What Is the Statute of Limitations in Massachusetts? Every Deadline by Claim Type

Massachusetts does not have one statute of limitations. It has dozens, and the one that applies to you depends entirely on what kind of claim you have. The three deadlines that catch most people are three years for personal injury and most other tort claims under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A, six years for ordinary contract claims under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2, and four years for consumer protection claims including Chapter 93A under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 5A. But a claim against a city or town requires a written presentment within two years, a claim against a doctor or hospital is barred outright seven years after the treatment no matter when you discovered the harm, a workers compensation claim runs four years from when you first connected your disability to your job, and a discrimination complaint must reach the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination within 300 days. The table below sets out every common deadline with the statute it comes from, each one read from the text on malegislature.gov. If a deadline passes, the claim is normally gone regardless of how strong it was, so the only safe assumption is that yours is shorter than you think. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.

Every Common Massachusetts Deadline in One Table

Each row cites the section it comes from. The right-hand column is the event the clock usually starts from, and that is where most disputes actually happen.

Claim type	Deadline	Statute	Clock generally starts
Personal injury and most torts	3 years	c. 260, sec. 2A	when the cause of action accrues
Property damage from a tort	3 years	c. 260, sec. 2A	when the cause of action accrues
Wrongful death	3 years	c. 229, sec. 2	date of death, or discovery of the factual basis
Medical malpractice	3 years, outer limit 7	c. 260, sec. 4	accrual, with a 7 year repose from the act
Legal malpractice, accountants	3 years	c. 260, sec. 4	when the cause of action accrues
Assault and battery, false imprisonment	3 years	c. 260, sec. 4	when the cause of action accrues
Libel and slander	3 years	c. 260, sec. 4	when the cause of action accrues
Injury claim against a city or town	3 years, presentment in 2	c. 260, sec. 4 and c. 258, sec. 4	when the cause of action arose
Claim against the Commonwealth	3 years, presentment in 2	c. 258, sec. 4	when the cause of action arose
Hit and run, driver unidentified	6 months from learning the identity, never past 3 years	c. 260, sec. 4B	when you learn who the driver is
Construction and design defect	3 years, outer limit 6	c. 260, sec. 2B	accrual, with repose from completion or opening
Ordinary contract	6 years	c. 260, sec. 2	when the cause of action accrues
Sale of goods, breach of warranty	4 years	c. 106, sec. 2-725	when the breach occurs, usually delivery
Consumer protection, Chapter 93A	4 years	c. 260, sec. 5A	when the cause of action accrues
Civil rights	3 years	c. 260, sec. 5B	when the cause of action accrues
Discrimination, MCAD complaint	300 days	c. 151B, sec. 5	the alleged act of discrimination
Discrimination, court action	3 years	c. 151B, sec. 9	the unlawful practice
Unpaid wages, Wage Act	3 years	c. 149, sec. 150	the violation
Workers compensation claim	4 years	c. 152, sec. 41	awareness of the link between disability and work
Sexual abuse of a minor	35 years, or 7 from discovery, whichever is later	c. 260, sec. 4C	the acts, tolled until age eighteen
Certain enumerated actions	20 years	c. 260, sec. 1	when the cause of action accrues

Two warnings belong with that table rather than under it. First, more than one deadline can run against the same set of facts at the same time, and the shortest one controls what you can still do. A crash caused by a municipal snow plough is an injury claim with a three-year court deadline and a two-year presentment requirement, and missing the second one ends the case even though the first is still open. Second, “the clock generally starts when the cause of action accrues” is doing a great deal of work in that column. Accrual is not always the date of the accident, and when it is disputed it is decided by a judge on the facts of that case.

Answer Capsule

Massachusetts sets its limitation periods by claim type rather than with a single rule. The core deadlines, each read from the statute text on malegislature.gov: personal injury and most other tort actions, three years, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A; wrongful death, three years from death or from when the executor or administrator knew or reasonably should have known of the factual basis, M.G.L. c. 229, sec. 2; medical malpractice against physicians, surgeons, dentists, optometrists, hospitals and sanitoria, three years with an outer limit of seven years from the act or omission except where a foreign object was left in the body, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4; legal malpractice, accountants, assault and battery, false imprisonment, libel and slander, and tort actions for injuries to the person against counties, cities and towns, three years, same section; claims against any public employer, written presentment within two years and no civil action more than three years after accrual, M.G.L. c. 258, sec. 4; ordinary contract actions other than for personal injuries, six years, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2; breach of a contract for the sale of goods, four years, M.G.L. c. 106, sec. 2-725; consumer protection actions including Chapter 93A, four years, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 5A; civil rights, three years, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 5B; discrimination, a complaint to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination within 300 days under M.G.L. c. 151B, sec. 5 and a court action within three years under section 9; unpaid wages, three years, M.G.L. c. 149, sec. 150; workers compensation, four years from when the employee first became aware of the causal relationship between the disability and the employment, M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 41; construction and design defect, three years with a six-year repose from the earlier of opening to use or substantial completion, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2B; hit and run where the driver was never identified, six months after the plaintiff learns the defendant’s identity provided written notice went to the police and the registrar within thirty days, and never more than three years after the incident, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4B; sexual abuse of a minor, 35 years from the acts or 7 years from discovery, whichever expires later, tolled until the child turns eighteen, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4C. Deadlines can be extended by minority or incapacity under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 7, by a defendant’s fraudulent concealment under section 12, and by the savings statute in section 32, which allows a new action within one year after a timely case is dismissed for insufficient service, the death of a party, or any matter of form. More than one deadline commonly runs on the same facts and the shortest governs. This is general information and not legal advice. Call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.

Injury, Death and the Three-Year Rule

Section 2A of chapter 260 is the provision most people are actually looking for. Its text is short: except as otherwise provided, actions of tort, actions of contract to recover for personal injuries, and actions of replevin shall be commenced only within three years next after the cause of action accrues. That single sentence covers car crashes, slip and falls, dog bites, defective products, most premises claims, and property damage caused by someone else’s negligence. It is also the section with the largest number of exceptions sitting on top of it, which is why the phrase “except as otherwise provided” opens it.

Wrongful death is one of those exceptions, and it lives in a different chapter entirely. M.G.L. c. 229, sec. 2 provides that an action to recover damages under it shall be commenced within three years from the date of death, or within three years from the date when the deceased’s executor or administrator knew, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known, of the factual basis for a cause of action. The practical consequence is that the clock in a death case runs from the death rather than from the injury that caused it, and that the person who has to act is the estate’s representative, which means somebody has to be appointed before the case can be brought. That appointment is not instantaneous, and it is a common reason families arrive at a lawyer with less time than they assumed. The rest of how a Massachusetts death claim works is in the wrongful death claim article.

The three-year rule is treated at length, with the discovery rule and the minors rule worked through, in the statute of limitations for a personal injury claim article. This page does not repeat that analysis.

Medical Malpractice and the Seven-Year Wall

The second paragraph of M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4 sets a deadline and then sets a second, harder one behind it. Actions of contract or tort for malpractice, error or mistake against physicians, surgeons, dentists, optometrists, hospitals and sanitoria must be commenced within three years after the cause of action accrues, but in no event more than seven years after the occurrence of the act or omission alleged to have caused the injury, except where the action is based upon the leaving of a foreign object in the body.

That seven-year clause is a statute of repose rather than a statute of limitations, and the difference matters enormously. A limitation period can be extended by the discovery rule, because it runs from when you knew or should have known. A repose period cannot. It runs from the doctor’s act, and it expires whether or not anybody has discovered anything. A patient who learns in year eight that a surgical decision in year one caused a permanent injury has a claim that was extinguished before it was discoverable, unless the case falls within the foreign-object exception.

Children get a separate rule under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 60D. A minor’s claim against a health care provider must be commenced within three years of accrual, except that a minor under the full age of six has until the ninth birthday. The seven-year repose still applies, and so does the foreign-object exception. The detail is in the medical malpractice statute of limitations article.

Claims Against a City, a Town, or the Commonwealth

This is the deadline that ends the most claims in Massachusetts, and it is not really a limitation period at all. M.G.L. c. 258, sec. 4 provides that a civil action shall not be instituted against a public employer under the Tort Claims Act unless the claimant has first presented the claim in writing to the executive officer of that public employer within two years after the date upon which the cause of action arose. The same section then adds that no civil action shall be brought more than three years after accrual.

So there are two clocks, and they run at once. Miss the three-year one and you lose the case. Miss the two-year written presentment and you also lose the case, a full year earlier, before the ordinary deadline has even come into view. The section also names who counts as the right recipient: in a city or town, presentment is sufficient if made to the mayor, city manager, town manager, corporation counsel, city solicitor, town counsel, city clerk, town clerk, chairman of the board of selectmen, or executive secretary of the board of selectmen. Against the Commonwealth or any of its departments, offices, commissions, boards, bureaus, institutions, agencies or authorities, presentment goes to the attorney general.

Anything involving a public road, a public school, a municipal vehicle, a public building, a transit authority or a public hospital is potentially inside this chapter. The practical rule is to treat any injury with a government body anywhere near it as a two-year case and to get the letter out early. The mechanics are set out in suing a government entity in Massachusetts.

Money, Contracts and Consumers

Ordinary contract claims get six years under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2, which by its own terms covers actions of contract other than those to recover for personal injuries, founded upon contracts or liabilities express or implied, with exceptions for the actions listed in section 1 and for actions upon judgments or decrees of courts of record. The most important thing to notice in that sentence is the carve-out for personal injuries: a contract claim that is really an injury claim gets three years under section 2A, not six.

Contracts for the sale of goods are governed by the Uniform Commercial Code rather than by chapter 260. M.G.L. c. 106, sec. 2-725 gives four years, running from when the breach occurs regardless of the aggrieved party’s lack of knowledge of it, and provides that a breach of warranty occurs when tender of delivery is made unless the warranty explicitly extends to future performance. The parties may shorten that period by agreement to not less than one year, and they may not extend it. Contract terms that shorten a deadline are common in commercial paperwork and are easy to miss.

Consumer protection actions get four years under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 5A, which enumerates the consumer statutes it covers and includes chapter 93A by name. Chapter 93A carries a separate procedural requirement that is not a limitation period but functions like one: under M.G.L. c. 93A, sec. 9(3), a written demand for relief must be mailed or delivered to the prospective respondent at least thirty days before filing. Waiting until the four-year mark to think about a 93A claim leaves no room for that thirty-day window. How the demand letter itself works is covered in the Massachusetts 93A demand letter.

Work, Wages and Discrimination

Workers compensation runs on its own chapter and its own clock. M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 41 requires notice to the insurer or insured as soon as practicable, and requires that any claim for compensation be filed within four years from the date the employee first became aware of the causal relationship between the disability and the employment. In a death case, no claim may be made later than four years after the death. The four-year clock is deliberately built around awareness rather than around the date of an accident, because occupational disease and repetitive injury often have no accident date at all. The section also provides that paying compensation or filing a claim tolls the limitation period for other benefits due for that injury. What the benefits themselves look like is covered in how long workers comp lasts in Massachusetts.

Unpaid wages are different again. M.G.L. c. 149, sec. 150 lets an employee bring a private action for a violation of the Wage Act ninety days after filing a complaint with the attorney general, or sooner with the attorney general’s written assent, and within three years after the violation. That three-year period is tolled from the date the complaint is filed with the attorney general until the attorney general issues a letter authorising a private right of action or an enforcement action becomes final.

Discrimination carries the shortest deadline on this page. M.G.L. c. 151B, sec. 5 provides that any complaint filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination must be filed within 300 days after the alleged act of discrimination. Section 9 then allows a civil action in the Superior or Probate Court, but not later than three years after the alleged unlawful practice occurred, and generally not before ninety days have passed since the commission complaint was filed. Three hundred days is a little under ten months, and it is the deadline people most often discover after it has gone.

The Rules That Move the Deadline

Four provisions of chapter 260 can change a date that otherwise looks fixed.

Minority and incapacity. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 7 provides that if the person entitled to bring an action is a minor, or is incapacitated by reason of mental illness when the right first accrues, the action may be commenced within the time otherwise limited after the disability is removed. For an injured child that generally means the ordinary period runs from the eighteenth birthday rather than from the injury. Medical malpractice is the notable exception, because c. 231, sec. 60D says so expressly and opens by disclaiming section 7.

Fraudulent concealment. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 12 provides that if a person liable to a personal action fraudulently conceals the cause of that action from the person entitled to bring it, the period before discovery is excluded from the calculation. This is narrower than it sounds. It is about concealment by the defendant, not about the plaintiff not having got round to it.

The savings statute. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 32 is the provision most people have never heard of and the one that occasionally rescues a case. If an action commenced in time is dismissed for insufficient service of process by reason of unavoidable accident or the neglect of the officer serving it, or because of the death of a party, or for any matter of form, or if a judgment for the plaintiff is later vacated or reversed, a new action for the same cause may be commenced within one year of that dismissal or reversal. It buys a year after a procedural failure. It does not buy anything for a case that was never filed.

The hit and run provision. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4B is a rare extension written into the statute itself. Where the operator failed to make himself or the owner known at the time of the accident, an action may be commenced within six months after the plaintiff learns the identity of the defendant, notwithstanding any other limitation, provided that written notice of the time, place and facts of the accident was given to the police and to the registrar of motor vehicles within thirty days of the accident. That thirty-day notice is a condition, not a formality. And the section closes the door absolutely: no action may be brought under it after three years from the date of the incident. What the criminal side of leaving the scene looks like is covered in Massachusetts hit and run penalties.

Filing Is the Event, Not Notifying the Insurer

One misunderstanding is common enough to be worth stating on its own. The statute of limitations is satisfied by commencing an action in court. It is not satisfied by reporting the claim, by opening a file with an adjuster, by exchanging letters, by sending a demand, or by being in active settlement discussions on the day the period ends. Negotiations do not stop the clock, and an insurer is under no obligation to remind anyone that it is about to run out. Claims that were being handled cooperatively right up to the deadline are still barred the day after it. How the negotiation timeline usually runs, and where it tends to stall, is set out in the Massachusetts car accident settlement timeline.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the general statute of limitations in Massachusetts?

A: There is no single one. Massachusetts sets limitation periods by claim type. The three that cover most situations are three years for personal injury and most other tort actions under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A, six years for ordinary contract actions under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2, and four years for consumer protection actions including Chapter 93A under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 5A. Anyone looking for one number is usually looking for the three-year tort period, but that is the right answer only if the claim is a tort claim and no exception applies.

Q: How long do I have to sue after a car accident in Massachusetts?

A: Three years from the date the cause of action accrues, under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A, for the ordinary case against another private driver. Three separate situations shorten that. If a city, town, the Commonwealth or a public authority is involved, a written presentment must reach the right executive officer within two years under M.G.L. c. 258, sec. 4. If someone died, the wrongful death period in M.G.L. c. 229, sec. 2 runs from the date of death and requires an appointed executor or administrator to bring it. If the other driver left the scene and was never identified, M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4B applies, and it requires written notice to the police and the registrar within thirty days of the accident.

Q: Does the three-year deadline start on the day of the accident?

A: Usually, but not always, and the exceptions are not rare. Section 2A runs from when the cause of action accrues, which is a legal question rather than a calendar one. Where an injury or its cause could not reasonably have been known at the time, the accrual date can be later, which is why occupational disease and toxic exposure cases can proceed years after the exposure. That is worked through in proving asbestos exposure in a Massachusetts claim. Because accrual can be contested, the safe practice is to treat the date of the incident as the start and to seek advice long before the third anniversary.

Q: What happens if I miss the statute of limitations?

A: The defendant raises it and the case is normally dismissed, without any consideration of whether the claim was a good one. There is no general judicial power to extend a limitation period because a claim has merit or because the delay was understandable. The narrow escapes written into the statutes are the ones described above: minority or incapacity under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 7, fraudulent concealment by the defendant under section 12, the savings statute in section 32 after a timely case is dismissed on a matter of form, and the specific hit-and-run extension in section 4B. None of them is a general excuse for having waited.

Q: Is the deadline different for suing a city or town in Massachusetts?

A: Yes, and it is the shortest trap in Massachusetts injury law. M.G.L. c. 258, sec. 4 requires a written presentment of the claim to the public employer’s executive officer within two years after the cause of action arose, and separately bars any civil action brought more than three years after accrual. Both must be met. In a city or town, presentment is sufficient if made to the mayor, city manager, town manager, corporation counsel, city solicitor, town counsel, city clerk, town clerk, chairman of the board of selectmen, or executive secretary of the board of selectmen; against the Commonwealth or a state agency it goes to the attorney general. A claim involving a public road, school, vehicle, building or transit authority should be treated as a two-year case from day one.

Q: How long do I have to file a discrimination complaint in Massachusetts?

A: Three hundred days from the alleged act of discrimination for a complaint to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, under M.G.L. c. 151B, sec. 5. A civil action under section 9 must be brought not later than three years after the unlawful practice occurred, and generally may not be started until ninety days after the commission complaint was filed unless a commissioner assents in writing. The 300-day figure is the one that ends cases, because it is under ten months and it runs from the act rather than from when the effect of the act became clear.

Q: What is a statute of repose, and how is it different?

A: A statute of limitations runs from when a claim accrues, so it can be delayed by a discovery rule or by a tolling provision. A statute of repose runs from a fixed event and expires whether or not anyone knew there was anything to sue about. Massachusetts has two that matter here. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4 bars a malpractice action against a physician, surgeon, dentist, optometrist, hospital or sanitorium more than seven years after the act or omission, except where the claim is based on leaving a foreign object in the body. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2B bars a design or construction defect action more than six years after the earlier of the opening of the improvement to use or its substantial completion and the owner’s taking possession, which is why an injury on a building fifteen years old can have no claim against the people who built it. Construction injury claims and their overlapping deadlines are covered in the Massachusetts construction site injury claim.

Q: Can two different deadlines apply to the same accident?

A: Routinely, and the shortest one is the one that decides what is still possible. A single incident can generate an injury claim at three years, a presentment requirement at two years if a public body is involved, a workers compensation claim at four years from awareness if it happened at work, a product claim against a manufacturer at three years with a possible warranty period of four under M.G.L. c. 106, sec. 2-725, and a Chapter 93A claim at four years with a thirty-day demand requirement in front of it. They do not queue up politely. They run at the same time from different starting events, and each one that expires removes an option permanently.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This is general information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every deadline on this page is quoted from the statute, but which one applies to a particular situation, when it started to run, and whether anything tolled it are questions that depend on facts this article cannot know. Nothing here should be used to calculate your own deadline. For advice about a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS.

Talking to a Lawyer

The reason deadlines are worth writing about at this length is that they are the only part of a claim where being right does not help. Liability can be argued, damages can be proved, an unhelpful fact can be explained. A date cannot. When a limitation period has run, the case ends on the calendar and the merits are never reached.

Two things follow from that, and both are practical. The first is that the useful moment to find out which deadline applies is early, when there is still room to act on the answer, rather than in the last few weeks when there is not. The second is that the deadlines which end the most Massachusetts claims are not the famous three-year one. They are the two-year presentment under the Tort Claims Act, the 300-day discrimination filing, the thirty-day police and registrar notice in a hit and run, and the seven-year medical repose. All four are shorter than people expect, and three of the four are requirements most people have never heard of.

Jim Glaser Law handles injury and accident claims throughout Massachusetts. Fees are contingent, meaning there is no fee unless there is a recovery, and the client may be responsible for costs and expenses.

The number is (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.