Statute of Repose Decisions
Statute of repose governing medical malpractice actions brought on behalf of minors, which required all such actions to be brought within seven years of act or omission giving rise to action, bore reasonable relationship to permissible legislative objective of making affordable health care available by reducing cost of malpractice insurance, and thus did not violate due process guarantees of Federal and State Constitutions. Plummer v. Gillieson (1998) 692 N.E.2d 528, 44 Mass.App.Ct. 578, review denied 699 N.E.2d 851, 427 Mass. 1107.

Statute of repose governing medical malpractice actions brought on behalf of minors, which required such actions to be brought within seven years of act or occurrence in question, did not violate equal protection clause; statute did not create different classifications of minor plaintiffs based on their age, but distinguished between medical malpractice plaintiffs and other tort plaintiffs, which was justified by legitimate governmental goal of reducing cost of medical malpractice insurance. Plummer v. Gillieson (1998) 692 N.E.2d 528, 44 Mass.App.Ct. 578, review denied 699 N.E.2d 851, 427 Mass. 1107.

A statute cannot revive a barred cause of action where the time for prosecuting it was fixed by contract or by a statute that made limitation of time inhere in the right rather than in the remedy. Mulligan v. Hilton (1940) 24 N.E.2d 676, 305 Mass. 5.