Before the Court En Banc. Opinion by Justice Parraguirre.
In this appeal of an order granting summary judgment, the Nevada Supreme Court addressed three issues related to the medical malpractice statute of limitations contained in NRS 41A.097. The statute of limitations states that an action for medical malpractice must be commenced within 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 earlier. First, the Court ruled that the date on which the one-year discovery period begins to run is ordinarily a question of fact to be decided by the jury. However, the date may be determined as a matter of law when the evidence irrefutably demonstrates that a plaintiff had facts before him that would have led an ordinarily prudent person to investigate further into whether an injury may have been caused by someone’s negligence. Second, the Court determined that the statute of limitations tolls when a defendant intentionally withholds information that was material, meaning the information would have hindered a reasonably diligent plaintiff from timely filing suit. Third, one defendant’s concealment cannot serve as a basis for tolling the limitations period as to defendants who played no role in the concealment. In this case, factual issues remained related to whether the limitations period should have been tolled as a result of a hospital’s failure to produce records. Regardless, the Court refused to impute that failure to the individual doctors because they were not involved in the request for such records. Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. (Joseph P. Schrage, Associate in the Las Vegas office of McDonald Carano Wilson.)
