Why Does Timing Matter In A Maryland Personal Injury Case ?
There is a theme running through life: “Timing is Everything”. There is a theme running through the law: those who “sleep on their rights” should, at some point in time, be precluded from pursuing or exercising those rights. There is a third euphemism [or colloquialism, or metaphor, or some manner of description for verbal device] suggesting that SOL is not perhaps an acronym for “Statute of Limitations” but rather perhaps stands for “Sh*t Out Of Luck”. This article explores where those concepts may meet in a Baltimore Personal Injury case.
Perhaps the clearest example of this concept is embodied in the various statutes of limitation that dictate when an aggrieved individual must raise their claim in a court of law, or be forever precluded from doing so subsequently. As attorney Eric T. Kirk will tell you, in Maryland the statute of limitations for negligence, and indeed for many civil actions, is 3 years from the date of the injury-causing event. A similar principle -called laches- does not utilize a specific time frame. Rather, this doctrine is premised on equitable considerations used to determine whether or not an individual has simply waited too long to pursue their claim. The basic underpinning here is that -after the passage of a given amount of time or a flexible amount of time in the case of laches- evidence may be lost, memories may fade, and an individual might be confronted with a lawsuit or claim after valuable defensive materials have been lost.
Limitations v: Laches: Is your Baltimore Injury Case Lost?
Both laches and the statute of limitations [SOL] are legal doctrines that address whether a lawsuit was filed too late. However, they differ in how they work and when they apply.
The statute of limitations is a law that sets a specific deadline for filing a lawsuit, depending on the type of claim. In Baltimore, personal injury claims must be filed within three years from the date of the injury. These deadlines are fixed by statute, meaning if you file a lawsuit even one day late, the court can dismiss it regardless of the circumstances. The SOL promotes certainty, finality, and fairness by encouraging timely legal action.
Laches, on the other hand, is an equitable defense that applies when a party unreasonably delays asserting a right and that delay prejudices the other party. Unlike the statute of limitations, laches does not rely on a specific time period set by law. Instead, it is based on fairness. For example, if someone waits many years to file a lawsuit—outside any legal deadline—and the delay has made it harder for the defendant to defend themselves (e.g., lost evidence, faded memories, or witnesses no longer available), the court may deny relief under the doctrine of laches.
In short, the statute of limitations is strict and based on time, while laches is flexible and based on fairness and harm from delay. Laches almost always arises in equitable cases like injunctions or property disputes, whereas the statute of limitations governs legal claims like personal injury, contract disputes, or fraud. Both doctrines aim to prevent stale claims, but they do so through different lenses—legal certainty vs. equitable fairness.
Can I “WAIVE” my Baltimore Personal Injury Case?
The failure to timely assert a claim or a right can also result in a judicial determination of waiver. In this context, an individual who has a legal or contractual right to take a given action, but for whatever reason opts not to, may be deemed to have foregone their chance to exercise their rights, privileges or options.
SOR [Statute of Respose] v SOL
Statutes of repose are typically stricter and favored by defendants like architects, manufacturers, and builders who want certainty and protection from indefinite liability.
A statute of repose is a legal time limit that completely bars a claim after a certain number of years, regardless of whether the injury or problem was discovered during that time.
Unlike a statute of limitations, which usually begins when a plaintiff discovers (or should have discovered) the injury, a statute of repose starts running from a fixed event, such as:
- The date a product was manufactured or sold
- The date a building was completed
- The date a medical procedure was performed
The failure to act, although not necessarily addressed by strict legal doctrines, can also have deleterious, negative consequences for a Maryland car accident injury claim. Although more of a practical consideration rather than a strict legal requirement, individuals who do not promptly seek medical attention after an injury-causing event may later be confronted with the assertion that their failure to seek medical care in the hours after an accident was suggestive of them not being injured at all, or at least not seriously. It can be an insulting and infuriating suggestion. This is a position frequently taken by claims adjusters during the negotiation process, and by skilled defense attorneys working for the insurance company at trial.
The failure to promptly secure vital evidence can lead to similar difficulty. In this related concept, those who do not promptly seek to gather and preserve evidence may find that when that evidence is needed at trial or during the litigation phase of the case, that evidence has been lost, misplaced, destroyed, erased or is otherwise unavailable. It should also be noted that in addition to the statutes of limitation discussed above, if a claim is ultimately to be brought against a government entity in Maryland, notice must be given to that entity well ahead of the filing of any legal claim. The State of Maryland and its political subdivisions are entitled to receive written notice in a specified manner within just one year of the injury causing event. Failure to give this notice will have the same effect as not filing within the applicable statute of limitations. That is to say, the injured individual will be precluded from subsequently pursuing their claim in a court of law even though they filed within three years.
- Baltimore Personal Injury Trial Lawyer Eric T. Kirk
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A Baltimore car accident and personal injury litigator who has taken hundreds of cases to trial, winning millions over a 30-year mission to obtain fair and just compensation, which has been unfairly and unjustly denied to his clients.
