Statute of Limitations

A woman's hand. following down a sheet of paper as she reads

Question: Joe, in the case of a bad accident, any kind of accident that you want to investigate what your rights are and how to protect yourself, timing is critical. We’ve talked about this in the past. There’s this term statute of limitation tossed around. Can you talk…

Question: Joe, in the case of a bad accident, any kind of accident that you want to investigate what your rights are and how to protect yourself, timing is critical. We’ve talked about this in the past. There’s this term statute of limitation tossed around. Can you talk a little bit about it? What is it and why is it so important?

Joe: The statue of limitations is legally the outside limit in which you have to do something. In terms of if you are in a situation in which you had an accident that requires investigation and documentation waiting till the statue limitations is a bad idea.  Time is it’s own limiting factor. Time to find witnesses, time to get evidence, and time to get any documents are restricted as time passes. You might find that by the time the statute limitations, which is three years for most cases in New York, is way too long a period of time to wait to adequately move your case forward. There are some limitation periods that are much shorter than that.