Statute of Limitations - Reasons For Statutes of Limitation

Reasons For Statutes of Limitation

One reason is that, over time, evidence can be corrupted or disappear, memories fade, crime scenes are changed, and companies dispose of records. The best time to bring a lawsuit is while the evidence is not lost and as close as possible to the alleged illegal behavior. Another reason is that people want to get on with their lives and not have legal battles from their past come up unexpectedly. The injured party has a responsibility to quickly bring about charges so that the process can begin.

Limitations periods begin when a cause of action is deemed to have arisen or when a plaintiff had reason to know of the harm, rather than at the time of the original event. This distinction is significant in cases in which an earlier event causes a later harm (e.g. a surgeon negligently operates on a patient, who subsequently suffers the consequences of that negligence years later)

In a related concept, contracts may also have a term under which they may be the basis of a suit, and after which a plaintiff is held to have waived any right to claim. Under Article VI of the United States Constitution, private contracts cannot be abridged; this provision has been held by the United States Supreme Court to mean that the federal government or a State can only vitiate (annul or invalidate) a contract if it directly opposes an important public policy. Similarly, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, codified into law applicable to European Union countries by the passage civil lawsuit, is said to have accrued when the event beginning its time limitation occurs. Sometimes, it is the event itself that is the subject of the suit or prosecution (such as a crime or personal injury), but it may also be an event such as the discovery of a condition one wishes to redress, such as discovering a defect in a manufactured good, or in the case of controversial "repressed memory" cases where someone discovers memories of childhood sexual abuse long afterwards.

With respect to the United States as a defendant, suits against the government are generally forbidden without some waiver of sovereign immunity. Since the Spending Clause of the United States Constitution vests only Congress with power to spend money from the public fisc, the Supreme Court has held that only Congress may waive sovereign immunity, and Congress may place limitations on any such waiver. Therefore, statutes of limitation are typically seen as a limitation on the waiver of sovereign immunity, which is jurisdictional in nature. This distinguishes the United States from other parties, in that if the statute of limitations has run, a court has no jurisdiction over a case against the United States. Because the Spending Clause does not give any power to the Executive Branch or the Judicial Branch, officials of agencies in the Executive Branch may not enter into agreements tolling the statute of limitations, and courts may not toll the statute of limitations under equitable tolling principles in claims against the United States.