What is a statute of limitations in a personal injury claim?
If you have been injured in an accident, you may wish to file a personal injury claim against the responsible party. Although you do not need to file a claim the day you are injured, you will not have an unlimited amount of time to file a claim. This is known as a “statute of limitations.”
Because personal injury claims are filed on the state level, every state has a different statute of limitations when handling personal injury claims. For example, you will only have one year to file a personal injury claim in Louisiana. In Maine, you will have up to six years. The time will vary state to state, but you will typically have two or three years to file a personal injury claim.
The statute of limitations begins from the date of the accident onward, UNLESS you find that you have sustained an injury directly caused by the accident. If this occurs, your statute of limitations will begin from the point at which you discovered the injury.
There are some exceptions to these statutes of limitations. When filing a personal injury claim against the government, you will often have far less time to file a claim. Sometimes, you will only have a matter of months to file your personal injury claim.
Other statute of limitation exceptions will include what type of personal injury claim you are filing. In North Dakota, you will typically have six years to file a personal injury claim, unless you are filing a wrongful death claim. You will only have two years to file a wrongful death claim in North Dakota.
If you want to file a personal injury claim, you should contact a personal injury attorney in your area as quickly as possible. You could have less than a year remaining to file a claim and earn the settlement you deserve.
