th ___ [2026 WL 2322087]
In October 2016, plaintiff saw the defendant for numbness and tingling in her right hand. Defendant recommended carpal tunnel release surgery, which he performed on January 30, 2017. Defendant assured plaintiff that the surgery was successful and her post-surgical symptoms were normal. In April 2021, plaintiff sought treatment from a different physician for her worsening symptoms. The new doctor found that plaintiff’s prior surgery had been unsuccessful and recommended further surgery. In 2022, plaintiff sued defendant for medical malpractice. The trial court granted summary judgment for defendant, ruling that plaintiff’s suit was untimely under the three-years-from-injury limitations period of Code of Civil procedure section 340.5.
The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that triable issues of material fact remained as to the date of plaintiff’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 plaintiff’s “physical manifestations of harm” in the months after her 2017 surgery were insufficient to trigger the three-year statute of limitations period. The court reasoned that defendant’s assurances of a successful surgery and normal post-surgical symptoms created a question of fact about when plaintiff 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.)
