Nixon v. State9/30/2005
fixed period of the statute of limitations. To such litigants, and none others, the Legislature granted relief. To litigants generally no extension of time was mentioned or intended.
Id. Thus, it is abundantly clear our legislature understood the general rule was that a cause of action accrued under a statute of limitations when the injury occurred. Absent a defendant's fraudulent concealment of a cause of action from a plaintiff, this court rejected the argument that a cause of action should not accrue until the plaintiff discovered the injury, see Ogg, 181 Iowa at 150-51, 162 N.W. at 220-21, and our legislature modified this approach by adopting only three limited exceptions, see Iowa Code § 11010 (1935). The state of the law then remained constant well into the twentieth century.
While this state seemed content with the law governing the accrual of a cause of action well into the twentieth century, the law in other states began to apply the "discovery rule" to the general statute of limitations. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 899, cmt. e, at 445. Under the discovery rule, actions were deemed not to accrue until the plaintiff discovered the injury or should have discovered it in the exercise of reasonable diligence. Id.; see, e.g., Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 169-70, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 1024-25, 93 L.Ed. 1282, 1292 (1949); Ricciuti v. Voltarc Tubes, Inc., 277 F.2d 809, 812-13 (2d Cir. 1960); Polzin v. Nat'l Co-op. Refinery Ass'n, 266 P.2d 293, 297 (Kan. 1954); Johnson v. Caldwell, 123 N.W.2d 785, 791 (Mich. 1963); Dryden v. Omaha Steel Works, 26 N.W.2d 293, 295 (Neb. 1947); Rothman v. Silber, 199 A.2d 86, 92 (N.J. Super. 1964); Foley v. Pittsburgh-Des Moines Co., 68 A.2d 517, 535 (Pa. 1949); Ginkowski v. Ginkowski, 137 N.W.2d 403, 406 (Wis. 1965). However, the first mention of this movement to broadly apply the discovery rule to tort actions did not surface in Iowa until our decision in Chrischilles v. Griswold, 260 Iowa 453, 150 N.W.2d 94 (1967), in 1967.
In Chrischilles, we reiterated that our longstanding approach to the accrual of a cause of action did not recognize ignorance of a right of action to "prevent the running of the statute of limitations." Chrischilles, 260 Iowa at 461, 150 N.W.2d at 100 (citing Campbell v. Long, 20 Iowa 382, 387 (1866); Garrett v. Olford, 152 Iowa 265, 269, 132 N.W. 379, 381 (1911)). However, we observed a trend in other states around the nation to adopt the discovery rule in a broad number of cases, including actions for malpractice. Id. at 462, 150 N.W.2d at 100 (citations omitted). This trend convinced us to adopt the discovery rule in actions based on negligence. See id. at 463, 150 N.W.2d at 100 ("We now believe the better rule to be that a cause of action based on negligence does not accrue until plaintiff has in fact discovered that he has suffered injury or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered it and are persuaded the rationale of the discovery doctrine should be adopted."). Thus, outside the venerable statutory exceptions and the fraudulent concealment of a cause of action, this was the first time we considered the accrual of a tort action in relationship to the discovery of the injury.
Today, of course, we are committed to the principle that a statute of limitations in civil cases begins to run when the plaintiff acquires actual or constructive knowledge of the injury. Rieff v. Evans, 630 N.W.2d 278, 291 (Iowa 2001) (citing State v. Wilson, 573 N.W.2d 248, 253 (Iowa 1998)). In other words, today, a claim does not accrue until the plaintiff has actual or constructive knowledge of the injury. Id. (citing Woodroffe v. Hasenclever, 540 N.W.2d 45, 47 (Iowa 1995)). Clearly, the word "accrue" has taken on a
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