Statute of Limitations

A statute of limitations is a law that sets the deadline for filing a lawsuit. After the deadline passes, a court will generally dismiss the claim even if it has merit. The length of the deadline depends on the type of claim, the state or country where it is filed, and — in many injury cases — when the injury was or reasonably should have been discovered.

There is no single answer; the period is set by the law of the jurisdiction where the claim would be filed. In the U.S., personal-injury claims — including product liability — typically must be filed within two to three years of the injury, wrongful-death claims within one to three years of death, and contract claims within three to six years. Latent injuries often benefit from the discovery rule, and many states add a long-stop cap measured from sale or manufacture.

Three things have to be pinned down. First, the applicable period — the number of years the statute sets for this type of claim in this jurisdiction. Second, when the clock started — the accrual date, usually the injury, but possibly a later discovery date under the discovery rule. Third, whether any tolling or special rule applies — minority, concealment, a government investigation, or a statutory program with its own deadline.

The discovery rule delays the start of the limitations clock until the plaintiff discovered — or reasonably should have discovered — the injury and its cause. It matters most where the harm is latent: certain cancers, neurological injuries, toxic exposures. It is the reason claims filed a decade after exposure can still be timely, and it is why the exposure history is the first thing a lawyer will ask about.

Tolling pauses the clock. Common tolling doctrines include minority (the plaintiff was a minor), mental incapacity, and fraudulent concealment by the defendant; some states add rules for pending government investigations or military service. Tolling is fact-specific and state-specific — an attorney evaluates it on the file, not in the abstract.

Sometimes. The discovery rule can start the clock at diagnosis rather than exposure, and some long-delayed toxic-exposure claims are filed on that basis. But many states cap it with a “long-stop” period — often around ten years from sale, manufacture or first sale — after which no claim lies regardless of when the injury appears. Whether a claim is still live at ten years is a jurisdiction-specific question.

Yes — the underlying claim is subject to the applicable limitations period, and a properly filed class action generally tolls the deadline for the whole class while the case is pending (under the federal American Pipe doctrine and state analogues). Settlement claims run on their own bar dates, which are separate from statutes of limitations.

This page covers civil filing deadlines; criminal limits are set by separate penal statutes. As a general matter, most federal felonies carry a five-year limit, while the most serious offenses — including murder — have no limit at all, and some states likewise exempt certain crimes from limits. For a criminal question, the controlling statute is the one defining that offense.

In most cases the claim is barred and a court will dismiss it. Some statutory programs have fixed windows of their own — special acts that set filing deadlines for specific exposures. If you think the deadline has passed, an attorney should still review the file before the claim is assumed lost: tolling doctrines, the accrual date and the filing details can matter.