Case Name: CLARENCE BURD, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, v. NEW JERSEY TELEPHONE COMPANY, A NEW JERSEY CORPORATION AND CONTINENTAL OIL COMPANY, A CORPORATION DOING BUSINESS IN NEW JERSEY, DEFENDANTS-RESPONDENTS
Court: Supreme Court of New Jersey
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1978-05-23
Citations: 76 N.J. 284
Docket Number: 
Parties: CLARENCE BURD, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, v. NEW JERSEY TELEPHONE COMPANY, A NEW JERSEY CORPORATION AND CONTINENTAL OIL COMPANY, A CORPORATION DOING BUSINESS IN NEW JERSEY, DEFENDANTS-RESPONDENTS.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Reports
Volume: 76
Pages: 284–304

Head Matter:
CLARENCE BURD, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, v. NEW JERSEY TELEPHONE COMPANY, A NEW JERSEY CORPORATION AND CONTINENTAL OIL COMPANY, A CORPORATION DOING BUSINESS IN NEW JERSEY, DEFENDANTS-RESPONDENTS.
Argued February 21 and 22, 1978
Decided May 23, 1978.
Mr. John E. Patton argued the cause for appellant (Messrs. Gaccione and Pomaco, attorneys).
Mr. William P. Bies argued the cause for respondent New Jersey Telephone Company (Messrs. Purcell, Bies & Shannon, attorneys).
Mr. Arthur O. D’Alessamdro argued the cause for respondent Continental Oil Company.
The alternative basis of the defense has since been the subject of adjudication in Fox v. Passaic General Hospital, 71 N. J. 122 (1976). It plays no part in the determination of this appeal.

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Conford, P. J. A. D.
(temporarily assigned). This appeal calls for further particularization of the rationale of the discovery rule in personal injury litigation as laid down in Lopez v. Swyer, 62 N. J. 267 (1973). The essence of the rule was there stated: " in an appropriate case a cause of action will be held not to accrue until the injured party discovers, or by an exercise of reasonable diligence and intelligence should have discovered that he may have a basis for an actionable claim." Id. at 272.
In this case plaintiff sustained a heart attack while gluing together lengths otf pipe and laying them in an open trench. Plaintiff's contention is that the glue contained a gaseous substance', THE, which, under the particular circumstances in which he was working, was a causative factor in bringing about the heart attack. This tort action, following a workers' compensation proceeding against plaintiff's employer, was brought against the defendant telephone company, with which plaintiff's employer had contracted for laying the pipe, and defendant Continental Can Company, whose subsidiary produced the glue in question. After the trial court denied a motion for dismissal based upon the statute of limitations, a trial jury found for the plaintiff against both defendants in the sum of $100,000 damages. A motion for a new trial was denied, and defendants appealed to the Appellate Division.
The issue of limitations was based on defendants' contentions (a) that the cause of action accrued when the heart attack occurred, September 7, 1971, whereas the action was not instituted until May 16, 1974, more than two years later; (b) in the alternative, assuming the validity of plaintiffs contention that he neither was nor should have been aware of the relationship of the glue being used in the trench to the heart attack until October 7, 1972, when his counsel received a medical report indicating the likelihood of such a link, nevertheless plaintiff had a reasonable opportunity to institute action prior to expiration of the normal two-year period after the injury. Therefore the action was barred on limitation grounds on one or the other of these postulates. N. J. S. A. 2A:14r-2.
The Appellate Division held plaintiff barred by limitations on the ground that, conceding plaintiff did not know of the connection between the presence of the glue and the heart attack, under all the circumstances plaintiff "should have known that he fmay have a basis for an actionable claim' " [quoting Lopez] on the date of the heart attack. 149 N. J. Super, at 34. We granted certification. 75 N. J. 21 (1977).
We concur in the result arrived at by the Appellate Division, but partly on the basis of express findings of fact made by the trial judge which we regard as adequately supported by the evidence but as inconsistent with the ultimate determination of the judge against the bar of limitations. Our conclusions require some rehearsal of the pertinent evidence. Some of the facts relevant to the discovery problem were recited in the Appellate Division opinion:
Plaintiff had been on this job for approximately one week at the time of his heart attack. He worked on a trench which was 5' deep and 18" wide. His job was to glue together the ends of pieces of plastic pipe, using the pipe and the glue supplied by New Jersey Telephone Company. He may also have done some shovelling and levelling.
The pipes were made of light plastic material and were 4" ' in diameter. Each section was 20' long and about 220' of pipe would be laid in an average day. The pipes were laid two across and eight high. Thus, plaintiff would glue approximately 176 pipe connections daily. No ventilating equipment was provided for use in the trench.
The temperature was in the 80s on the day of plaintiff's heart attack and he was working in a direct sunlight, causing him to sweat profusely. Burd returned from his lunch break at about 12:30 P. M. but stopped working at 12:45 due to dizziness and pains in his upper torso. At 3:45 P.M. he was admitted to the hospital. The ultimate diagnosis was acute myocardial infarction with congestive heart failure.
He had worked two prior jobs using the same solvent cement and had been using it for two days on this job prior to his heart attack. He would begin to feel dizzy about 1% hours after commencing work with the glue. The dizziness would subside about one hour after he finished work.
In response to a hypothetical question Dr. Kaplan concluded that plaintiff's exposure to an excessive concentration of THP was a substantial contributing factor to his heart attack. He conceded that his opinion was premised upon the assumptions that the concentration of THP was excessive and that plaintiff's blood pressure and hemoglobin count had fallen as a result of his exposure to it.
It was stipulated that plaintiff first consulted an attorney shortly before the worker's compensation case was filed in May 1972. He was examined by Dr. Kaplan on August 21, 1972 for worker's compensation purposes. Plaintiff testified that he first learned of a possible link between the glue and his heart attack during a conversation which took place in October 1972 with his attorney in the compensation case. He further testified that he was not aware that the lightheadedness he had experienced on the job was caused by the glue.
It is significant that plaintiff had the can of glue in his possession from five days prior to his heart attack until he turned it over to his present counsel in May 1974. The can contained a warning "Caution: Avoid inhaling fumes and plaintiff eoncededly read this legend before he used it in the trench. In fact, plaintiff testified that if it had said "Danger," "toxic," or "adequate ventilation required" he would not have used it in the trench. While he was using the glue in the days just prior to his heart attack he felt dizzy, lightheaded, angry and mean. These symptoms cleared up within an hour or so after leaving his work.
149 N. J. Super, at 24, 25, 27, 28, 34.
In addition to the foregoing, we take notice of plaintiff's admission, upon confrontation during cross-examination with prior testimony on depositions: "£ think back on the first day that yon were on the Chester job gluing pipe on that particular day, did you experience dizziness or lightheadedness while you were using the glue', and you responded yes, meaning you did experience light headedness from using the glue." A. "I did." Moreover, when examined by Dr. Kaplan for the workers' compensation ease, plaintiff told him, "I became dizzy and lightheaded while I was using the glue, gluing the pipe and putting the pipe together."
In arriving at his determination in favor of plaintiff on the limitations question, the trial judge said, pertinently:
I believe he [plaintiff] knew in his appraisal of his work employment that this material played some part in whatever occurred to him but that' does not necessarily mean that he knew he had a cause of action in that complex field of product liability that indeed he would instruct his barrister to go forth immediately.
He was not his own solicitor.
In this particular situation it is apparent that Mr. Domareki [plaintiff's compensation lawyer] as far as the product liability type situation amounted as a conduit of advice to Mr. Burd and that he was like a solicitor, he would see that the matter did get to the proper man to bring it before the court in a proper case.
We will go back to what Mr. Burd knew or should, have known. Would he know in the complex and ever-evolving field of products liability that he had a cause of action against a company in Oklahoma that had a branch in Connecticut? Would he know that? Would he know from the label that all he was supposed to do was to avoid inhaling? Did he know about the studies in Germany that occurred as far as the dogs were being affected and their cardiovascular system? Did he know all about this congress of hygienist adopting the standard of so many parts per million? Had he ever heard of the term of ppm?
All of these things we approach I think from a realistic standpoint of standing at the edge of a jungle of possible legal rights, which one does he know or should have known? Which court should he, go into? How should he go into it? How should he go about it? He hired a lawyer, Domareki, in the processing of the workmen's compensation case, and in the middle of the workmen's compensation case he finds that he may have a cause of action against the manufacturer of glue. Fine, Mr. Domareki, I rely upon you, Mr. Domareki.
He said Mr. Burd was relying upon me. I called the shots up until Patton [plaintiff's lawyer in the present action] came into the pie ture, and from that time forward Patton and I called the shots. They both admitted quite candidly.
Was he slumbering on his rights? He knew he had some rights but how they would come about and how they would be brought into play would be up to the lawyer upon which he relied.
Mr. Domareki said his expertise does not reveal the "products liability in the field of products liability. He indicated he discussed this matter with Mr. Patton and turned it over to him who has some acquaintance with the field of products liability, (emphasis added)
We find the trial judge to have been in error in concluding that regardless of when a claimant knows or reasonably should know the facts of the relationship of his injury to a particular source or cause, the applicable limitations period does not begin running until .he learns from a..lawyer that those facts equate with a legal cause of action against the producer or originator of the injurious source or cause. .It was .not our intent, in the language from Lopez quoted at the head of this. opinion, to hold that a claimant's time- to sue, for limitations purposes, does not begin, to run until he knows or is -advised. by a lawyer that facts of which he does, or should, reasonably have knowledge, give -rise to a legal cause of action against a particular defendant. The statute of limitations necessarily imputes conclusively to a claimant knowledge that the law affords or may afford a cause of action on the basis of those facts of injury and causal relationship which in law do evoke a cause of action. In this regard it' is of no consequence whether the cause of action arises in the field of products liability or any other aspect of tort law, or as to the degree of expertise which different lawyers possess in one such field or another. The discovery principle modifies the conventional limitations- rule only to the extent of postponing the commencement of accrual of the "cause of action until plaintiff learns, or reasonably should learn; the existence of that state of facts' which may equate in law with a cause of action. .There is no suggestion in any of the leading cases in this area that accrual of the cause of' action is postponed until plaintiff learns or should learn the state of the law positing a right of recovery upon the facts already known to or reasonably knowable by the plaintiff. See Lopez v. Swyer, supra; Fox v. Passaic General Hospital, supra; Yerzy v. Levine, 57 N. J. 234 (1970); Fernandi v. Strully, 35 N. J. 434 (1961).
When the reported decisions speak in terms of the "discovery of the existence of the cause of action," e.g., Fox v. Passaic General Hospital, supra, 71 N. J. at 124, the intended meaning is precisely what we have just articulated. That meaning was adumbrated by the formulation employed in both the Yerzy and Lopez cases, supra, i.e., the cause of action accrues when "the injured party discovers that he may have a basis for an actionable claim." (emphasis added) 62 N. J. at 272. The basis mentioned, is, of course, constituted solely by the material facts of the case.
The legal misapprehension of the trial judge in the respects noted being thus established, we pass to his findings of fact in relation to the time of plaintiff's actual or imputable knowledge of the pertinent fact — the causal relation between plaintiff's exposure to the glue in the trench and the happening of the heart attack. The oral finding of the judge in this regard is by plain inference one that plaintiff possessed the critical knowledge at or about the time, of the heart incident. "I believe he knew in his appraisal of his work employment that this material played some part in whatever occurred to him But that fact was regarded as not significant because, as stated in the remainder of the oral expression, plaintiff did not know he had a cause of action in the "complex field of product liability." The error inherent in the latter observation, as explained above, leaves plaintiff vulnerable to the preceding adverse finding of fact by the judge if that finding is fairly supportable on the record. We conclude that it is.
The regular incidence of lightheadedness and dizziness while using the glue, and the disappearance of the symptoms shortly after cessation of plaintiff's exposure thereto, together with the permissible inference from the proofs that plaintiff realized the connection between the glue and the symptoms (although at trial he denied such knowledge), furnishes a substantial credible basis for an inference of knowledge by plaintiff at least shortly after the heart attack that the exposure to the fumes of the glue in the warm trench was in some way related to that attack. Notwithstanding that the judge might have found otherwise on the evidence, his finding that plaintiff knew that the "material played some part" in the attack cannot be faulted. And even if the language used by the judge could be argued to fall short of an express finding of actual knowledge by plaintiff of the causal connection, it would nevertheless at the very least constitute an adequate basis for a conclusion that plaintiff "by an exercise of reasonable diligence and intelligence" should have discovered the factual basis for whatever legal liability of the defendants underlay the judgment entered against them by the court. Lopez v. Swyer, supra, 62 N. J. at 272. The proofs need not evoke a finding that plaintiff knew for a certainty that the factual basis was present. It is enough that plaintiff had or should have discovered that he "may have" a basis for the claim. Iiid.
Since the critical time of the actual or constructive knowledge of the basis for the action possessed by or imputable to plaintiff, under the fact finding of the trial judge, must have been well before May 16, 1972 • — • a date two years prior to the institution of the action •— plaintiff's cause of action is barred by the statute of limitations.
Judgment affirmed.