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What is The Statute of Limitations?
The personal injury lawsuit statute of limitations refers to the maximum amount of time that the parties involved in a dispute have to begin with the legal proceedings.
What would be the length of the time allowed to parties to initiate legal proceeding is all depend upon the intensity and severity of the offense as well as the jurisdiction it is being disputed. However, cases such as murder and other severe crimes typically don’t have any maximum time period. In addition to that, under international law, crimes that are committed against humanity, genocide or war crimes have no statutes of limitations.
How Statute of Limitations in Personal Injury Works?
In personal injury law, the statute of limitation on personal injury typically sets a strict time period for the victim. The injured person will have to file a lawsuit after an accident.
Filing after the statute of limitations has expired mostly results in the case being dismissed. Why? Because the person will no longer have the right to sue – however, there will be some exceptions as well.
How Long is the Personal Injury Statute of Limitations?
Although all states have passed the personal injury statute of limitation, however, based on each state, the statute of limitation can range from 1 to 6 years. Apart from the range of the period, the type of claim that you are going to file can also affect how much time you are allowed.
Moreover, some states have statutes of limitations only for some personal injury cases, but in some states, people are allowed longer deadlines in order to file for certain cases like sexual assault, defamation or maybe medical malpractice claims.
Additionally, filing a claim is typically a complex process that needed to be done while keeping in mind all the important aspects of the case. Also, you may have different queries regarding the claim for which you need an expert personal injury attorney who can assist you and help you file the claim effectively.
In most of the personal injury cases in various states, the time duration for statute of limitations starts from the day you got injured – thus, this is the day you met an accident or accident has occurred.
- Product Liability: 2 years from the date of injury
- Medical Malpractice: 2 years from the date of injury
- Wrongful Death: 2 years from the date of death
- Property Damage: 5 years from the date of the incident
- Personal Injury: 2 years from the date of injury
- Libel & Slander: 1 year from the date of the incident
Exceptions to The Statute of Limitations
Although after a certain statute of limitation not in every case the affected person can file a claim, exceptions may vary from state to state depending upon the required case-specific analysis. Hence, there are rare cases involving specific circumstances that enable the injured person to file a claim even after the certain limited period expires.
The Discovery Rule Exception
The discovery rule exception is one of the most common exceptions in the standard statutes of limitations in many states. This exception enables an injured person to have relatively more time to file a legal claim – especially if they didn’t know that they were being injured from the potential defendant’s actions.
Such exceptions typically apply to the cases that are way extreme in nature to identify initially or perhaps apply to cases involving pharmaceutical products because of the fact that those cases may take too much time or even years to recognize a connection between an incident and the injury, in a result of that incident. In such cases, the victim has this exception that he can file a claim even after years – or maybe when he actually realizes injury.
Some Other Personal Injury Statutes of Limitations Exceptions
There are some other conditions in which many states have an exception to the personal injury statutes of limitations. Such cases cause the deadline to file a claim to be “paused” for a certain time period.
For example, if you are injured in an accident and the offender is now out of the state or leaves the state, the clock for statutes of limitation will be “paused” for a certain time period. Additionally, when the defendant comes back to the states, your time for statutes of limitations starts now and during this period you can file a claim against him.
There are a few more exceptions in some states including, if the injured party is:
- Disabled
- Underage (under 18)
- Insane
- Mentally ill
Conclusions
However, it is not as easy as it seems to file a claim of personal injury statutes of limitation without proper guidance that only a credible and experienced injury attorney can offer you. If you find yourself struggling with filing a claim against the defendant hire the best injury attorney to help you succeed in your case ultimately.