Court Opinion

ID: 9714554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:40:24.753481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:27.072284
License: Public Domain

SAYLOR, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I join the majority in holding that the four-year statute of limitations should govern claims predicated on the theory of promissory estoppel. However, I agree with the Superior Court that Appellants’ claim is barred, as the record establishes that Appellants knew or had reason to know of the asserted breach more than four years prior to the commencement of this action.1
Chief Justice FLAHERTY and Justice CASTILLE join this concurring and dissenting opinion.

. I also question whether the discovery rule should apply to a claim based upon promissory estoppel. Although the discovery rule, which evolved in the tort context, has been applied by Pennsylvania courts in some discrete categories of cases involving contractual or quasi-contractual claims, see, e.g., Amodeo v. Ryan Homes, Inc., 407 Pa.Super. *408448, 453-54, 595 A.2d 1232, 1235 (stating that "the discovery rule does apply to cases involving defective construction”), its use has not been adopted on a wholesale basis in this area, and, notably, other jurisdictions are divided as to its applicability. Compare Morris v. Fauver, 153 N.J. 80, 707 A.2d 958, 972 (1998)("the rationale for employing the discovery rule in tort- or fraud-type actions ... does not carry over to most contract actions, and therefore, the discovery rule has not been applied in such suits”); CLL Assoc. Ltd. v. Arrowhead Pacific Corp., 174 Wis.2d 604, 497 N.W.2d 115, 117 (1993)("[i]n the context of general contract law, public policy favors the current rule that the contract statute of limitations begins to run at the time of breach”), with Heron Financial Corp. v. United States Testing Co., 926 S.W.2d 329, 332 (Tex.App.1996)("a discovery rule analysis applies to both tort and contract actions alike”).