## Facts

- Multiple data-entry workers brought product-liability actions against computer keyboard and related equipment manufacturers, alleging repetitive-stress injuries (RSIs) such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Plaintiffs alleged defective design and inadequate warnings and described gradual onset of symptoms (e.g., tingling, numbness, discomfort, pain) that worsened over time.
- Many plaintiffs were nonresidents who first experienced early symptoms and used the products outside New York, but filed suit in New York.
- Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that the claims were untimely under New York’s borrowing statute (CPLR 202) because the causes of action accrued where the first injury occurred and foreign limitations periods had expired.
- Trial court denied dismissal; the Appellate Division reversed and dismissed many claims as time-barred based on accrual at the first physical injury.

## Issues

1. For RSI personal-injury product-liability claims by nonresident plaintiffs, when and where does a cause of action accrue for statute-of-limitations purposes under CPLR 202?
2. In gradual or cumulative-trauma injuries, does accrual occur upon first physical injury (even if slight or not yet diagnosed) or upon later discovery/significant symptoms?

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division’s dismissal of many claims as time-barred.
- It held that an RSI personal-injury product-liability claim accrues at the time and place the plaintiff first sustains an actual physical injury, even if the plaintiff is unaware of the injury then.
- For nonresident plaintiffs, CPLR 202 requires the action to be timely under both New York’s limitations period and the limitations period of the jurisdiction where the cause of action accrued; the shorter period controls.
- The court declined to adopt a judicial discovery rule for RSI claims and treated plaintiffs’ early, perceptible symptoms as sufficient “legal injury” to start the limitations clock.

## Legal Principles

- Under CPLR 202 (borrowing statute), a nonresident suing in New York on a claim accruing outside New York must satisfy both New York’s statute of limitations and the foreign jurisdiction’s statute; if either bars the claim, the action is untimely in New York.
- In personal-injury tort/product-liability actions (absent a statutory discovery rule), accrual occurs where and when the injury is suffered, defined as the time and place of the initial bodily injury, not diagnosis or causal discovery.
- For cumulative-trauma injuries such as RSI, the limitations period begins when the plaintiff first sustains a legally cognizable physical injury, however slight, and does not await a clinically diagnosable or disabling condition.
- Statutory discovery rules are confined to contexts established by the Legislature; courts will not extend discovery-based accrual to other injury types by analogy.

## Conclusion

The court held that RSI product-liability claims accrue at the first actual physical injury and that nonresident plaintiffs must comply with the shorter of New York’s and the injury jurisdiction’s limitations periods under CPLR 202, leading to dismissal of claims filed after those periods expired.


Blanco v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 90 N.Y.2d 757, 666 N.Y.S.2d 536, 689 N.E.2d 506 (1997)