In the Superior Court of Pennsylvania - How Appealing

to sue had expired, that her surgeon’s negligence may have been to blame for her
injury simply by requesting that other doctor’s records. Moreover, the plaintiff,
during her deposition, had testified that she had first concluded that her injury may
have resulted from her surgeon’s negligence in September 2001, more than two
years before she filed suit. Id. at 167, 964 A.2d at 357.
Despite these facts that were seemingly unfavorable to the plaintiff’s
invocation of the discovery rule — including plaintiff’s own deposition testimony
that she realized her doctor was negligent more than two years before filing suit —
this Court in Wilson nevertheless held that plaintiff’s invocation of the discovery
rule presented a jury question. Id. at 181 & n.12, 964 A.2d at 365–66 & n.12.
Defendants’ out–of–context quote from Wilson for the proposition that Pennsylvania
applies the discovery rule more strictly than many other States in fact represents
nothing more than this Court’s recognition that in many other States the statute of
limitations issue in Wilson would have been resolved as a matter of law in favor of
the plaintiff, whereas in Pennsylvania it presented a jury question capable of being
resolved in favor of either party. Id. at 181 n.12, 964 A.2d at 366 n.12.
In Wilson, as in Fine, it was ascertainable as a matter of accepted scientific
knowledge that the injuries that the plaintiffs sustained could have resulted from
their surgeons’ negligence. In this appeal, by contrast, plaintiffs could not present
sufficient scientific evidence that defendants’ combination hormone replacement
therapy caused their breast cancers until July 9, 2002, fewer than two years before
they filed suit. Thus here, unlike in Wilson and Fine, there was no “channel” in
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