Statute of limitations
The legal deadline by which a personal injury claim must be filed in court.
What it means in practice.
Limitation varies by jurisdiction and by claim type. Most US states allow two or three years from the date of injury; UK general limitation is three years for personal injury; Ireland is two years. Missing it usually extinguishes the claim entirely.
A statute of limitations is the deadline for starting a lawsuit. Miss it and the claim is usually lost for good, however strong it was. The clock normally starts on the date of the injury, though many places start it later if you could not have known about the injury or its cause.
The period varies more than most people expect: one year for most injuries in Kentucky and Tennessee, two in California and Virginia, three in New York and England, six in North Dakota. Special rules often apply to car crashes, medical claims, children and claims against public bodies.
Starting a lawsuit means doing whatever the local rules treat as commencing it. In North Dakota that means completing service, not just sending the papers to a process server.
How it works in different places.
| Where | How it works | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Tennessee | One year from the injury, or two years if the other driver was criminally charged or cited over the crash. | Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104(a); Younger v. Okbahhanes (Tenn. Ct. App. 2021) |
| California | Two years for injury or death caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. | Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 |
| New York | Three years for an action to recover damages for a personal injury. | CPLR 214(5) |
| England and Wales | Three years from the injury, or from your date of knowledge if later. | Limitation Act 1980, s 11(4) |
| British Columbia | Two years after the day the claim is discovered. | Limitation Act, SBC 2012, c 13, s 6(1) |
| Queensland | Three years, extendable only if a material fact of a decisive character was not known in time. | Ringelstein v Metro North HHS [2025] QSC 75 |
A worked example.
Two days late: Langowski v. Altendorf (N.D. 2012)
- Accident
- Pedestrian struck crossing a street in Minto, 21 August 2004
- Deadline
- Six years, ending in August 2010
- What the lawyer did
- Sent the summons and complaint to a process server days before the deadline
- Service completed
- 23 August 2010, after the period had run
- Result
- Claim dismissed; affirmed
Even a six year limit, one of the longest in the US, was lost because the action had to be commenced by service, and service came after the deadline.