Statutes of Limitations in California: An Overview

A statute of limitations is a law which places a time limit on initiating a legal remedy in relation to a misdemeanor or wrongful conduct. It sets forth the time frame or the maximum period in which a certain individual can file for a claim. In every state in the US, there are various statutes that apply for every civil action, and said limitation periods differ from state to state. It is indeed difficult to keep track of all the various states and their exceptions, so it's always best to speak with a qualified lawyer who serves claimants in your state. Your lawyer will tell you if your claim is still eligible or if your right to sue has expired due to statutory limitations. For the purpose of this article, we will focus about the statutes of limitations in the state of California.

Specific civil actions, one of which is professional malpractice may be complicated, but can be understood in simple terms by looking at the particular type of malpractice. For legal malpractice cases, you can file your claim within one year from the date of discovery and up to 4 years maximum from the date of the wrongful act. For medical malpractice cases, it would be 3 years from the date of the injury, or one year from the date the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered the injury, whichever occurs first. A classical example would be where a patient discovers that there is a foreign object inside his/her body that was left after a surgery. Even if that foreign object was found years after the surgical operation, he/she can still file a medical malpractice claim within one year of discovery.

Here are the statutory limitations for other cases:

Personal Injury: 2 years (regardless of the type of injury sustained)

Fraud: 3 years

Libel/Slander/Defamation: 1 year

Product Liability: 2 years

Injury to Personal Property: 3 years

Written Contracts: 4 years

Verbal Contracts: 2 years

At certain times it?s impossible for a person to discover the cause of an injury, or even to know that an injury has occurred, until after a considerable amount of time. When applied, the "discovery rule" permits a suit to be filed within a certain period of time after the injury has been discovered, or reasonably should have been discovered. The discovery rule does not apply to all civil injuries, and sometimes the period of time for bringing a claim post-discovery can be short, so it is important to seek legal assistance quickly in the event of the late discovery of an injury.

Statutes of limitations may not apply under certain circumstances. Such is usually called as "tolling of statute". There are reasons why a statute is tolled. Some cases may involve minors, in which the statute of limitations is not applicable until the victim reaches the legal age. Mental incompetence may also be a reason for "tolling of statute", or that the defendant got bankrupt (for cases of breach of contract).

You might wonder why there are such limitations for filing claims. One reason pertains to fairness. That is, over time memories fade, evidence is lost or never found, and people prefer to get on with their lives without legal intrusions from the past and having statutes of limitations will more or less push the injured party to action. Another reason for statutes of limitations is for attaining closure or certainty. At some point, society will no longer make its tribunals available for dispute resolution. Eventually, law enforcement agencies will stop using public resources to investigate a given crime.

What you have just read represent only a small sample of some of the periods of statutory limitations in California. If you wish to know how the statute of limitations applies to a specific situation, you should verify the statutory time period and its relevance to your situation with a qualified lawyer.

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