Plain-English guides to legal deadlines, statutes of limitations, and how courts count days. The rules are not intuitive. That is not an accident.
A statute of limitations sets the outer deadline for filing a civil claim. Miss it and the court dismisses the case on procedural grounds alone, with no interest in the merits.
Read →Personal injury statutes of limitations run two years in California (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. section 335.1), two years in Texas, and three years in New York. Same tort, different clock.
Read →How courts count days depends on whether a rule specifies calendar days, court days, or business days, and whether day zero is included. FRCP Rule 6 spells out the federal method. State courts have their own.
Read →Under the discovery rule, the limitations clock starts when you knew or reasonably should have known about the harm. Courts will debate 'should have known' at considerable length.
Read →Tolling pauses the statute of limitations clock. Minority, mental incapacity, and fraudulent concealment by the defendant are recognized grounds in most states.
Read →Missing a filing deadline usually means dismissal. The exceptions are narrow: Rule 60(b) relief, equitable tolling, or a successful argument that the deadline was counted wrong. None of them are easy.
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