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Work Place Injury/Personal Injury Statue of Limitations

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curtismac

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California

Back on April 17, 2009, I was filling a customer's propane tank when the gas from a leaking exhaust hose on our equipment ignited and exploded (yes, explosion). I went to the hospital immediately and was diagnosed with superficial facial and hand flash burns, singed external and nasal hair and slight redness to the back of my throat. I returned to work and worked the last half hour of the day.

The next week I was sick for a couple of days with what my doctor called slight pulmonary edema that "could" have been caused by the fire or the flu. I was given antibiotics and told it would clear up quickly. I missed two days of work and felt fine afterward.

On May 21, 2009, I got up for work but was very ill. I had right flank pain and thought it was a kidney stone. My wife took me to the ER and I was hospitalized until the next morning. I was sent home with a filter to try and catch the stone. During the next few weeks I was hospitalized three more times while the docs tried to figure out what was wrong with me until I was flown to the nearest large city when my BP dropped and I stopped breathing. All this time the docs were looking at different problems ranging from carcinoid tumors, to a diverticulum touching the descending aorta stimulating a vasovagal response to possible undetectable kidney stones.

I filed for CASDI on June 2 because still at this time I did not think my illness was related to the incident from April 17, 2009. My employer let me go on June 15, 2009 (different story there). And I continued to see doctors. Eventually, I went to UCSF and saw doctors there who did workups and said it was none of what my docs around here said. UCSF were still at a loss what my problems were, but ruled out everything up to that point.

I continued going to my docs. Finally, sometime in Sept/Oct 2009 my doc said my health issues, which included chronic breathing problems had to be because of propane explosion. He said the fire must have done more damage to my lungs than previously thought.

I went to a worker's comp lawyer immediately who took my case. He referred to off to several personal injury lawyers in addition. However, at the time, no PI lawyer would take my case. I contacted 7-10 PI lawyers who all told me the same thing. My injuries were not substantial enough to get more in a PI case than worker's comp would pay so the amount I would receive on a PI case would be gobbled up by worker's comp.

On Sept 28, 2010, I had what was considered a stroke and another followed on Feb 23, 2011. I was hospitalized for more than 2 weeks all together from these two incidents. However, all my workups showed absolutely no blockage or bleeds. In fact, I don't have any plaque at all in my system (being vegetarian for the last 28 years has paid off). So, my neurologist had to go hunting. After more workups than ever, my neurologist came back with two alternatives. He said I either had early stage MS or severe hemiplegic migraine. He claimed, along with another doc, that the propane explosion caused a traumatic brain injury that has manifested itself with one of the two. Treatments are basically the same for either of them at this stage so I decided to forgo the spinal tap.

The meat of my question here:

I recently decided to again seek a PI attorney because now my docs say my health is substantially affected by the propane explosion, but I was given some bad news. I was told the statue of limitations is two years, and it expired April 17, 2011. Nope. Sorry. Go away. You screwed up. Bummer. So, I looked into it on my own a little. It seems there's something called "Discovery of Harm" rule. Since I was told by all my docs well into Sep/Oct 2009 that my health was in no way affected by the propane explosion outside of superficial burns, my question is this. Does my clock really begin on when I reasonably thought my health was affected (Sep/Oct) or does it start on April 17 and I'm truly screwed on a PI case now?

Thanks for making it through all that ;)
 


curtismac

Junior Member
Because the equipment belongs to the gas company and they are responsible for maintaining it, the PI case would be against them. My employer was an auto parts company, and the worker's comp case is against them.

Forgot to mention the exhaust line had a break in it and leaked progressively worse for a period of about 3 months. Both my manager knew about it (he filled tanks regularly) as well as the gas company rep because we told him regularly to which he always replied he'd get to it. Funny thing is the explosion happened on Friday and it was fixed, by my manager, when I came in to work the next Monday.
 

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