Like a punch-clock deadline at the end of a shift, once the window closes, nobody cares how good your excuse is - the chance is gone. A statute of limitations is the legal time limit for filing a lawsuit. It starts running when an injury, loss, or other legal wrong happens, or when the law says you reasonably should have discovered it. Miss that deadline, and the court can throw the case out even if the facts are on your side.

For injury cases, this rule decides whether you get to fight at all. In Massachusetts, the usual deadline for most personal injury claims is three years under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A. That covers many cases involving car crashes, slips, and other negligence claims. Wait too long, and the other side will raise the statute of limitations as a defense, and that may be the end of it before the real dispute even gets heard.

This can wreck a claim fast. Evidence disappears, witnesses stop answering calls, and records get harder to find. And if fault is contested, Massachusetts also uses modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 85 - meaning delay can make it easier for the other side to pin blame on you and cut off recovery entirely.