First and foremost, there are many factors that can affect how long a person has to initiate their claim for personal injury compensation. The advice in this blog is for general guidance only and is in no way legal advice in relation to how long you have to make a claim.
For advice on how long you personally have, call our team on 0800 634 7575. For general guidance and ideas, this blog may be of use to you for claims under England and Wales jurisdiction.
The “three year” rule
The most common time limit for making a claim is three years from the date of an event. Under the Limitation Act a person normally must settle their claim or issue a claim with the court prior to the expiry of this relevant limitation period. If you don’t, the claim may become ‘statute barred’ which means you may be unable to continue with or initiate a claim without special permission from the court.
An expired limitation period is normally for the Defendant in a case (i.e. the person or organisation you are pursuing) to raise it as a defence. Generally speaking most cases are subject to the three year rule which starts from the date of an accident or an event.
In medical negligence cases things can be very different however.
Date of knowledge of negligence
There may be no ‘event’ as such that caused your injuries. It could be that you were misdiagnosed or given incorrect or inadequate treatment which left a condition unresolved or more complicated. As there is no ‘event’ the limitation period can be calculated using the ‘date of knowledge of negligence.’
What this can mean is when you became aware that you had been subject to negligence. For example this could be the day you are informed that a misdiagnosis has taken place; or this could be the date you had a scan and someone realised that you hadn’t been properly diagnosed. Here you may be able to run the three year period from the ‘date of knowledge’ given there is no event.
As such, in theory, you may only know that you have been the victim of negligence many years after treatment or even many years after an event. However, if you have had your own concerns about something and you have not investigated this with your doctors or otherwise, you may be unable to rely upon the date of knowledge rule.
Children
Generally speaking children have three years from the date of their 18th birthday to make a claim – i.e. until they are 21. The reason for this is that they normally cannot bring a claim themselves until they reach the age of majority (i.e. 18) and if their parents don’t make the claim then their position is prejudiced until they can bring the case themselves.
When should I bring my claim?
As a reminder the information in this blog is for general guidance only and cannot be used by you to work out what your limitation period might be. For advice about this you need to speak to us on 0800 634 7575.
But you should in any event make your claim as soon as you possibly can. It is always within your interests to initiate a claim at the absolute earliest opportunity to avoid falling foul of any limitation laws and to ensure evidence and memory of events are fresh in your mind.
