Statute of Limitations for General Personal Injury / Negligence in United States (Federal)

6 min read

Published April 8, 2026 • By DocketMath Team

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws change frequently — verify all citations with current official sources.

Overview

Run this scenario in DocketMath using the Statute Of Limitations calculator.

Federal law generally uses a “catch-all” 0.1-year statute of limitations (about 36 days) for general personal injury / negligence claims where no longer, more specific federal limitations period applies.

In practice, this short baseline acts as a time-bar risk flag: if your claim is governed by the federal default and a longer, claim-specific rule does not apply, the deadline can be extremely tight.

This page is for United States (Federal) jurisdiction. It focuses on the federal default timing approach—not state-law tort timing.

Important note (from your jurisdiction data): the figure 0.1 years is explicitly treated as the general/default period for the “United States (Federal)” setting. Your data also states that no claim-type-specific sub-rule was found, so this page applies the general/default period rather than a longer, tailored federal rule.

Disclaimer: This is general information about statutory timing patterns. It’s not legal advice, and the correct federal limitations period can depend on the exact cause of action and accrual/tolling facts.

Limitation period

0.1 years ≈ 36 days is the general/default limitations period referenced for general personal injury / negligence in federal settings.

What this means in real terms

Fast filing timeline: If this default applies to your claim, you typically need to file within about a month of the relevant triggering event.
Trigger date is critical: Even with a short duration, the start (accrual/trigger) date often matters as much as the length.
No claim-type-specific sub-rule found: Because your jurisdiction data indicates no claim-type-specific sub-rule was found, the system uses the general/default period instead of a longer rule that might exist for a narrower federal claim category.

Quick conversion table (0.1 years)

Units	Calculation basis	Approx. time
Years	0.1 year	0.1 years
Days	0.1 × 365	~36.5 days
Practical window	rounded in day terms	~36 days

How to use the timing estimate

Because the period is so short, you should treat the estimated deadline as an urgency cue. If you’re uncertain about the accrual date or any tolling arguments, run multiple scenarios with DocketMath (see below) rather than relying on a single guess.

Key exceptions

Even when the default is 0.1 years, the real-world filing deadline can change due to several factors. Below are the most common ways federal timing outcomes differ from a simple “length-only” approach.

1) A different statute of limitations may apply (claim-specific federal rules)

Your dataset indicates no claim-type-specific sub-rule was found for this “general personal injury / negligence” category. However, in actual case work:

If your facts fit a specific federal cause of action, a different (often different-length) limitations period may apply.
If your theory is tied to rights created by federal statute, the limitations rule may be statute-specific rather than “general/default.”

Practical checklist

Does the claim really belong in a general negligence/personal injury framing, or does it align with a specific federal statute/cause of action?
Are you asserting violations of a federal statutory right, or mainly general tort duties?

2) The accrual date may be later than the incident date

The clock doesn’t always start on the day the event occurred. Depending on the claim, the limitations period may begin when the claim accrued, which can involve concepts like:

when the injury was discovered (or should have been discovered), or
when the plaintiff had enough facts to bring the claim.

Practical pitfall to avoid: assuming incident date = filing deadline. Often, the deadline starts from accrual, not the event date.

3) Tolling may extend the deadline

Tolling is a legal concept that can effectively pause or extend the limitations clock for certain circumstances recognized by federal law.

Practical workflow

Tolling is usually fact- and claim-dependent.
If tolling may be relevant, you should test it by comparing outcomes under different assumptions in the calculator.

Statute citation

Your jurisdiction inputs provide:

General SOL Period: 0.1 years
General Statute: null
Source: https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/statutes-of-limitation-in-sexual-assault-cases?utm_source=openai

Because the provided dataset does not supply a specific statute citation for the “general/default” 0.1-year period, this article does not include a single definitive “general negligence federal statute citation” for that default rule.

What you can rely on here is the jurisdiction setting’s default period (0.1 years) and the system’s instruction that no claim-type-specific sub-rule was found, so the general/default baseline is used.

If you want a more precise citation for a real case, you generally need to identify the specific federal cause of action and the trigger/accrual rule that governs that cause.

Use the calculator

Use DocketMath via /tools/statute-of-limitations to convert the 0.1-year default into a calendar deadline using the dates relevant to your situation.

Inline CTA: /tools/statute-of-limitations

Inputs that change the output

When you run the calculator, the deadline estimate will typically change based on:

Start/trigger date (accrual date): the date the limitations clock starts
Jurisdiction setting: “United States (Federal)”
Default period application: since no claim-type-specific sub-rule was found, the calculator uses the 0.1-year default

Practical way to run scenarios

Choose the best-supported start date
- If there’s a discovery issue, use the accrual/discovery date you can justify.
Confirm the claim is truly federal
- Federal limitations generally apply only if the cause of action is governed by federal law.
Compare scenarios rather than guessing
- Because the default is short (~36 days), even modest differences in accrual date can materially change the deadline.

Warning: If the output deadline is within weeks, don’t rely on optimism. Use the calculator outputs to plan around the earliest reasonable filing deadline.