Statute of limitations

Statutes of limitations are written laws passed by a legislative body in common law systems to restrict the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings may be initiated.[1] Once the period of time specified in a statute of limitation passes, a claim can no longer be validly filed. The intentions of these laws can facilitate the resolution in a reasonable amount of time.[2] In civil law systems, similar provisions are typically part of the civil code or criminal code and are often known collectively as periods of prescription. There are very strict guidelines, but the cause of action dictates the statute of limitations on a civil case, where contracts, personal injury, libel and fraud cases legal or equitable remedy. These statutes can be reduced or extended to ensure a fair trial.[3] Once a statute in a criminal actions case expires the court no longer has jurisdiction to punish the defendant. Analysis of a statute of limitations necessarily includes the examination of any associated statute of repose, tolling provisions, and exclusions.

Applications

Common law legal systems use a statute which specifies the amount of time a claimant or prosecutor has to file a case, including criminal cases. A case cannot commence after the time period specified. Courts have no jurisdiction over cases filed after the statute of limitation "has run" or expired. Once filed, ongoing cases do not need to resolve within the period specified in the statute of limitation.

Purpose

The purpose and effect of statutes of limitations is to protect defendants. There are three reasons supporting the existence of statutes of limitations, namely: (a) a plaintiff with good causes of actions should pursue them with reasonable diligence; (b) a defendant might have lost evidence to disprove a stale claim; and (c) long dormant claims have more cruelty than justice in them (Halsbury's Laws of England, 4th edition). The general rule is the limitation period begins when the plaintiff’s cause of action accrues or is made to be aware of the injury that might have happened a long time ago (e.g., asbestos injury).

In Classical Athens a five-year statute of limitations was established for all cases other than homicide and for prosecutions against non-constitutional laws, which had no limitation. Demosthenes wrote that these statutes of limitations were adopted specifically to control sycophants (i.e. professional "accusers").[4]

Statute of repose

A statute of limitations is a specific type of statute of repose that measures the time allowed for initiating an action based on an injury (or, in some cases, the discovery of an injury) and can be extended for a variety of reasons (such as the minority of the victim). Other statutes of repose limit the time within which an action may be brought based upon when a particular event occurred, such as the completion of construction of a building or the purchase of manufactured goods, and often do not allow for extensions. Once the statute of repose has expired, no further actions may be brought relating to that event, regardless of when a related injury occurred or was discovered.

For example, if a person is electrocuted by a wiring defect that occurred during construction of a building, the builder is only liable for damages if the suit is brought within a certain number of years after construction was completed. After that point, any injuries that occur are reckoned to be due to the natural degradation of the structure or a lack of proper maintenance, rather than due to the builder's actions.

Statues of repose are sometimes controversial, as manufacturers contend that they are necessary to avoid unfair litigation and encourage consumers to maintain their property, while consumer advocates argue that they reduce incentives to manufacture durable products and disproportionately affect poor individuals.

Tolling and the discovery rule

Lawsuits are unlikely to be successful if they are filed after the end of the statute of limitations time period. However, most jurisdictions provide limitations are tolled, or delayed, under certain circumstances. Examples of such circumstances are if the aggrieved party (plaintiff) is a minor, or the plaintiff has filed a bankruptcy proceeding. In those instances, in most jurisdictions, the running of limitations is tolled (paused) until the condition ends. Equitable tolling may also be applied if an individual is in a position to intimidate another person into not reporting or has been promised a suspended period.

The statute of limitations may begin either when the harmful event such as fraud or injury, occurs or when it is discovered. The Supreme Court of the United States has described the "standard rule" as to when the time begins to be "when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action", which it describes as being in place since the 1830s.[5] However, a different rule called the "discovery rule" applies in many other cases, including often in medical malpractice, or a similar effect may be applied through tolling. As discussed in Wolk v. Olson, the discovery rule does not apply to mass-media publications such as newspapers and the Internet; the statute of limitations begins to run at the date of publication. In 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unanimously in Gabelli v. SEC that the discovery rule does not apply to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's investment advisor fraud lawsuits, as a purpose of the agency is to root out fraud.[6]

Generally speaking, in the case of private, civil matters, the limitations period may be shortened or lengthened by agreement of the parties. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, the parties to a contract for sale of goods may reduce the limitations period to not less than one year but may not extend it.

Although such limitations periods generally are issues of law, limitations periods known as laches may apply in situations of equity (a judge will not issue an injunction if the party requesting the injunction waited too long to ask for it). Such periods are not clearly defined and are subject to broad judicial discretion.

For U.S. military cases, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) states that all charges except for those facing general court martial (where a death sentence could be involved) have a five-year statute of limitation. This statute changes once charges have been prepared against the service member. In all supposed UCMJ violations except for those headed for general court martial, should the charges be dropped, there is a six-month window in which the charges can be reinstated. If those six months have passed and the charges have not been reinstated, the statutes of limitation have run out.

Prescription

In civil law countries, almost all lawsuits must be started within a legally determined period. If they are presented after that time, an institution called prescription applies, which prevents them from filing the case.

The Italian law[7] and Romanian law[8] are quite peculiar in this regard since lawsuits and trials must be ended, rather than started, within such a time limit and this applies only to criminal proceedings. This makes it effectively possible to avoid a guilty sentence by delaying the trial enough for the time limit to expire.

For criminal cases, this means that the public prosecutor must prosecute within some time limit. The time limit varies from country to country, and increases with seriousness of the alleged crime (for example, in most jurisdictions, there is no statute of limitations for murder). When a time limit is suspended, it does not run (akin to hitting "Stop" on a stopwatch). Common triggers include the defendant being on the run. When a time limit is interrupted, it is restarted (like hitting "Reset" on a stopwatch). This may be triggered by a new crime committed.

If a criminal is on the run, he can be convicted in absentia,[9] in order to prevent prescription, or the time limit does not elapse during that time.

The prescription must not be confused with the need to prosecute within "a reasonable delay", an obligation imposed by the European Court of Human Rights. Whether the delay is reasonable or not, will depend on the complexity of the trial and the attitude of the suspect.

Exclusions

International crimes

By way of custom of international law, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes are usually not subject to statute of limitations, nor to prescription. This custom has been codified in a number of multilateral treaties. States that ratify the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity agree to not allow limitations claims for these crimes. Article 29 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes "shall not be subject to any statute of limitations".

United States

Fraud upon the court

In the United States, when an officer of the court is found to have fraudulently presented facts to court so that the court is impaired in the impartial performance of its legal task, the act, known as "fraud upon the court", is a crime deemed so severe and fundamentally opposed to the operation of justice it is not subject to any statute of limitation.

Officers of the court include: lawyers, judges, referees and those appointed; guardian ad litem, parenting time expeditors, mediators, rule 114 neutrals, evaluators, administrators, special appointees and any others whose influence are part of the judicial mechanism.

"Fraud upon the court" has been defined by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to "embrace that species of fraud which does, or attempts to, defile the court itself, or is a fraud perpetrated by officers of the court so that the judicial machinery can not perform in the usual manner its impartial task of adjudging cases that are presented for adjudication".[10]

In Bulloch v. United States,[11] the court stated "Fraud upon the court is fraud which is directed to the judicial machinery itself and is not fraud between the parties or fraudulent documents, false statements or perjury.... It is where the court or a member is corrupted or influenced or influence is attempted or where the judge has not performed his judicial function—thus where the impartial functions of the court have been directly corrupted."

Heinous crimes in the United States

Crimes that are considered exceptionally heinous by society have no statute of limitations. As a rule, there is no statute of limitations for murder, especially capital or first-degree murder. However, judges have been known to throw out murder charges for cold cases if they feel the delay violates the defendant's right to a speedy trial.[12]

Continuing violations doctrine

In tort law, if a defendant commits a series of illegal acts against another person, or, in criminal law, if someone commits a continuing crime (like molesting a child over a long period of time, which can be charged as a single offense), the period of limitation may begin to run from the last act in the series. In the 8th Circuit case of Treanor v. MCI Telecommunications, Inc., the court explained that the continuing violations doctrine "tolls [i.e freezes] the statute of limitations in situations where a continuing pattern forms due to [illegal] acts occurring over a period of time, as long as at least one incident ... occurred within the limitations period."[13] In the United States, however, there has been doctrinal confusion in the courts regarding whether or not the continuing violations doctrine applies to particular violations. For example, the continuing violations doctrine has been ruled to apply to copyright infringement per Taylor v. Meirick 712 F.2d 1112, 1119 (7th Cir. 1983) but has been ruled not to apply per Stone v. Williams, 970 F.2d 1043, 1049–50 (2d Cir. 1992).[14]

Canada

For crimes other than summary (non-serious) offences, there is no statute of limitations in Canadian criminal law. Therefore, for indictable (serious) offences such as major theft, murder, kidnapping or sexual assault, a defendant can be charged at any future date.[15] In some cases, warrants have remained outstanding for more than 20 years.

In civil cases, limitations vary by province.[16] The province of Ontario introduced a new Limitations Act, the Limitations Act, 2002, on January 1, 2004.[17]

United Kingdom

Unlike other European countries, the UK has no statute of limitations applying to serious sexual crimes.[18]

Australia

Crimes against children and people under guardianship in Victoria, Australia

The Limitations Act of 1958 is a law in Australia that currently allows 12 years for child survivors and the disabled to make a claim, the age of 37 being the latest a claim can be made. Police submitted evidence[19] to a commission called the Victorian Inquiry into Church and Institutional Child Abuse, running since 2012, that indicated that it takes on average 24 years for a survivor of child sexual abuse to go to the police.[20] Attorney General Robert Clark says the government will remove statutes of limitations on criminal child abuse and survivors of violent crime should be given additional time as adults to deal with the police and legal processes in a manner that is manageable for them.[21] Organizations have been infiltrated by child rapists and individuals who offend against minors and the disabled that have used the statute of limitations to avoid detection and prosecution and have moved from state to state and country to country. Evidence was presented to the Victorian Inquiry detailing the misuse of the Limitations Act by the Christian Brothers in Victoria in particular.[22]

Some people have said that abolishing the statutes of limitations for civil claims, for minors and people under guardianship, would create a certainty that abuse of vulnerable people will be taken seriously by lawyers, police, organisations and governments. Someone has also advocated for penalties to be enforceable on organisations that have turned a blind eye to crimes in the past to safeguard the most vulnerable people in the community in the future. Peer support has been described as a powerful tool for survivors, SNAP Australia,[23] CLAN,[24] Broken Rites.[25] An institution called the Law Institute of Victoria[26] has advocated changes to the statute of limitations there.

India

The statute of limitations in India is defined by the Limitations Act, 1963[27]

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Statute of limitations

References

  1. ↑ "Statute of Limitations". California Court Judicial Branch. Public Access Records. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  2. ↑ California Courts, Judicial Council. "Public Access Records". California Courts. Rewriting Amendments. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  3. ↑ Special Historic Session. "Opening Remarks:HistoricSpecial section" (PDF). http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/compsum2.pdf''. Supreme Court Of California. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  4. ↑ Allen, Danielle S. (2003). The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens. Princeton University Press. p. 154. ISBN 0-691-09489-6.
  5. ↑ Gabelli v. Securities and Exchange Commission.
  6. ↑ Macy J. (2013). Opinion analysis: That which does not kill the SEC may make the agency stronger. SCOTUSblog.
  7. ↑ "La prescrizione del reato dopo la ex-Cirielli". Diritto Penale. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  8. ↑ "Codul Penal, Articolul 180 – Prescripția". Retrieved 9 October 2013.
  9. ↑ Ridley, Yvonne. "Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia". www.foreignpolicyjournal.com. Foreign Policy Journal. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  10. ↑ Kenner v. C.I.R., 387 F.3d 689 (1968); 7 Moore's Federal Practice, 2nd ed., p. 512, ¶ 60.23
  11. ↑ Bulloch v. United States, 763 F.2d 1115, 1121 (10th Cir. 1985)
  12. ↑ "Sixth Amendment - Limited Protection Against Accessive Prosecutorial Delay". Northwestern University School of Law. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  13. ↑ http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/00/01/991836P.pdf
  14. ↑ http://gonzagalawreview.org/files/2011/02/Graham.pdf
  15. ↑ "Criminal Procedure". thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  16. ↑ "Limitation Periods in Canada's Provinces and Territories" (PDF). fenninsurance.com. Olga Gil Research Services. Retrieved 30 October 2008.
  17. ↑ "Limitations Act, 2002, S.O. 2002, c. 24, Sched. B". E-laws.gov.on.ca. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
  18. ↑ "Should Britain have a Statute of Limitations on sex crimes?". Theopinionsite.org. 2011-03-19. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
  19. ↑ "Parliamentary Inquiry On The Handling Of Child Abuse By Religious And Other Non-Government Organisations" (PDF). Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
  20. ↑ "Parliament of Victoria". Inquiry Into The Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organizations. Retrieved 9 May 2013.
  21. ↑ "Victoria ends statutory time limit on historical child sex abuse cases". www.theaustralian.com.au. Australian Associated Press. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  22. ↑ "Inquiry Into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations" (PDF). Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
  23. ↑ "Waller Legal response" (PDF). Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
  24. ↑ "A Submission by Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) to the Inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations" (PDF). Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
  25. ↑ "Broken Rites response" (PDF). Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
  26. ↑ "Inquiry Into the Processes by Which Religious and Other Non-government Organisations Respond to the Criminal Abuse of Children by Personnel Within Their Organisations" (PDF). Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
  27. ↑ http://comtax.up.nic.in/Miscellaneous%20Act/limitation-act-1963.pdf