All claims have an applicable “statute of limitations” which is a law that sets a time limit within which legal proceedings must be initiated, after which the right to pursue a claim is barred.
In Iowa, the statute of limitations for personal injury claims is generally two years from the date of the injury. That means if your statute of limitations has run out—in other words, if your deadline to file a lawsuit has passed—your case can be over before it ever gets started. As a result, knowing when an injury happened becomes a key aspect of personal injury cases.
Most of the time it is easy to know when you are injured. The date of a car accident, slip and fall, or botched surgery are easy to figure out. But sometimes it gets complicated. Missed diagnosis and toxic exposure cases, for example, often present grey areas. Think about a missed cancer diagnosis. When did the cancer start? When should the doctor have noticed it? Those are difficult questions to answer, and any attempt to answer them depends on the quality of medical information available.
Exceptions to statutes of limitations exist, such as when the injured party is a minor or mentally incapacitated, but waiting is still very dangerous in those cases. Evidence gets lost, memories fade, and cases get more difficult with time. The faster you can start the legal process once you know you are injured, the better your case will be.
