Statute of Limitations on Medical Malpractice in Tennessee

In Tennessee, the statute of limitations on medical malpractice is one year from the date you knew or reasonably should have known about the injury, and no claim can be filed more than three years after the negligent act itself. A mandatory 60-day pre-suit notice sits inside that year, which means the practical deadline to start the process is closer to ten months. Miss any of these dates and the case almost certainly ends before a judge looks at the medicine.

Where the One-Year Clock Starts

Tennessee Code 29-26-116(a)(1) gives you one year to file a health care liability action.¹ The clock runs from the day of the negligent act when the harm is obvious right away. A surgeon nicks an artery on March 15, 2025, you know that day, and the lawsuit has to be on file by March 15, 2026.

That’s the ceiling for filing. Because of the pre-suit notice requirement described below, the ceiling for making your first call to an attorney is meaningfully earlier. Waiting until month eleven leaves almost no room to comply with the procedural steps that must happen before a complaint can be filed.

When the Injury Isn’t Obvious: The Discovery Rule

Some injuries surface late. A misread pathology slide, a slow infection from a retained sponge, or a missed cancer diagnosis may take months or years to show itself. Tennessee Code 29-26-116(a)(2) starts the one-year clock on the date the injury was discovered or reasonably should have been discovered.¹

“Should have been discovered” carries weight. Courts expect reasonable diligence. Unexplained symptoms you ignore for a year while a reasonable person would have gone back to a doctor can start the clock earlier than you’d like, based on when you should have investigated.

The Three-Year Outer Limit

Tennessee Code 29-26-116(a)(3) imposes a hard cap: no malpractice suit may be filed more than three years after the date of the negligent act, no matter when you found out.¹ This is the statute of repose, and unlike the one-year limitations period, it doesn’t shift based on discovery.

The practical result is harsh: some patients lose the right to sue before they know they were hurt. A fragment left inside you in 2023 that causes symptoms in 2027 is barred from suit in most cases, because the three years ran while you were still healthy on paper.

Foreign Objects

The three-year cap does not apply when a provider negligently leaves a foreign object inside a patient. Under Tennessee Code 29-26-116(a)(4), you get one year from discovering (or reasonably being able to discover) the object, with no outer limit.¹ Retained sponges and broken instrument tips can go undetected for years without imaging or a second surgery, which is why this exception exists.

Fraudulent Concealment

When a provider actively hides the malpractice or stays silent about a known error despite a duty to disclose, the three-year cap also lifts, and the patient has one year from discovering the concealed claim.¹ Proving it is hard. You have to show the provider knew about the error, hid it or failed to disclose it in the face of a duty, and that you couldn’t have found it through reasonable diligence. The physician-patient relationship creates a fiduciary duty to disclose, so silence about a known complication can itself count as concealment.

Children

Tennessee Code 28-1-106(a) pauses the one-year limitations period for anyone under 18 when the malpractice occurs. Once the child turns 18, the year starts, so filing can happen up to age 19.²

Families get caught by what tolling doesn’t reach. The three-year statute of repose is not paused for minority. The Tennessee Supreme Court held in Calaway v. Schucker that nothing in 29-26-116 creates a minority exception to repose, and the court declined to make one.³ An infant harmed at six months old has three years to sue, not eighteen years plus one. For any child injured before age 15, the three-year cap is the deadline that actually matters.

Incapacitated Patients

Tennessee Code 28-1-106(c) also pauses the one-year limitations period for patients who lack mental capacity when the malpractice occurs. Once capacity returns, they have the shorter of one year or three years from the removal of incapacity. The statute is explicit that incapacity does not toll the statute of repose, so the three-year outer limit still binds.²

An added wrinkle: a court-appointed guardian or anyone with legal authority to sue on the patient’s behalf generally cannot rely on tolling, and must file within the normal one-year period unless they can show by clear and convincing evidence that they neither knew nor could reasonably have known about the claim. The Tennessee Supreme Court in Sherrill v. Souder reversed a dismissal on this front because a factual dispute remained over whether the patient was of unsound mind when the cause of action accrued.⁴

When Malpractice Causes Death

A wrongful death claim rooted in malpractice runs on a different clock. Under Tennessee Code 28-3-104(a)(1)(A), personal injury claims carry a one-year limitations period, and the wrongful death cause of action accrues at the moment of death rather than the date of the negligent act.⁵ If a patient lives two years after a negligent procedure and then dies of complications, the family’s one year begins at death, which can extend the filing window well past the three-year repose that would have limited the patient’s own claim.

The 60-Day Notice That Shrinks the Year

Under Tennessee Code 29-26-121, written pre-suit notice must go to every provider you plan to sue at least 60 days before the complaint is filed.⁶ The notice has to include:

The patient’s full name and date of birth
The claimant’s name and relationship to the patient
Attorney information if applicable
A list of every provider being notified
A HIPAA-compliant authorization allowing each notified provider to obtain records from the others

Sent on time, that notice extends both the statute of limitations and the statute of repose by 120 days beyond the date they would otherwise expire.⁶ Only one extension per provider, and notice cannot lengthen a deadline that hasn’t yet arrived. That 120-day extension is often what saves claims filed near the wire, but only if the notice went out before the original one-year period ran.

The Certificate of Good Faith

Tennessee Code 29-26-122 requires a certificate of good faith filed with the complaint, stating that the plaintiff’s attorney has consulted at least one qualified medical expert who reviewed the case and believes there is a good-faith basis for the claim.⁷ Without it, the court must dismiss unless the failure resulted from the provider’s delay in producing records or another extraordinary cause. Dismissal for a missing certificate is typically with prejudice, so obtaining one afterward and refiling is not an option.

Second Chances: The Savings Statute

If a timely-filed lawsuit is later dismissed on procedural grounds that don’t reach the merits, Tennessee Code 28-1-105 gives the plaintiff one year from the dismissal to refile.⁸ The savings statute reaches voluntary dismissals without prejudice, reversals on appeal, and technical dismissals. It does not rescue a case that was never filed on time, and it does not apply to dismissals with prejudice. Tennessee courts have made clear it is not a device for extending deadlines through repeated dismissals.

Adding Defendants After the One Year

If a defendant’s answer identifies someone else as at fault, Tennessee Code 20-1-119 gives you 90 days from that answer to amend the lawsuit or file separately against the new party, even if the one-year limitations period has already run. The 90 days runs from the first answer to name the nonparty at fault. A later answer from a different defendant does not restart it.

If the Deadline Passes

Once the one-year limitations period or the three-year repose has expired, the defendant raises it as an affirmative defense, and Tennessee courts enforce these deadlines strictly.⁹ The court dismisses without weighing the medicine. Most malpractice claims that fail in Tennessee fail this way: not on the facts, but on the calendar.

Contingency-fee attorneys will rarely take a case once the deadline is gone, because the defense is close to airtight. If you think you have a claim, consulting a lawyer early enough to preserve the 60-day notice window is the single most important step you can take.

1
Justia. Tennessee Code 29-26-116 – Statute of Limitations
2
FindLaw. Tennessee Code 28-1-106 – Limitation of Actions
3
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Calaway v. Schucker
4
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Sherrill v. Souder
5
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-3-104 – Personal Tort Actions
6
Justia. Tennessee Code 29-26-121 – Claim for Health Care Liability
7
Justia. Tennessee Code 29-26-122 – Filing of Certificate of Good Faith
8
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-1-105 – New Action After Adverse Judgment
9
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 8.03 – Affirmative Defenses