For many years, under Alabama law, people who developed diseases caused by exposure to toxic substances have not been able to recover for their injuries unless they became sick within two years of their last exposure to the toxin. This law has been considered by many to be unfair, because many diseases caused by exposure to toxins are latent diseases-diseases that won’t show up until many years after the exposure. Just a year ago, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld this “date of last exposure” rule, finding that it was too late for a man, newly diagnosed with leukemia, to sue the companies that exposed him to benzene six years earlier. In a complete turnaround, the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled in Griffin v. Unocal Corp. that the statute of limitations does not begin to run until a disease has developed and can be diagnosed. This means that injured workers in Alabama, like most workers around the country, will have a chance to file a lawsuit after they get sick, no matter how long it has been since they were exposed to the toxic substances that eventually made them sick.
The ruling only applies to future cases, however. And even for people who get sick in the future, they may have to show that they were exposed to the toxic substance not more than two years before the decision–the length of Alabama’s statute of limitations. For asbestos cases, the Alabama legislature adopted a discovery rule many years ago, but the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that it could be applied only to cases in which the last exposure to asbestos was after May 19, 1980.
For the more information, go to http://www.al.com
