Since 1978 - well before lawmakers passed the 2005 tort reform law - Missouri law prohibited people from suing for medical malpractice 10 years or more after the negligence occurred.
It's called a "statute of repose," and lawyers for a woman hurt in a 1999 traffic accident want the Missouri Supreme Court to rule that the law violates a number of state constitutional provisions - including denying Missourians' right to have access to the courts and bring a medical negligence case at any time.
After a September 1999 accident, Shonda Ambers-Phillips underwent surgeries at SSM's DePaul Health Center in St. Louis County.
Because of abdominal pain, she had an exploratory surgery in June 2013 at Mercy Hospital.
Within five months, Ambers-Phillips and her husband, Richard Phillips, sued SSM DePaul Health Center for medical malpractice, including an argument that doctors found and removed four foreign objects from her abdomen that had been left there, accidentally, during one of the post-accident surgeries.
But last May, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Michael T. Jamison dismissed the Phillips' lawsuit "with prejudice" - so it can't be filed again - granting the hospital's argument that the suit was blocked by the state's 10-year statute of repose.
"It seems to me that, for damages, the damage is done - the die is cast - once the foreign object is left in the body," St. Louis attorney Jeremy Gogel told the court Wednesday, arguing for the Phillips' right to sue for malpractice.
"You may not have any adverse consequences - you may not have any symptoms from it - for 13 years, nine years or however many years."
He noted state law gives people two years to file a suit once a doctor tells them about a problem, but that law is limited by the "repose" law.
But Timothy C. Sansone, representing SSM DePaul, said: "Bottom line, the trial court was right. ... There is no real and substantial constitutional claim here."
Gogel said there should be no bar to filing a lawsuit before the injury is discovered.
"To be clear, I'm not arguing fairness. Is it unfair? Sure," Gogel said. "It's the unreasonableness."
Sansone agreed with a question raised by Judge Laura Stith, that the high court would have to overturn a number of previous decisions if it sides with the Phillips' arguments.
He said the statute of repose has been in effect since 1978, and has been applied uniformly throughout the state.
Sansone also said Gogel's "Time Zero" argument is "novel," but "that's not the way it works. There is no concept that the moment those (items) were left in Mrs. Phillips' body, at Time Zero, she's damaged."
And, he said, the Legislature's actions in passing the law 36 years ago were not "arbitrary or unreasonable."
"The Legislature has the ability and, I would argue, the right to set a limit," Sansone said. "We have to have a limit somewhere."
Many states have statutes of repose with shorter limits than Missouri's 10 years, he said, including some with only three years.
"I didn't find one that was longer than 10 years," he said, acknowledging he could have missed one. "The great majority of states are within 10 years."
Sansone said 19 other states with laws similar to Missouri's have upheld theirs.