Does a plaintiff have a right to sue for damages arising from latent injuries?

A similar argument was rejected by an Illinois appellate court in Fetzer v. Wood (1991) 211 Ill.App.3d 70, 155 Ill.Dec. 626, 569 N.E.2d 1237. There, the court had to determine whether the plaintiff's medical malpractice action based on a latent injury "accrued" before the effective date of a statute modifying Illinois' comparative fault doctrine. (Id., 155 Ill.Dec. at 629, 569 N.E.2d at p. 1240.) The defendants argued that "where the time of injury is not readily ascertainable, the only other basis for determining when a cause of action accrues is when it may be 'discovered.' " (Id., 155 Ill.Dec. at 632, 569 N.E.2d at p. 1243.) There, as here, the defendants relied on statute of limitations cases involving latent injuries. In rejecting this argument, the Illinois court noted that the defendants

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