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The discovery rule allows the statute of limitations to begin when the plaintiff becomes aware of the violation, rather than at the time of the tort. Due diligence is required, and the rule does not apply to mass media defamation cases, although this has been challenged with the rise of the internet.
The discovery rule is a common law doctrine that often applies to cases where a statute of limitations is involved. A statute of limitations is a specified period of time in which a cause is considered reasonable; once this period has passed, a party wishing to sue may have no legal recourse. The rule of discovery suggests that the statute of limitations runs, not at the time of the tort, but rather from the time the plaintiff becomes aware of the violation. The discovery rule is unevenly applied and may be dismissed by judges who disagree with the statement.
This rule is important because unlawful acts do not always have immediately known or foreseeable consequences. If a worker is unknowingly exposed to harmful chemicals, leading him to develop a serious medical illness ten years later, the rule of discovery suggests that the statute of limitations to sue a negligent employer would begin when the illness was detected for the first time, not at the time of unaware exposure. Medical cases like this one often use this rule to request an adjustment of statute of limitations on matters such as malpractice or employer negligence.
Critical to the success of invoking the discovery rule is due diligence by the injured party. If, in the example above, the worker had constant symptoms throughout the ten-year period, but did not receive medical attention until the ten-year mark, a judge could rule that the worker failed to show due diligence. This is one of the aspects that makes the application of the investigation rule somewhat subjective, as it is up to the individual judge to decide what the injured party could or should have known.
Traditionally, the discovery rule does not apply to mass media defamation cases. This means that if a person insults someone in a published book, the statute of limitations for a libel case generally applies, even if the injured party has no knowledge of the book for many years. The justification for this is that the book was publicly available and at any time open to discovery. In recent years, this exclusion has been challenged by the massive use of the Internet. Critics of the mass media ban suggest that, while public, defamation on a personal blog or website can be nearly impossible to find unless a plaintiff knows exactly the right search terms to use.
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