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4 Wake Forest Intramural L. Rev. 224 (1968)
The Statute of Limitations: The Discovery Rule

handle is hein.journals/wflr4 and id is 230 raw text is: THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS: THE DISCOVERY RULE Perhaps no segment of the law has been applied more dogmatically, with less thought, than the statute of limi- tations. Statutes of limitations are inflexible and unyielding. They operate inexorably without reference to the merits of the plaintiff's cause of action. They are statutes of repose, intended to require that litigation be initiated within the prescribed time or not at all,1 so said the North Carolina Supreme Court in the case of Shearin v. Lloyd.2 It is submitted that there are occasions when the merits of a plaintiffis cause of action are so over- whelming that a dogmatic application of the statute of limitations may yield a shocking and unjust result. The statutes of limitations in most of the jurisdictions of the United States are worded to the effect that the eriod of time begins to run when the cause of action accrues. In determining when the cause of action accrues so that the statute of limitations begins to run against an action for negligence, the general rule, and the North Carolina rule, is that '. . the statute of limitations begins to run from the breach, from the wrongful act or omission complained of, with- out regard for the time when the harmful consequences were discovered.' . . t14 That repose, evidenced by the statute of limitations. is desirable is not generally refutable, for among reason- able men the thought is that a plaintiff who has a cause _ 1 Shearin v. Lloyd, 246 N.C. 363, 3'0, 98 S.E.2d 508, 514 (19<. 2, 246 N.C. 363, 98 S.E.2d 508 (1957). 3. e.g., N.C. GEN. STAT. § 1-15 (1953). Civil actions can only be commenced within the periods prescribed in this chapter, after the cause of action has accrued, except where in special cases a different limitation is prescribed by statute . . . . N.C. GEN. STAT. § 1-15 (1953). 4. Shearin v. Lloyd, 246 N.C. 363, 368, 98 S.E.2d 508, 512 (1957).

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