The Discovery Rule
The November 14, 2005, opinion of the Tennessee Court of Appeals (Knoxville) in Janey Fluri, et. al. v. Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center, et. al., provides a discussion of the discovery rule as it applies to the statute of limitations in a medical malpractice case. The Court explains that "the statute of limitations in a medical malpractice case is tolled until the plaintiff “discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, (1) the occasion, the manner, and the means by which a breach of duty occurred that produced his injuries; and (2) the identity of the defendant who breached the duty. Stanbury v. Bacardi, 953 S.W.2d 671, 677 (Tenn. 1997) (quoting Foster v. Harris, 633 S.W.2d 304, 305 (Tenn. 1982)). In other words, the statute of limitations commences “when the plaintiff is ‘aware of the facts sufficient to put a reasonable person on notice that he has suffered an injury as a result of wrongful conduct,’ and the plaintiff knows the identity of the person who engaged in the conduct.” McIntosh v. Blanton, 164 S.W.3d 584, 586 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2004) (quoting Roe v. Jefferson, 875 S.W.2d 653, 656-57 (Tenn. 1994)).
The Court concluded that the trial court erred by dismissing the plaintiff's case on the basis of expiration of the statute of limitations. The issue was held to be a matter for determination by the jury:
"As our Supreme Court has recognized, a summary judgment is not the appropriate vehicle for resolving conflicting inferences reasonably drawn from the facts—rather, its purpose is to resolve controlling issues of law. Matz v. Quest Diagnostics Clinical Labs., Inc., No. E2003-00167-COA-R3-CV, 2003 WL 22409452, at *4 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2003) (citing Bellamy v. Federal Express Corp., 749 S.W.2d 31 (Tenn. 1988)). Whether Plaintiffs had constructive knowledge of Defendants’ allegedly wrongful conduct under these circumstances is an issue of fact, and summary judgment was inappropriately granted because the facts and their reasonable inferences support more than one reasonable conclusion. Seavers v. Methodist Med. Ctr. of Oak Ridge, 9 S.W.3d 86, 91 (Tenn. 1999) (stating that summary judgment is only appropriate when the facts lead to only one reasonable conclusion); Buddy Lee Attractions, Inc. v. William Morris Agency, Inc., 13 S.W.3d 343, 347 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1999) (stating that summary judgment must be overruled “if there is doubt as to whether or not . . . [a] genuine issue remains for trial”)."