Statutes of limitations are among the most deadline-sensitive issues in legal practice. Miss one and the claim is gone, regardless of its merits. This tool lets you look up the standard SOL for a given jurisdiction, claim type, and incident date in seconds. It covers all 50 states, Washington D.C., and federal courts, across 18 civil claim types and 9 criminal offense categories.
The result tells you whether the standard deadline has passed, is approaching within 90 days, or still has time remaining. It also surfaces the key details behind the calculation: what starts the clock, what can toll it, whether a discovery rule applies, and any government notice requirements that might be a condition precedent to suit.
How to Use This Tool
Select a jurisdiction, then choose whether you're researching a civil or criminal matter. The claim list will populate accordingly. Enter the date of the incident and click "Check Deadline." The result will show you the standard period, the calculated deadline, and key factors that affect the analysis, including tolling provisions, discovery rules, and government notice requirements where applicable.
The color coding is straightforward: green means the standard deadline has not yet passed, yellow means you're within 90 days of it, and red means it has passed under the standard rule. Keep in mind that tolling, for minority, mental incapacity, fraudulent concealment, or other reasons, can extend any of these deadlines substantially, and a red result doesn't mean a claim is necessarily barred.
What This Tool Covers
Civil claims covered include personal injury, auto accidents, medical malpractice, product liability, wrongful death, sexual abuse and childhood sexual abuse, defamation, fraud, written and oral contracts, property damage, trespass, legal malpractice, premises liability, employment discrimination, wage and hour violations, debt collection, and breach of fiduciary duty. Criminal offense categories cover murder and homicide, rape and sexual assault, childhood sexual abuse, robbery, burglary, felony assault, felony theft, felony fraud, and general misdemeanors.
Federal coverage includes the federal general criminal SOL (18 U.S.C. § 3282), as well as specific no-SOL and extended-SOL categories for capital offenses, terrorism, sexual abuse, and fraud. Federal civil coverage includes FLSA, Title VII, ADA, FMLA, Section 1983, the False Claims Act, RICO, copyright, patent, trademark, FTCA, and securities fraud.
What This Tool Doesn't Cover
The tool provides the standard statutory period for each claim type. It does not account for the following, all of which may be dispositive:
- Tolling for minority, mental incapacity, or defendant's absence from the state is listed in the details panel, but the tool's deadline calculation does not automatically apply those adjustments; you need to do that math manually based on your client's specific facts.
- Government notice requirements, pre-suit screening panels (required in some states for medical malpractice), and certificates of merit are flagged in the details but are not built into the deadline clock.
- Continuous treatment and continuous representation doctrines, which toll the SOL in medical and legal malpractice cases respectively while the professional relationship continues, are noted but not calculated.
- Whether a particular state's courts have applied the discovery rule broadly or narrowly varies by case law and is beyond what a lookup tool can capture.
