In the Superior Court of Pennsylvania - How Appealing

would have necessarily decided that plaintiffs’ lawsuits were timely filed as a
matter of law, which the Superior Court expressly refused to do.
Rather, in these 14 cases, juries can resolve the discovery rule issue in favor
of either party; all that the Superior Court has done is correctly and unremarkably
hold that defendants are not entitled to have the discovery rule issue presented in
these 14 cases resolved in their favor as a matter of law on summary judgment
based on the records as they now exist in these cases. That fact–bound ruling is in
accordance with this Court’s governing precedents and does not satisfy the criteria
for allowance of appeal.
III. THE PETITION FOR ALLOWANCE OF APPEAL SHOULD BE
DENIED
A. The Superior Court Correctly Applied Well–Established
Pennsylvania Law In Holding That Applicability Of The
“Discovery Rule” To Toll The Running Of The Statute of
Limitations Should Ordinarily Be Determined By A Jury
Because allowance of appeal will be granted only when “special and
important reasons” exist, see Pa. R. App. P. 1114, allowance of appeal is reserved for
cases in which the Superior Court has issued a decision that either has departed
from established law or is in conflict with an earlier ruling of this Court or of the
Commonwealth Court. These 14 consolidated cases, however, do not satisfy any of
the criteria for allowance of appeal.
Wyeth and Upjohn, in their Petition for Allowance of Appeal, incorrectly
assert that the Superior Court has held that the discovery rule will toll the running
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