Opinion ID: 2208224
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Time of Discovery Exception Applies to the Plaintiffs' Claims

Text: Plaintiffs' actions fall into a category of cases where Section 8119 does not operate perfectly. Normally, an injury is sustained when a wrongful act or omission occurs. [9] Situations arise, however, where the moment of the wrongful act and the plaintiff's discovery of the injury do not occur within close proximity of each other. In appropriate circumstances, this Court has applied an exception to the limitations period by interpreting it to run at the time the plaintiff is on notice that he or she has sustained a tortious injury. As we held in Layton v. Allen , Section 8119 is ambiguous because an injury is sustained either at the time the wrongful act is committed or at the time the plaintiff should have discovered the injury. [10] The discovery exception prevents the operation of Section 8119 from presenting the plaintiff with a Hobson's choice. [11] The General Assembly could not reasonably have intended to grant a remedy for a wrong but to bar the remedy before the wrong was physically ascertainable. [12] Thus, in Layton v. Allen this Court established the discovery exception and held that the limitations period did not begin to run when the defendant, a surgeon, left an undetected metallic instrument in the plaintiff. [13] Because the plaintiff did not suffer any complications from the defendant's negligent conduct until seven years later, the injury, for Section 8119 purposes, could not be deemed sustained until the harm manifested itself. [14] Since Layton, this Court and the Superior Court have applied the discovery exception to defer the running of the Section 8119 limitations period in circumstances where the plaintiff has been exposed to a toxic substance, but the nature of the injury involves a latency period where the harmful effects of the toxic exposure are not discoverable for several years. [15] Asbestos claims are the most notable examples. [16] The trial judge here held that the statute of limitations commenced when the children were born, noting that we have held, under different circumstances, that the discovery exception applies only until the identification of the physical condition rather than the cause of that condition. [17] For example, the discovery exception is not available to claimants who suffer injury from an identifiable cause and nevertheless ignore their injuries during the limitations period. [18] But that is not the case before us. The plaintiffs were not cognizant of the fact of having sustained an injury and could not have been expected to bring suit during the time in which they were not on notice that a potential claim existed. [19] The trial judge correctly noted the plaintiffs face a dilemma that this Court did not address directly in the latent injury cases. The latent injury claims involved circumstances where the injurious consequences of the wrongful conduct developed over time. Here, the birth defects appeared almost immediately, but the plaintiffs were not on notice until years later that the defects were the possible consequences of the alleged wrongful conduct. The trial judge decided not to apply the discovery exception beyond the time the children were born because the eye conditions were manifest at birth. [20] The principles developed in Layton and its progeny require us, however, to hold that the limitations period does not begin to run until the plaintiffs were on notice that the injury may be tortiously caused by the defendant's product. [21] To apply the discovery exception, the court must conduct a fact-intensive inquiry to determine whether a plaintiff was blamelessly ignorant of a potential claim or dilatory in pursuing the action. [22] A plaintiff may remain blamelessly ignorant of the potential claim even after a latent injury reveals itself through physical ailments. The limitations period for a toxic tort does not begin immediately upon the onset of physical problems if the symptoms are reasonably attributable to another cause and the plaintiff is not on notice of the tortious cause. [23] This Court's decision in the case of In re Asbestos Litigation, for example, applied the discovery exception to defer the limitations period during the time period in which the plaintiff believed he suffered from asbestosis but his physicians told him that his problems were unrelated to asbestos exposure. [24] In both the Asbestos Litigation and the case before us, the plaintiffs suffered a physical condition that could not be attributed to a tortious injury until someone from the scientific community found and revealed publicly a link between the physical condition and the exposure to the toxic substance. [25] Plaintiffs contend that before 1996, the plaintiffs' injuries were no less hidden than a latent disease or the undiscovered implanted metal instrument discussed in Layton. The birth defects were present when the children were born, but the legal injury was not sustained at that time because the potential tortious cause was not then publicly known in the scientific community. The discovery exception, therefore, starts the limitations period running only when a legal injury is sustained. [26] Thus, the statute of limitations period began to run when plaintiffs were on notice of a potential tort claim.