16-c-5 When to File

LibraryA Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (2020 Edition)

16-C-5. When to File

If you have been harmed, you do not have an unlimited amount of time to bring your lawsuit. Instead, you need to pay attention to the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations is the amount of time you have after the harm occurs until your right to file a lawsuit expires forever. Because there is no federal statute of limitations for Section 1983 claims, this time period is governed by the state statute of limitations for personal injury suits in the state where the court is located.277 This rule applies because the Supreme Court has found that the harms addressed by Section 1983 claims are similar to the harms addressed by tort claims for personal injuries.278

For example, New York law says that personal injury suits have to be brought within three years from the date you suffered the wrong. 279 This means that in New York, you have three years to file a suit under Section 1983.280 You should look up the statute of limitations for personal injury suits in the state where you are filing your claim (you can usually find this information in the state code of statutes). The statute of limitations for personal injury suits is the amount of time you will have to bring your Section 1983 suit.

The statute of limitations period begins to run when you find out-or should have found out-about the injury that you are complaining about. 281 For example, if the statute of limitations is three years, you have...

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