Williams v. Lee Way Motor Freight, Inc.

The court pronounces today that a two-year statute of limitations, prescribed in 12 O.S. 1981 § 95(3),1 is applicable to the so-called tort of outrage.2 Today’s holding is rested upon a canon of construction known as expressio unius est exclusio alterius,3 or more accurately here, as enumeratio unius est exclusio alterius.4 Invoking this rule the court reasons that because the tort of outrage is not included eo nomine among the delicts enumerated in § 95(4)5 — those which are governed by a one-year time bar — it necessarily falls into the unenumerated class provided in § 95(3). The latter are…