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Discovery Rule
What is the Discovery Rule?
Until the victim reasonably should have known that he or she was injured, the discovery rule in California tolls or delays the statute of limitations for personal injury cases. Consequently, victims have a longer period of time to file their claims. Thus, it avoids situations in which victims were unaware of their injuries until it was too late.
Statute Of Limitations For Personal Injury Claims
A personal injury case in California has a two-year statute of limitations as a general rule. In other words, the victim has two years after the date of injury to file a lawsuit. The defendant is likely to raise the statute as an affirmative defense against victims who file their claim after the statute has expired. The two-year deadline applies to all personal injury claims based on negligence; car accidents, dog bites, wrongful death claims, and other tort cases.
There are certain types of personal injury lawsuits, called torts, which have longer or shorter time limitations. The statute of limitations for defamation is one year in California. The statute of limitations for property damage caused by trespassing is three years in California.
The discovery rule is used in other statutes of limitations. In California, a medical malpractice case has to be filed before the end of the first year following the discovery of an injury, or within 3 years of the date that the injury occurred, whichever is earlier.
Discovery Rule
Until the victim could reasonably have discovered their injuries, the statute of limitations is tolled, or delayed. The delayed discovery rule is also known as the delayed onset rule. A victim's claim for injury begins to run once they discover their injury, or as soon as they should have discovered it.
According to California law, for the discovery rule to apply, the plaintiff must establish one of the following: he or she did not discover or know of any facts which would have led a reasonable person to suspect that they suffered harm from another's wrongful act, or he or she did not discover, and an investigation of reasonable diligence would not have revealed, that the specific factual basis for the lawsuit contributed to that harm.
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When victims suspect they have been injured by someone else, they "discover" their injuries. When they have a reasonable suspicion of having a case, they should have discovered their injury. The question is whether they are aware of their injury. The California Court of Appeals held that, even if a member of the public suspects a victim was injured, this does not prevent the discovery rule from tolling the statute of limitations.
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A court will delay the statute of limitations if either of these elements can be proved by the plaintiff. As a result, the injury is calculated from when the victim became aware he or she was injured and the negligence that caused the injury. The cause of action accrues when the victim conducts a reasonable investigation into the circumstances of the injury.
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It is important to note that both discovery rule factors concern the date the victim discovered their injury. Regardless of whether the plaintiff knows who caused the injury, the statute of limitations begins to run when the injury is discovered. Additionally, the statute begins to run once the victim discovers persistent or lingering physical injuries.
Litigations for physical injuries are not excluded from the discovery rule. The rule may also apply to breach of contract suits. In cases where a breach of a written contract is concealed and won't result in financial losses for some time, this can help victims.
The Establishment of the Rule
Those whose injuries they did not discover until several years after they had been hurt would not be able to recover. This would be because the statute of limitations has passed. The case would be dismissed immediately because it is past the deadline. Those who are responsible for the injuries won't be held liable solely because their injuries were hidden for long enough.
The Purpose of Statute of Limitations
The statutes of limitations serve several purposes, among them forcing victims to bring their claims sooner, giving potential defendants peace of mind once the statute has expired, and ensuring that evidence in the case is easy to locate and will not be destroyed or lost, or bringing the claim to court before witnesses forget what happened, move, or die.
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In the absence of statutes of limitations, alleged victims could file lawsuits decades after the incident occurred. There would be no memory of the incident. There would be no key witness to recall. Documents essential to the investigation would be lost or destroyed.
Tolling the Statute
Most frequently, litigation attorneys use the discovery rule in order to convince California courts to delay the start of the limitations period. The statute of limitations does not have to run, but tolling it is an option. The amount of time that it takes to file a lawsuit can also be delayed when the plaintiff is a minor at the time of the incident; a claim for compensation against a criminal defendant for a serious felony offense; and a lawsuit from a child sex abuse victim. A case that would otherwise be dismissed by the superior court can be saved by one of these methods.