Senate Bill 310 Summary

• Establishes statute of limitations for occupational disease claims based on exposure to hazardous substances, requiring disablement to occur within two years of when the employee knew or should have known of the disease and its causal relationship to employment.

• Creates a two-year statute of limitations for design and construction defect claims involving personal injury, disease, disability, or death from hazardous substance exposure, measured from when the injured person knew of both the injury and the defective construction.

• Expands product liability actions to cover all hazardous substance exposures (not just asbestos), with a two-year limitation period beginning when the injured person knows of the disease caused by hazardous substance exposure.

• Provides a one-year window (July 1, 2013 through July 1, 2014) for filing otherwise time-barred claims for occupational disease, construction defects, and product liability actions based on hazardous substance exposure that were barred before the bill's effective date.

• Effective July 1, 2013; applies retroactively to all claims arising before, on, or after the effective date.