Court Opinion

ID: 994241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2013-07-04 00:20:12.434203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:21:57.041349
License: Public Domain

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

MILDRED A. MILLER-JACKSON; ANN
HOLCOMB; BRENDA SMITH,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

THE MEAD CORPORATION; MOORE
U.S.A., a Delaware Corporation,
                                                               No. 97-1891
Defendants-Appellees,

and

APPELTON PAPERS INCORPORATED, a
Delaware Corporation; HOWARD
PRESS, INCORPORATED,
Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
J. Frederick Motz, Chief District Judge.
(CA-94-2032-JFM, CA-94-2047-JFM, CA-94-2048-JFM)

Submitted: February 10, 1998

Decided: February 27, 1998

Before NIEMEYER and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges, and
BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.

_________________________________________________________________

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

_________________________________________________________________

COUNSEL

Albert C. Flanders, Michael R. Hugo, Samuel M. Pollack, LAW
OFFICES OF HUGO & POLLACK, Boston, Massachusetts; Michael
Pretl, ASHCRAFT & GEREL, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellants.
John B. Isbister, Scott Patrick Burns, TYDINGS & ROSENBERG,
L.L.P., Baltimore, Maryland; Joseph D. Rasnek, Michelle S.
Hydrusko, CARPENTER, BENNETT & MORRISSEY, Newark,
New Jersey, for Appellees.

_________________________________________________________________

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).

_________________________________________________________________

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Mildred Miller-Jackson, Ann Holcomb, and Brenda Smith (the
Appellants), appeal the dismissal of their claims against several paper
manufacturers for damages allegedly resulting from their occupa-
tional exposure to the manufacturers' carbonless copy paper (CCP)
over a period of several years. The Appellants claim that CCP caused
them to become multiple chemical sensitive (MCS), and they seek
recovery under theories of negligence, breach of warranty, and strict
liability. The district court held that the Appellants' claims against the
manufacturers were barred by Virginia's two-year statute of limita-
tions on actions for personal injuries. Finding no error in the ruling
by the district court, we affirm.

The Appellants are Virginia residents who began working with
CCP in the 1980's while employed by the former Chesapeake &
Potomac Telephone Company (C&P), now Bell Atlantic. After a few
years of working with CCP, the Appellants experienced frequent
sinus problems, fatigue, and other health complaints. After consulting
numerous health care professionals, the Appellants were finally diag-
nosed with MCS in early 1992. The Appellants filed suit in Virginia
state court in July 1993; however, their claims were"nonsuited" or
voluntarily dismissed without prejudice in 1994, shortly before this
action was filed in federal court. The only issue on appeal is whether
the Appellants' claims accrued when they were diagnosed with MCS,

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within the limitations period to file suit, or when they manifested their
various health problems which, according to the medical evidence in
the record, occurred more than two years before the Appellants filed
suit.

The Virginia statute of limitations for personal injuries provides, in
pertinent part, that "every action for personal injuries, whatever the
theory of recovery, . . . shall be brought within two years after the
cause of action accrues."1 Moreover, a cause of action accrues on the
date an injury actually is sustained,2 and Virginia construes "injury"
to mean "a positive, physical or mental hurt."3 Therefore, a cause of
action can accrue before all the damage resulting from a disease man-
ifests itself, because it is the onset of the disease itself that triggers
the running of the limitation period.4

While the Appellants attempt to characterize MCS as separate and
distinct from their other various health complaints, rather than a pro-
gressive stage of their exposure to CCP, their argument is without
merit. Virginia adheres to the theory that in an action for personal
injury, there is only a single indivisible cause of action;5 therefore, the
Appellants' cause of action against the paper manufacturers accrued
when they first developed their various health complaints, however
slight, as a consequence of their exposure to CCP. 6 Accordingly, the
Appellants' complaint seeking damages from the paper manufacturers
was not timely filed and was properly dismissed by the district court.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal conten-
tions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED
_________________________________________________________________

1 See VA. CODE ANN. § 8.01-243(A) (Michie 1992).

2 See VA. CODE ANN. § 8.01-230 (Michie1992).

3 See Nunnally v. Artis, 492 S.E.2d 126, 128 (Va. 1997) (quoting Locke
v. Johns-Manville Corp., 275 S.E.2d 900, 904 (Va. 1981)).

4 See Locke, 275 S.E.2d at 905.

5 See Mahony v. Becker, 435 S.E.2d 139, 140-41 (Va. 1993).

6 See Locke, 275 S.E.2d at 904-05.

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