Cite as: 534 U. S. 19 (2001)
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
Bay Area Laundry quoted approvingly our statement in Clark v. Iowa City, 20 Wall. 583, 589 (1875), that "[a]ll statutes of limitation begin to run when the right of action is complete . . . ." This is unquestionably the traditional rule: Absent other indication, a statute of limitations begins to run at the time the plaintiff "has the right to apply to the court for relief . . . ." 1 H. Wood, Limitation of Actions § 122a, p. 684 (4th ed. 1916). "That a person entitled to an action has no knowledge of his right to sue, or of the facts out of which his right arises, does not postpone the period of limitation." 2 id., § 276c(1), at 1411.
The injury-discovery rule applied by the Court of Appeals is bad wine of recent vintage. Other than our recognition of the historical exception for suits based on fraud, e. g., Bailey v. Glover, 21 Wall. 342, 347-350 (1875), we have deviated from the traditional rule and imputed an injury-discovery rule to Congress on only one occasion. Urie v. Thompson, 337 U. S. 163, 169-171 (1949).2 We did so there because we could not imagine that legislation as "humane" as the Federal Employers' Liability Act would bar recovery for latent medical injuries. Id., at 170. We repeated this sentiment in Rotella v. Wood, 528 U. S. 549, 555 (2000), saying that the "cry for a discovery rule is loudest" in the context of medical-malpractice suits; and we repeat it again today with the assertion that the present case does not involve "an area
202, because "the standard rule" is that the period begins to run when the plaintiff has a "complete and present cause of action," id., at 201 (internal quotation marks omitted).
2 As the Court accurately notes, ante, at 27, in one other case we simply observed (without endorsement) that several Courts of Appeals had substituted injury-discovery for the traditional rule in medical-malpractice actions under the Federal Tort Claims Act, see United States v. Kubrick, 444 U. S. 111, 120, and n. 7 (1979), and in two other cases observed (without endorsement) that lower federal courts "generally apply" an injury-discovery rule, see Rotella v. Wood, 528 U. S. 549, 555 (2000); Klehr v. A. O. Smith Corp., 521 U. S. 179, 191 (1997).
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