Opinion ID: 852412
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Triggering an Occurrence-Based Limitations Period

Text: Malpractice claims may be asserted in a variety of contexts. Some claims are for failure to diagnose an unknown progressive condition such as the breast cancer in Martin. Others are for failure to arrest or cure a known progressive condition such as the degenerative eye condition in Booth. Yet others are for injuries created by the substandard treatment. An extreme example is surgery on the wrong limb. Similarly, the circumstances alerting the patient to the injury or to the potential of malpractice vary widely. A patient can learn the fact of disease or injury either from personal knowledge of pain or symptoms or from a professional examination. In each of these contexts, where the constitutionality of the occurrence-based limitations period as applied to a given case is in issue, the ultimate question becomes the time at which a patient either (1) knows of the malpractice and resulting injury or (2) learns of facts that, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, should lead to the discovery of the malpractice and the resulting injury. Id. at 1172. Although we have sometimes referred to the critical date as the discovery date, we think a more accurate term is trigger date, because actual or constructive discovery of the malpractice often postdates the time when these facts are known. Moreover, the trigger date, unlike a typical discovery date applicable to an accrual of a claim, in most circumstances does not start a fixed limitations period. Rather, it is the date on which a fixed deadline becomes activated.