Arroyo v. Board of Education of Howard County6/10/2004
termination. It is from no later than this point that the limitation period begins to run. While in primary jurisdiction cases, the alternate judicial action may, in some circumstances, be filed before the final administrative determination, under the circumstances of this case it was required to be filed no later than three years from that the point in time when the final administrative decision was made.
In accordance with this Court's opinion in Hubbard, it appears that May 28, 1998, the day the State Board issued its final decision in regard to the propriety of petitioner's dismissal, was the date on which petitioner can be said to have finally exhausted his administrative remedies. Because petitioner claims that the Circuit Court erred in holding that the three-year statute of limitations began to run on this date, thereby barring his February 8, 2002 complaint, we shall examine whether the Circuit Court's conclusion was correct.
C. Statutes of Limitation and the "Discovery Rule"
Ordinarily, under § 5-101 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, " civil action at law shall be filed within three years from the date it accrues . . . ." Historically, a cause of action was deemed to have "accrued" in a tort action, and the statute of limitations began to run, when the actual wrong occurred. See Waldman v. Rohrbaugh, 241 Md. 137, 139, 215 A.2d 825, 827 (1966); Killen v. George Washington Cemetery, Inc., 231 Md. 337, 343, 190 A.2d 247, 250 (1963). Dissatisfied with the often unfairly harsh confines of such a rule, as it did not distinguish a plaintiff who was "blamelessly ignorant" of his potential claim and the plaintiff who had "slumbered on his rights," this Court first recognized what has become known as the "discovery rule" in the case of Hahn v. Claybrook, 130 Md. 179, 100 A. 83 (1917) (allowing for discovery rule in medical malpractice claims). The discovery rule, as it pertains to statute of limitations issues, provides that a "cause of action accrues when a plaintiff in fact knows or reasonably should know of the wrong." Hecht v. Resolution Trust Corp., 333 Md. 324, 334, 635 A.2d 394, 399 (1994). The discovery rule itself was for many years limited to cases involving professional malpractice. See, e.g., Leonhart v. Atkinson, 265 Md. 219, 289 A.2d 1 (1972) (accountant); Steelworkers Holding v. Menefee, 255 Md. 440, 258 A.2d 177 (1969) (architect); Mattingly v. Hopkins, 254 Md. 88, 253 A.2d 904 (1969) (civil engineer); Mumford v. Staton, Whaley & Price, 254 Md. 697, 255 A.2d 359 (1969) (attorney). In Poffenberger v. Risser, 290 Md. 631, 636, 431 A.2d 677, 680 (1981), however, this Court, "sensing no valid reason why [the discovery] rule's sweep should not be applied to prevent an injustice in other types of cases," held that the discovery rule was "applicable generally in all [civil] actions."
The dispositive issue in determining when a statute of limitations begins to run under the discovery rule is ascertaining when the plaintiff was put on notice that he may have been injured. It is manifest to this Court, after viewing Hahn and its progeny, that the statute of limitations on petitioner's civil claim of wrongful termination began to run when he knew or reasonably should have known of the claimed wrong done to him, i.e., his dismissal as an employee of the HCPSS. Petitioner was effectively terminated from his employment on January 31, 1997, when the County Board issued its decision that stated that petitioner was to be terminated from his position. This decision, however, was not the final decision allowing for petitioner's termination. As we stated earlier, because he contested his termination under § 6-202 of the Education Article, the final administ
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