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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS


PAMELA FOWLER, Personal Representative of the Estate of DOLORES ALICE SCHEI, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v BOTSFORD GENERAL HOSPITAL and SANFORD H. SKLAR, M.D., Defendants-Appellees.

UNPUBLISHED September 11, 2007

No. 259325 Oakland Circuit Court LC No. 2003-049422-NH

Before: Cavanagh, P.J., and Donofrio and Servitto, JJ. PER CURIAM. In this wrongful death medical malpractice action, plaintiff, the personal representative of the decedent's estate, appeals as of right from a circuit court order granting defendants summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(7) (statute of limitations). We affirm. This appeal is being decided without oral argument pursuant to MCR 7.214(E). Initially, we reject plaintiff's protestation that defendants insufficiently pleaded their statute of limitations affirmative defense. First, defendants complied with MCR 2.111(F)(3)(a), given that they premised their motions for summary disposition on plaintiff's untimely filing of the complaint beyond the two-year medical malpractice period of limitation, a defense they specifically raised in their affirmative defenses to the complaint. Additionally, as plaintiff acknowledges, MCL 600.5852 constitutes a saving period, not a period of limitation. Waltz v Wyse, 469 Mich 642, 648-651; 677 NW2d 813 (2004). Second, to the extent that plaintiff suggests that defendants should have mentioned the wrongful death saving period in their affirmative defenses, MCR 2.111(F)(3) does not refer to the squandering of a saving period as an affirmative defense, and plaintiff offers no case law suggesting that subrule (F)(3) should encompass defenses involving statutory saving periods. Detroit Leasing Co v Detroit, 269 Mich App 233, 237; 713 NW2d 269 (2005). Third, plaintiff made no request for a more definite statement of defendants' position with respect to their period of limitation affirmative defense, MCR 2.115, thus precluding their claim that the affirmative defenses lacked sufficient

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particularity. Fenton Country House, Inc v Auto-Owners Ins Co, 63 Mich App 445, 447; 234 NW2d 559 (1975).1 With respect to the propriety of the circuit court's grant of summary disposition on the basis that plaintiff untimely filed the complaint, this Court reviews de novo a summary disposition ruling. Beaudrie v Henderson, 465 Mich 124, 129; 631 NW2d 308 (2001). Under MCR 2.116(C)(7), summary disposition is proper when a claim is barred by the statute of limitations. In determining whether summary disposition was properly granted under MCR 2.116(C)(7), this Court "consider(s) all documentary evidence submitted by the parties, accepting as true the contents of the complaint unless affidavits or other appropriate documents specifically contradict them." [Waltz, supra, 469 Mich 647-648, quoting Fane v Detroit Library Comm, 465 Mich 68, 74; 631 NW2d 678 (2001).] "Whether a period of limitations applies to preclude a party's pursuit of an action constitutes a question of law that we [also] review de novo." Detroit v 19675 Hasse, 258 Mich App 438, 444; 671 NW2d 150 (2003). In this case, the decedent's medical malpractice claims accrued by September 1, 2000, and thus the two-year period of limitation in MCL 600.5805(6) extended through September 1, 2002. The parties agree that plaintiff gave defendants notice of her intent to sue, as required by MCL 600.2912b, on May 23, 2002, before the two-year medical malpractice period of limitation expired. Pursuant to

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Michigan Law