Still Dreaming of a Unified Theory of Equitable Estoppel

Doe v. Marten, No. A153427 (D1d3 Jun. 4, 2020)
 
Almost seven (!) years ago I wrote a post discussing how an overly rigid, elements-based test for equitable estoppel was causing a lot of confusion. Equitable estoppel encompasses several different things with a common theme of justifiable reliance. The exact requirements for its application depend on context. This is another one of those cases. 

Plaintiff sued a doctor who allegedly botched a surgery. She filed an arbitration demand only a couple of months after her claims accrued. Doctor responded, and the parties proceeded to putz around in arbitration for three years. But it ultimately came out that the inscrutable signature on the arbitration agreement actually belonged to some other doctor. So Doctor got the arbitration stayed and Plaintiff filed suit a couple of days later.

So the question is whether Doctor is equitably estopped from claiming that the one year statute of limitations for medmal in Code of Civil Procedure § 340.5 bars the case. After the jury gave a $6.6 million verdict, the trial judge decided the case was time-barred and that equitable estoppel didn’t apply. The trial court found, among other things, that Plaintiff was a sophisticated party, unlikely to be misled, and—looking to our old friend the four-element test’s false assertion element—that Doctor’s decision to respond to the arb petition was not a false statement or concealment. 

But that misses the point, as the Court of Appeal here explains. Doctor participated in the arbitration proceedings for three years. That participation doesn’t need to be false or a lie or fraudulent to be the basis of an estoppel to claim the running of the statute. It just needs to be something that Doctor deliberately did, and which Plaintiff reasonably relied upon in deciding to wait to file a lawsuit. If, for example, Doctor truthfully asked Plaintiff to forebear bringing suit while they tried to mediate, that would create an estoppel. The Court of Appeal here struggles somewhat to reconcile the various conflicting lines of precedent and tests, but it gets to the right point by the end.

Reversed.