Medical malpractice statute of limitations by state

Each row gives the base filing period, the discovery rule, the repose cap, the minors rule and other rules that move the deadline. The last column links the official statute and says how well we could check it.

How to read the table

• Filing period: the base deadline and when it starts, either the act or omission, the injury, or discovery.
• Discovery rule: extra time when the patient could not have known of the injury. "Judicial" means courts apply it but the statute text does not.
• Repose: the outer limit counted from the act, which usually holds even if the patient never knew.
• Minors: how a child's claim is timed. Many states cap the extra time at a birthday.
• Other rules: fraud, concealment, foreign objects and pre-suit notice rules found in the same sections.
• Statute and check: "Verified twice" means 2 separate reads of the official text agreed on every field. Flagged rows say what could not be checked.

What is the discovery rule in medical malpractice?

The discovery rule starts the clock when the patient knew or should have known of the injury and its likely cause. It exists because many malpractice injuries stay hidden: a missed cancer, a retained sponge, nerve damage that shows up months later.

States handle it in 3 ways. Some build discovery into the main period, such as Illinois, Oregon and Utah. Some add a shorter discovery window on top of a period that runs from the act, such as Alabama (6 months), Michigan (6 months) and Washington (1 year). Others leave it to the courts, such as Arizona, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A few use a pure occurrence rule with no discovery rule in the text, such as New Mexico and South Dakota.

What is a statute of repose?

A statute of repose is a hard outer limit counted from the act or omission. Discovery does not extend it, and in most states minority does not either. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and Tennessee set it at 3 years. Alaska, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas and West Virginia allow up to 10.

The usual exceptions are fraud or concealment by the provider and a foreign object left in the body. Courts have also struck some repose statutes: Pennsylvania's 7-year MCARE repose fell in Yanakos v. UPMC (2019), and the validity of Washington's 8-year repose is disputed.

How do the rules work for minors?

Most states give children more time, then cap it. The caps take 3 forms:

• A birthday deadline for young children, such as the 8th birthday in Alabama, California, Colorado and Indiana, or the 10th in Iowa, Michigan, Virginia and Wisconsin.
• Tolling until 18 with an outer cap, such as Illinois (8 years from the act, never after age 22), Minnesota (max 7 years) and New York (never beyond 10 years after accrual).
• No extra time at all: Louisiana applies its 1-year period to minors, and Utah's statute has no minors clause.

Birth injuries get special rules in some states. New Jersey requires suit before the 13th birthday, Arkansas sets the 5th birthday for injuries during childbirth, and Nevada extends brain damage and birth defect claims until age 10.

Which states move the deadline for pre-suit steps?

Several states require notice or a review panel before suit, and that step can pause or extend the clock. From the sections we read:

• Connecticut: automatic 90-day extension on petition to get the good-faith opinion letter.
• Delaware: a certified-mail Notice of Intent tolls the deadline up to 90 days.
• Indiana: filing the proposed complaint tolls the period until 90 days after the review panel opinion.
• Massachusetts: 182 days' written notice before suit, with exceptions near the deadline.
• Mississippi: 60 days' notice; notice served in the last 60 days extends the deadline 60 days.
• Ohio: a 180-day letter sent within the year extends the deadline.
• Tennessee: proper notice 60 days before filing extends the deadline by 120 days.
• Texas: the 60-day notice of claim tolls the period for 75 days.
• Maryland: filing with the Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office counts as filing the action.

Other states have panels, affidavits or notice rules outside the sections in this table. Check them separately.

The dates that start the clock are in the records

Every rule in the table hangs on a date: the procedure, the last visit in a course of treatment, the first note that names the complication, the day the patient was told. Those dates sit inside hundreds or thousands of pages, often spread across several providers.

Medrecords AI reads the records at 100 pages a minute and builds a medical chronology with a page cite on every entry. You see when treatment started and ended, when the injury first shows up in the chart, and where a gap might matter. It does not calculate the deadline or give legal advice. Counsel applies the statute; the chronology gives counsel the dates. For more on how a chronology is built, see what a medical chronology is.

How we checked each state

We ran 2 separate research passes. Each pass read the statute for every state, from the official legislature or code site where one exists, and recorded the period, discovery rule, repose, minors rule and other rules with the citation and URL. We then compared the 2 passes field by field and resolved every difference against the official text.

All 50 states agree on the base period across both passes. 46 rows were read twice in official text. 4 rows carry a flag:

• Arkansas: Partly verified: subsection (c) read twice in the official 2025 Acts; subsections (a) and (b) read on Justia only, because the official code is on LexisNexis public access.
• Georgia: Not verified in the official code: the official O.C.G.A. is on LexisNexis public access, which blocked automated reads. Both passes read Justia and agree.
• Mississippi: Partly verified: read in the official 2002 enacted bill (HB 2) and on Justia; later amendments not checked in the official code.
• Tennessee: Not verified in the official code: the official code is on LexisNexis public access, which blocked automated reads. Both passes read Justia and Tennessee court opinions and agree; § 29-26-121 was read in Public Chapter 425 of 2009.

Some verified rows carry a narrower note, such as Montana's 2025 change from 3 years to 2, Florida's renumbered subsection and Vermont's unofficial online copy. Case law that changes how a statute applies was not reviewed unless the row says so.

The short answer

Assume 2 years unless your state's row says otherwise, and assume the clock may have started at the act, not at discovery. Then check the 4 things that change the answer:

• Discovery: does your state add time when the injury could not have been known?
• Repose: is there an outer cap from the act that discovery cannot extend?
• Minors: was the patient a child, and which birthday ends the extra time?
• Pre-suit steps: does a notice, panel or affidavit pause or extend the deadline?

Then pin down the dates in the records. Bring us your ugliest case. Book a demo. First case is free on us.

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