FTCA Malpractice Claim Accrual Rule Clarified

A patient’s knowledge that an injury occurred in the course of medical treatment is not sufficient to trigger the Federal Tort Claims Act’s two-year statute of limitations, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit made clear Sept. 1. Here, parents were told by a hospital in July 2003 that their infant’s severe brain damage and cerebral palsy were caused by the mother’s transmission of a bacterial infection during birth. But the court said that the district court did not clearly err in finding that the parents did not actually know, and that a reasonably diligent would not have ...