Alexander v. Exxon Mobil

In Alexander v. Exxon Mobil (2013) 219 Cal.App.4th 1236, the Court refused to uphold a decision sustaining a demurrer where the plaintiffs alleged they did not discover the facts upon which their claims were based until less than two years before filing suit. The defendants argued that the plaintiffs' factual allegations, together with additional judicially noticed facts, established that a reasonable person would have suspected causation and wrongdoing much earlier. (Id. at p. 1250.) In rejecting the defendant's argument, the court declined to make that determination as a matter of law, pointing out, "'when a plaintiff reasonably should have discovered facts for purposes of the accrual of a cause of action or application of the delayed discovery rule is generally a question of fact, properly decided as a matter of law only if the evidence (or, in this case, the allegations in the complaint and facts properly subject to judicial notice) can support only one reasonable conclusion.' " (Id. at p. 1252.)