Opinion
April 30, 1996
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Ira Gammerman, J.).
We agree with the IAS Court that an Alabama court would hold that plaintiff's cause of action accrued on the date of her last exposure to DES while in utero ( see, Garrett v. Raytheon Co., 368 So.2d 516 [Ala]), and that while the two-year Alabama Statute of Limitations (Ala Code § 6-2-38 [ l]), which concededly applies (CPLR 202; Besser v. Squibb Sons, 146 A.D.2d 107, affd 75 N.Y.2d 847), was tolled during plaintiff's infancy, it expired many years before plaintiff brought this action well into her adulthood. But even if, as plaintiff argues, an Alabama court would hold that accrual did not occur until the date of diagnosis ( see, Mobile Infirmary v. Delchamps, 642 So.2d 954 [Ala]), the action would still be time-barred, in view of plaintiff's admission that she was diagnosed with amenorrhea and squamous metaplasia in 1985, and the rule in Alabama that the period of limitations begins to run "[a]t the time of the first legal injury * * * whether or not the full amount of damages is apparent" ( Smith v. Medtronic Inc., 607 So.2d 156, 159 [Ala]; Garrett v. Raytheon Co., supra, at 519-520). We have considered plaintiff's other arguments and find them to be without merit.
Concur — Murphy, P.J., Rubin, Kupferman, Ross and Tom, JJ.