How the Discovery Rule Affects the Statute of Limitations

In New Jersey, construction defect claims are subject to a six-year statute of limitations, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-1, which is subject to the discovery rule, and a separate ten-year statute of absolute repose, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-1.1, after which potential causes of action no longer exist.

Under New Jersey’s discovery rule, the accrual of a cause of action is deferred until the injured person knows or should know that he has sustained an injury and knows or should know that an injury of which he is aware is attributable to the fault of another person. The discovery rule is an equitable principle by which an accrual of a cause of action is delayed until the injured party discovers, or by the exercise of reasonable diligence and intelligence, should have discovered, that he may have a basis for an actionable claim. Once the injured party knows that it has been injured and that the injury is the fault of another, it has the requisite knowledge for the period of limitations to commence running.

Put simply, for a cause of action to accrue, the injured plaintiff must have knowledge of both injury and fault. Lynch v. Rubacky, 85 N.J. 65, 70 (1981) (“the discovery rule centers upon an injured party’s knowledge concerning the origin and existence of his injuries as related to the conduct of another person”). This rule applies to complex construction defect cases involving hidden construction and design defects.

Among the relevant factors in analyzing whether the discovery rule applies are the nature of the injury and the difficulties inherent in discovering it. Vispisiano v. Ashland Chem. Co., 107 N.J. 416, 428 (1987). For example, in a toxic tort case, such as that presented in Vispisiano, diagnosing a plaintiff’s injury is but the first step in establishing a chain of causation. Id. at 429. The plaintiff’s suspicion that he had been poisoned, after comparing his symptoms to those of a co-worker, was not sufficient to accrue a cause of action, particularly in the face of his doctors’ repeatedly rejecting plaintiff’s concerns that he had been poisoned while working at a chemical plant. Id. at 436.

Applying the foregoing to the condominium construction defect setting gives rise to the argument that a plaintiff association’s cause of action accrues when it receives an engineer’s report (either during transition or afterwards) that first apprises the association of the defects afflicting its buildings and the suspected causes of those defects. However, it may be the case that the requisite knowledge is obtained at an earlier date when unit owner board members learn of defects.