Opinion ID: 197499
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Full Awareness:

Text: A Subjective Component of the Legal Test In circumstances where a plaintiff has not abandoned a cause of action, but instead was never aware that such a cause of action existed, the statute of limitation would not operate as a bar to the exercise of the plaintiff's legal rights. See Colon Prieto, 15 P.R. Offic. Trans. at 327-328. As the court noted in Colon Prieto, a plaintiff who is not aware of the existence of a cause of action is essentially incapable of bringing suit within the limitation period. Id. at 327. The emphasis on the plaintiff's subjective ability to bring suit is justified, at least in part, by the brevity of the limitation period. Id. at 328. Reasoning from these premises, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico held that, in order for the limitation period to start to run, a plaintiff must be able to institute suit, which requires knowledge of the existence of an injury and knowledge of the person who caused the injury. Knowledge of who caused the injury, the court held, was necessary so that the plaintiff would know whom to sue. Id. at 330 (quoting I A. Barrell y Soler, Derecho Civil Espanol 500, Barcelona, Ed. Bosch (1955)). -9- In setting forth this standard, the court in Colon Prieto stated that it was adopting a subjective standard. Id. at 328. In the law of Puerto Rico, a legal test of this kind is sometimes referred to as grounded in the cognitive theory of damages. See, e.g., Barretto Peat, 896 F.2d at 657 (describing S 5298 of Puerto Rico's Civil Code as codifying the cognitive theory). To understand this component of the applicable legal test, for the purpose of applying it to the case now before us, we must understand what level of awareness is required as to particulars of the injury and its source. Was the source in personal services, or in some other form of conduct of some identifiable person, or in a product used or supplied by some person and obtained through a chain of distribution involving one or more others, including a manufacturer? Under the law of Puerto Rico, the plaintiff's level of awareness about these matters may be relevant in more than a single way, bearing upon more than a single sub-issue. First. What effect is to be given to evidence, if creditworthy, of the effect that post-injury conduct of a person who was a cause of the injury, or post-injury conduct of other persons, had on plaintiff's refraining from or delaying instituting suit? Second. What more would the plaintiff have learned about the injury and authorship of the injury if the plaintiff, having notice in the sense of awareness of some facts, had then made the inquiries that a careful person would have made? -10-