Statute of Limitations

The sooner you contact a personal injury lawyer, the better. If you faced injury in an accident and someone else caused the accident, you could receive compensation. A personal injury lawyer can analyze the accident and the injuries you sustained. This can help you decide if you have a potential claim.

Personal injury lawsuits are what I like to call “time sensitive.” This means that you don’t have an infinite amount of time to file a personal injury lawsuit. Instead, every state has a statute of limitations. This statute of limitations places a time limit on bringing a personal injury lawsuit.

Statute of Limitations

Connecticut, like many of the other states, has a two-year statute of limitations. This means that you only have two years to bring a personal injury action to receive compensation. Initially, this rule seems straightforward and simple enough, right? Not so fast – like many areas of the law, there is a catch.

When the clock begins to tick for bringing a personal injury action isn’t entirely clear. According to C.G.S. § 52-584:

“No action to recover damages for injury to the person…caused by negligence, or by reckless or wanton misconduct…shall be brought but within two years from the date when the injury is first sustained or discovered or in the exercise of reasonable care should have been discovered, and except that no such action may be brought more than three years from the date of the act or omission complained of, except that a counterclaim may be interposed in any such action any time before the pleadings in such action are finally closed.” (Lexis 2014)

Two-Year Limit

This statute means that a personal injury action must be brought within two years of the date of injury. This refers to the date that the accident took place. But, this statute also recognizes an important exception to this general rule. The statute acknowledges that injuries are not always immediately clear. It could take months or years after the accident took place before realizing you got injured. The statute allows the clock to begin ticking once you discover that you got injured in an accident.

In some situations the clock may start ticking when you should have discovered the injury “in the exercise of reasonable care.” A judge determines the date by which you should have known about your injury. This is the case even if you weren’t actually aware of it by that time. This determination is based on a reasonable person standard. In other words, the judge asks by what date would the reasonable person have known about the injury.

The statute also states that you can’t bring a claim past three years after the accident occurred.

Getting Help

If you think that the statute of limitations is running out on an injury you sustained in a car accident, now is the time to act! Contact an attorney who can help you bring a personal injury claim against the at-fault party.