Medical Malpractice Statute of Limitations in Kentucky

The medical malpractice statute of limitations in Kentucky is one year, and it is one of the shortest deadlines of its kind in the country.¹ The clock does not always start on the day of the treatment, though, and several rules can pause it or shift the starting point. Whether you are dealing with a delayed diagnosis, a child’s injury, a death in the family, or care received at a VA hospital, the deadline that actually applies to you depends on the specifics.

The One-Year Rule

KRS 413.140(1)(e) gives you one year from the date your cause of action accrues to sue a physician, surgeon, dentist, or hospital licensed under KRS Chapter 216.¹ Chapter 216 reaches beyond traditional hospitals to nursing homes, ambulatory surgical centers, hospice facilities, freestanding birthing centers, and psychiatric residential treatment facilities, among others. If your care came from a licensed facility in that group, one year is your window.

One year is tight. Pulling medical records, retaining an attorney, and lining up an expert opinion all take real time, and waiting until month eleven puts the whole claim at risk. Miss the deadline and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case no matter how strong the evidence is.

The statute names physicians, surgeons, dentists, and hospitals. It does not explicitly list every kind of healthcare provider. Claims against chiropractors, pharmacists, or independent nurse practitioners may fall under different provisions or general negligence rules, which matters because the discovery rule and the five-year repose are tied specifically to KRS 413.140(1)(e).

When the Clock Actually Starts

The one year does not always run from the date of the negligent act. KRS 413.140(2) says the cause of action accrues when the injury “is first discovered or in the exercise of reasonable care should have been discovered.”¹ That is the discovery rule. It exists because some injuries — a retained surgical instrument, a misread pathology slide, a slowly developing infection — don’t announce themselves right away.

The operative phrase is “reasonable care.” Courts ask what an ordinarily cautious person would have done with the same symptoms and information. Unexpected complications, persistent pain, or a failed outcome are supposed to prompt questions and a second opinion. Once you have enough information to know something went wrong and that medical care may be the reason, the clock starts. You don’t need to know the legal theory or the precise mistake, only enough to put a reasonable person on notice.

The rule protects patients who genuinely could not have known. It will not rescue someone who ignored obvious warning signs; in that situation the deadline runs from when you should have discovered the problem, not when you actually did.

The Five-Year Outer Limit

The same statute sets an outer boundary: no claim under subsection (1)(e) may be filed more than five years after the alleged negligent act.¹ That kind of provision is called a statute of repose, and it is meant to give providers a firm endpoint even for undiscovered injuries.

Its practical force is uncertain. In McCollum v. Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Health Corp. (1990), the Kentucky Supreme Court found the repose unconstitutional as applied to plaintiffs whose injuries had not been discovered within the five-year window, relying on the state constitution’s protections for the right to bring claims. The language remains on the books, but its enforceability has been in question for decades. If your injury surfaced more than five years after the underlying care, the repose may not automatically bar the claim, though the analysis is fact-specific.

Extensions for Minors and People With Disabilities

KRS 413.170 pauses the limitations period for anyone who lacks legal capacity when the cause of action accrues. If the patient was a minor or of unsound mind, the one-year clock does not start until that disability is removed.²

For a child, removal of the disability means reaching the age of majority, which Kentucky sets at 18.³ A child injured at age 5 has until their 19th birthday to sue, because the one-year period starts on the day they turn 18. For a person of unsound mind, the pause lasts until the disability is removed or the person dies. A parent, guardian, or legal representative can also file on behalf of a minor or disabled patient before that point.

Whether the five-year repose tolls in the same way is a harder question given the constitutional problems already flagged, but Kentucky’s general lean is to protect people who cannot advocate for themselves.

Wrongful Death From Medical Negligence

When a patient dies as a result of malpractice, a separate deadline applies. Under KRS 413.180, the personal representative of the estate has one year from the date of appointment by the probate court to file a wrongful death lawsuit.⁴ That holds even if the normal limitations period had already expired at the time of death, provided the cause of action survived.

There is a limit on delay. If more than a year passes between the death and the appointment, the law treats the representative as if they had been appointed on the last day of that year, and the one-year filing window runs from that deemed date. Families cannot indefinitely postpone the appointment and still preserve the claim, so getting a personal representative appointed quickly is often the most time-sensitive step after a suspected malpractice death.

Fraudulent Concealment by the Provider

If a provider actively hid the negligence or took steps to keep you from discovering the claim, the one-year deadline can be extended. This is different from the discovery rule, which addresses injuries that are inherently hard to detect. Fraudulent concealment applies when the provider knew about the mistake and deliberately kept you in the dark.

Courts require more than silence. You generally need to show affirmative acts or misrepresentations meant to prevent you from finding out or investigating, though in relationships with a duty of disclosure, silence about a known error can sometimes be enough. A surgeon who spots a retained instrument on a follow-up scan and says nothing is the classic example. The patient carries the burden of proving concealment, and it is a high bar.

Active-Duty Military Tolling

The federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act protects active-duty military personnel. Under 50 U.S.C. § 3936, the period of a servicemember’s military service is not counted when calculating any statute of limitations for a civil action.⁵ It applies whether the servicemember would be the plaintiff or the defendant. A servicemember injured during a one-year deployment effectively gets that year added back to their filing window.

Care at a VA or Other Federal Facility

Kentucky’s deadlines do not govern care provided at a federal facility such as a VA hospital or military treatment center. Those claims fall under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b), you must file a written administrative claim with the appropriate federal agency within two years of when the claim accrues.⁶ The administrative claim, filed on a Standard Form 95, has to be submitted and either denied or left unresolved for six months before you can file suit.

If the agency denies the claim, you have six months from the date it mails the denial notice to file in federal court.⁶ Miss that six-month window and the claim is permanently barred. Two years is longer than Kentucky’s one-year rule, but the required administrative step is a substantial front-end delay. People often lose viable claims by spending the first year trying to resolve things informally with the VA and then discovering they’ve eaten through half of the administrative filing period.

Why You Cannot Wait Until Month Eleven

Kentucky requires a certificate of merit before a malpractice case can move forward. KRS 411.167 requires your attorney to sign a document confirming they consulted with a qualified medical expert who reviewed the facts and believes the claim has a reasonable basis.⁷ The certificate has to be drafted for each specific case based on an actual expert’s review of the records.

Only one certificate is needed per lawsuit, even with multiple defendants.⁷ If the deadline is bearing down and the expert consultation isn’t finished, an attorney can file the lawsuit first and provide the certificate within 60 days, as long as the delay was not due to a lack of good-faith effort. Failure to provide it at all can end the case.

Reviewing experts charge several hundred dollars per hour and typically require a retainer before they start work. That means real money and real weeks of lead time before a lawsuit can even be filed. Trying to find both a lawyer and a reviewing expert in the final weeks of the one-year period is the most common way strong claims are lost.

1
Justia. Kentucky Code 413.140 – Actions to Be Brought Within One Year
2
Justia. Kentucky Code 413.170 – Limitations of Actions in KRS 413.090 to 413.160 Do Not Run Until Removal of Disability or Death
3
Justia. Kentucky Code 2.015 – Age of Majority
4
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Revised Statutes 413.180 – Action by or Against Personal Representative Under KRS 413.090 to 413.160
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3936 – Statute of Limitations
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States
7
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Revised Statutes 411.167 – Certificate of Merit for Medical Malpractice Actions