There are two state laws (in most states) that operate to limit the time in which an injured consumer/plaintiff or the family of a deceased consumer has to sue a defendant subsequent to injury caused by a defendant’s acts or products. One is called the statute of limitations and the other is called the statute of repose.
The statute of limitations is a specific time period that typically starts running from the day of the injury. If the lawsuit is not filed within that time period, then any legal right of the injured consumer or their family will be lost forever and there will no longer be an option to sue for recovery of any money or compensation. There is no one set statute of limitations in the United States. The statute of limitations is different from state to state. Each state has its own time limit, rules and definitions regarding how much time you have to sue. Some states have different time limits for negligence cases than they do for product liability cases. (A case against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Bextra, would be a product liability case.) Some states give you one year, some two, others three or more. Statutes of limitations can be changed by the legislature, so you need up-to-date information on the law.
In California, for example, the statute of limitations used to be one year from the time of injury for filing a personal injury case but was changed to two years in 2003. In Connecticut, the statute of limitations is two years from the date of discovery of the injury but “no more than three years from the date of the responsible party’s negligent act”. There is also a separate statute of limitations in Connecticut for Product Liability cases, which is three years from the date of discovery of the injury up to a “maximum of ten years from the date the manufacturer or seller last parted with possession of the product.” Every state has different rules and different language and you will need an attorney to decipher the laws for you.
The other state law is called the statute of repose, which is even more complicated. The statute of repose is different from the statute of limitations. Instead of a time period to sue after the injury occurs, it sets a date that closes the window on any potential defendants from being sued in the first place if an injury occurs beyond that period of time. Here’s an example to illustrate: If a building was constructed in 1997, and there is a ten-year statute of repose in construction claims in that state, and someone is injured when a terrace collapses in 2008, eleven years later, they cannot sue the builder because it is outside the ten-year statute of repose. In other words, the statute protects potential defendants from being sued after a certain number of years whether or not they were responsible for someone’s injury. In North Carolina, it’s 6 years, in Alaska and Ohio, it’s 10. Thirty-eight states currently have some type of statute of repose, which may or may not affect your Bextra claim.
It is imperative that you contact an attorney who is very knowledgeable about product liability cases and drug cases in particular to be sure about the statutes of limitations and repose. These statutes may dictate whether or not you can sue.