Guide to Statutes of Limitations in North Carolina

By Elspeth Crawford

Statutes of limitations are laws that set deadlines after which a lawsuit based on specified crimes may not be filed. The point of statutes of limitations is to guard against the corruption of evidence, the decay of memory, and to encourage potential plaintiffs to resolve issues in the courts as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Tolling of the Statute of Limitations and Statutes of Repose. Statutes of limitations do not necessarily begin to run directly after the crime in question occurs. There are certain circumstances under which the statute of limitations is tolled until the happening of a later event. These include:

• Minority. If the defendant is a minor, the statute of limitations will not begin to run until he or she reaches the age of majority.

• Incapacity. If the defendant is disabled to the point that he or she could not file a lawsuit at the time the crime occurred, the statute of limitation is tolled until such time as the disability is lifted.

• Bankruptcy. If the plaintiff is in bankruptcy at the time the crime occurs, the statute of limitations is tolled until the bankruptcy case has concluded.

• Discovery Rule. In the case of crimes the effects of which are not immediately apparent, the statute of limitations on that crime will not begin to run until the plaintiff actually discovers that the crime occurred. For example, if a doctor accidentally left a sponge inside a patient following surgery but the patient did not discover this oversight until a year after it happened, the statute of limitation for the medical malpractice action would begin to run at the time of discovery rather than the time of the accident.

Note, however, that in addition to statutes of limitations some crimes are also governed by statutes of repose, laws which impose cut-off dates much in the manner of statutes of limitations but which are not affected by the Discovery Rule. In our medical malpractice example above, the statute of repose begins to run when the accident occurred, even if the statute of limitation did not start to run until its discovery. When filing a lawsuit, be sure to consult your attorney concerning statutes of limitations, statutes of repose, and how the two interact with each other.

Exceptions. There are a few crimes and situations to which statutes of limitations do not apply. These include:

• Murder. Murder, especially first-degree murder, is considered so heinous a crime that there is no statute of limitations forbidding its prosecution no matter how much time has passed since it occurred.

• Fraud upon the court. When an officer of the court, an umbrella which includes lawyers, judges, and other individuals directly involved in the operation of the American legal system, uses their influence to so corrupt the legal process so that the impartial performance of a court is impaired, that officer is said to have committed a fraud upon the court. This crime is considered so serious that no statute of limitations applies to it.

• Continuing violations. If a crime is committed repeatedly over a long period of time, the doctrine of continuing violations holds that the statute of limitations on that crime will not begin to run until the last act in that series has occurred. For example, in a criminal context this might apply to someone who sexually abused another repeatedly over a period of years. The statute of limitations on that crime would not begin to run until the last act of abuse on record.

• Relation Back. Imagine that you have filed a lawsuit. A year of litigation passes, and you decide to amend your claim by filing a second claim that arose from the original set of facts that gave rise to the first claim. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations on the second claim has passed. Normally you would not be able to file the second claim, but under the doctrine of relation back, which allows litigants to file additional claims the limitations periods of which have passed so long as they arose from the same set of facts as the first claim, you could.

Sample Statutes of Limitations. The lengths of statutes of limitations differ state-by-state and action-by-action. Here is a list of some common ones with accompanying limitations periods:

Negligence for personal injury: 1 to 2 years.

Breach of oral contract: 2 to 6 years.

Breach of written contract: 3 to 6 years.

Fraud or mistake: 3 to 6 years from date of discovery.

Property damage: 2 to 10 years.

Collection of federal income taxes: 10 years.

Copyright infringement: 3 years.

If you’d like to speak to an attorney regarding the North Carolina Statute of Limitations, contact Adkins Law. Adkins Law is located in Huntersville, North Carolina and primarily serves Mecklenburg County and the Lake Norman area.