The statute of limitations for a civil lawsuit is the legal deadline for filing the case in court, and in most situations it runs between one and six years from the date of the injury, breach, or other wrongful act. The exact number depends on the type of claim and the state whose law applies. Miss the deadline and the case is gone, no matter how strong the facts. These time limits exist because evidence degrades, witnesses forget, and the law puts a premium on finality.
Typical Deadlines by Type of Claim
No single number answers the question for everyone, because every state sets its own deadlines for each category of civil claim. The ranges below are the working picture.
- Personal injury: most states give two years from the date of the accident. Roughly a dozen states allow three years, and a handful set the window at one year or as long as six.
- Breach of contract: written contracts carry longer deadlines than oral ones. Written contract claims generally run three to ten years, most often four to six. Oral contracts usually fall between two and six years.
- Property damage: deadlines for damage to a car, home, or belongings generally fall between two and six years.
- Medical malpractice: often shorter and more complex. Many states impose a one- to three-year window from the date of injury or discovery, sometimes paired with a separate outer deadline called a statute of repose.
- Wrongful death: most states set this between one and three years from the date of death.
- Fraud: three to six years is common, often measured from the date the fraud was discovered rather than when it occurred.
Legislatures amend these codes constantly. The only reliable way to pin down your deadline is to check the current statute in the state where you plan to file.
Federal Civil Lawsuit Deadlines
Claims brought under federal law follow their own timelines, and some are surprisingly short.
- Employment discrimination under Title VII or the ADA: you must first file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 180 days of the discriminatory act, extended to 300 days if a state or local agency enforces a similar law. Once the EEOC issues a right-to-sue notice, you have 90 days to file in court.1U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge2U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit
- Equal Pay Act claims: two years from the last discriminatory paycheck, or three years if the violation was willful. You can file directly in court without going through the EEOC charge process.1U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge
- Federal Tort Claims Act: if you’re suing the federal government for an injury caused by a government employee, you must present a written claim to the responsible agency within two years. If the agency denies the claim, you then have six months from the denial to file suit.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States
- Civil rights claims under Section 1983: federal law does not set its own deadline. Courts borrow the personal injury statute of limitations from the state where the lawsuit is filed, so the window can range from one to six years.
- Other federal statutes: for federal laws enacted after December 1, 1990, that do not specify their own deadline, a default four-year statute of limitations applies.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1658 – Time Limitations on the Commencement of Civil Actions Arising Under Acts of Congress
When the Clock Starts Running
The deadline begins on the date the claim “accrues,” which usually means the date the injury or breach actually happened. Rear-ended on March 1 in a two-year state? Your deadline is March 1 two years later. Contract disputes typically accrue on the date of the breach, not the date you signed.
The Discovery Rule
Sometimes the harm is invisible at first. A surgeon leaves a sponge inside you during an operation and symptoms don’t appear for a year. A financial advisor skims from your account and statements look normal until an audit. In cases like these, many states apply a discovery rule that delays the start of the clock until you knew, or reasonably should have known, about the injury.
The rule is not automatic and does not apply to every claim. States differ on which categories qualify. And “reasonably should have known” has teeth: if warning signs existed and you ignored them, a court may rule that the clock started when those signs appeared.
Continuing Violations
Some wrongful conduct is not a single event but a pattern that unfolds over months or years, such as workplace harassment or ongoing environmental contamination. Under the continuing violation doctrine, the deadline may not begin until the last act in the pattern, which can keep a claim alive even when the earliest incidents would otherwise be time-barred. Courts apply this theory cautiously, and it does not fit every jurisdiction or every type of repeated harm.
Events That Pause the Deadline
Certain circumstances stop the clock, a concept called tolling. The deadline freezes during the tolling period and resumes once the condition ends.
Minors
If the injured person is a minor, virtually every state pauses the statute of limitations until the child turns 18. A child injured at age 10 in a two-year state would generally have until age 20 to file. Some states cap how long the tolling lasts or impose special shorter deadlines for claims against government entities, so the protection is not always as broad as it sounds.
Mental Incapacity
When the plaintiff is mentally incapacitated and unable to manage their own legal affairs, states generally pause the clock for the duration of the incapacity. Some states require a formal legal finding of incompetence; others look at whether the person was functionally unable to understand and pursue a claim.
Defendant’s Absence From the State
If the person you need to sue leaves the state, many states toll the statute of limitations for the period of absence. The reasoning is practical: you cannot serve someone who is not reachable within the jurisdiction. The ground has lost some force as states have expanded their rules for serving out-of-state defendants, but it still applies in certain situations.
Fraudulent Concealment
When a defendant actively hides the wrongdoing or the plaintiff’s injury, the clock pauses until the fraud is discovered or reasonably should have been. This is different from the general discovery rule because it requires affirmative deception by the defendant. Think of a contractor who covers a foundation crack with cosmetic patching before selling the house.
Military Service
Federal law protects active-duty servicemembers through the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. Time spent on active duty is excluded from the calculation of any statute of limitations, whether the servicemember is bringing the claim or being sued.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 U.S. Code 3936 – Statute of Limitations The servicemember does not need to prove that duty interfered with their ability to participate. The tolling is automatic.
Statutes of Repose: The Hard Outer Cutoff
A statute of repose looks similar to a statute of limitations but works differently in a way that catches people off guard. A statute of limitations starts when you are injured or discover the harm. A statute of repose starts when the defendant completes a specific act, such as delivering a product or finishing construction, whether or not anyone has been hurt yet.6Legal Information Institute. Statute of Repose
The consequence is harsh. If a building’s structural defect causes your ceiling to collapse 15 years after construction, and the state’s statute of repose for construction is 10 years from substantial completion, your claim is dead even though you could not have filed sooner. The discovery rule does not rescue you. Tolling generally does not apply. These are true hard cutoffs.
Statutes of repose appear most commonly in construction defect and product liability cases. For construction, state repose periods typically run four to ten years after substantial completion. Product liability repose periods vary more widely, with some states setting them at 10 to 15 years from the date a product was first sold. Not every state imposes one for every claim type, so local law matters here.
Which State’s Deadline Applies
When a dispute crosses state lines, figuring out which state’s statute of limitations governs can be its own fight. The general rule: the court where the lawsuit is filed applies its own state’s statute of limitations, even if the events happened elsewhere or the contract specifies another state’s law.
A lot of people miss this. A standard choice-of-law clause in a contract covers the substantive rules but typically does not extend to the statute of limitations, which courts treat as procedural. Unless the contract explicitly says the chosen state’s statute of limitations applies, the court defaults to the deadline in the state where the case was filed. A contract governed by one state’s six-year window can still be time-barred in a neighboring state with a three-year window if that is where suit is brought.
What Happens When the Deadline Passes
A missed statute of limitations does not just weaken your case. It eliminates it. The court will dismiss the lawsuit regardless of how badly you were harmed or how obvious the defendant’s wrongdoing was.
The Defendant Has to Raise It
Here is the twist most people miss: the court does not automatically check whether the deadline has passed. The statute of limitations is an affirmative defense, meaning the defendant must specifically raise it in their response to the lawsuit.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 8 – General Rules of Pleading A general denial is not enough. If the defendant fails to plead it, the defense is waived and the case moves forward even if the deadline technically expired. This happens more often than you would expect, usually when defendants represent themselves or hire inexperienced counsel.
Savings Statutes
If your case is dismissed for a procedural reason rather than on the merits, such as a voluntary dismissal to fix a pleading error, you may get a second chance through a savings statute. Many states allow a plaintiff to refile a voluntarily dismissed lawsuit within a set window, often six months to one year, even if the original statute of limitations has expired in the meantime. Savings statutes are narrow. They do not revive a case you simply forgot to file. They protect plaintiffs who had a timely case, dismissed it without prejudice, and need a short additional period to refile.
Steps to Protect Your Claim
The most common way people lose valid civil claims is by waiting too long. Deadlines that feel distant at the start have a way of arriving while you are still gathering records, negotiating with an insurance company, or deciding whether to hire a lawyer.
Identify your deadline the week the dispute arises, not months later. Look up the statute of limitations for your specific type of claim in the state where you plan to file. Be aware that some claims require pre-suit steps that eat into your window. Medical malpractice claims in many states require a notice of intent served months before filing, and federal employment discrimination claims require an EEOC charge as a prerequisite to suit.1U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge Those intermediate deadlines are often shorter and less forgiving than the lawsuit deadline itself.
The statute of limitations is a maximum, not a target. Filing close to the deadline means building your case with stale evidence and faded memories. The earlier you act, the better your evidence, and the more leverage you carry into any settlement discussion.