Court Opinion

ID: 9748043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:49:53.794754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:30.932483
License: Public Domain

WICKERSHAM, Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the major portion of the majority opinion. I write separately, however, to express my concern with the majority’s treatment of the “discovery rule” and its application to the statute of limitations. The majority finds that the three-part test as expressed in Volpe v. Johns-Manville Corp.,1 4 Phila.County Rptr. 290, and as approved in Staiano v. Johns-Manville Corp., 304 Pa.Super. 280, 450 A.2d 681 (1982) “unnecessarily complicates the question of when the statute begins to run.” The majority then constructs a “simpler” two-part test.
While this two-step formulation is not incorrect, I feel that it does not clearly recognize that in “creeping disease” cases, as opposed to normal personal injury cases, there may be significant gaps in time intervening between the plaintiff’s awareness of his injury, his knowledge of the cause of the injury, and the relationship between the cause and the injury. The three-part “Volpe” test clarifies the different levels of “knowledge” the plaintiff must attain before the statute of limitations begins to run against him.
*156The three-part “Volpe test” is not too complicated; rather, it more clearly identifies the point in time when the statute of limitations begins to run against the plaintiff.
SPAETH and HOFFMAN, JJ., join.

. We note that Volpe is currently before an en banc panel of this court to consider whether plaintiffs cause of action is controlled by admiralty law.