Ruth Davis, Individually and as Special Administrator for the Estate of James R. Davis v. Dow Chemical Corp., a Delaware Corporation

Plaintiffs appeal from the district court’s grant of a motion for judgment on the pleadings. The court held that the two-year statute of limitations in Ariz.Rev.Stat. § 12-542(2) barred the plaintiffs’ wrongful death action. We reverse and remand.

I. BACKGROUND

The plaintiffs’ decedent, James R. Davis, died from cancer of the kidney on October 9, 1976. The plaintiffs, Davis’ wife and two daughters, asserted that the cancer was caused by exposure to dioxin, a chemical manufactured by the defendant, Dow Chemical Corporation (“Dow”). Davis had been exposed to dioxin by using a garden herbicide produced by Dow. The plaintiffs contended that at the time of Davis’ death they did not know of, and could not reasonably have known of, the link between dioxin and cancer of the kidney. They alleged that they discovered, and “in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered,” the link between dioxin and cancer only in April 1984, when certain facts about dioxin became public. On May 7, 1985, the plaintiffs brought suit for wrongful death pursuant to Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. §§ 12-611 to -613 (1982).

The plaintiffs filed this action almost nine years after Davis’ death but less than…