Tennessee Statute of Limitations: Civil and Criminal Deadlines

Tennessee’s statute of limitations sets some of the shortest civil filing windows in the country: one year for personal injury, six months for slander, six years for written contracts, and three years for property damage.¹ Criminal deadlines run from 12 months for most misdemeanors up to no limit at all for murder and certain sex offenses. Miss the deadline that applies to your situation, and you almost always lose the right to sue or prosecute for good.

Civil Deadlines at a Glance

Personal injury (car accidents, slip-and-fall, dog bites): 1 year
Wrongful death: 1 year from date of death
Medical malpractice: 1 year, with a 3-year outer limit
Slander (spoken defamation): 6 months
Libel (written defamation): 1 year
Property damage: 3 years
Civil fraud: 3 years
Written contracts: 6 years
Sale of goods (UCC): 4 years
Claims against government entities: 12 months
Workers’ compensation: 1 year
Creditor claims against an estate: 12 months from death
Will contests: 2 years from probate
Employment discrimination (Tennessee Human Rights Commission): 180 days
Employment discrimination (EEOC): 300 days

Personal Injury, Wrongful Death, and Medical Malpractice

You have one year from the date of injury to sue over an accident caused by someone else’s negligence. That covers car crashes, slip-and-falls, dog bites, and any other situation where carelessness causes bodily harm.¹ Most states give two or three years, so people moving to Tennessee or relying on advice from friends in other states often assume they have more time than they do.

Wrongful death claims share the one-year window, but the clock starts on the date of death rather than the date of the underlying injury. That matters when a victim survives for weeks or months before dying.

Car accidents can produce two claims on two different clocks. Bodily injury runs on the one-year deadline; damage to the vehicle itself runs on the three-year property damage deadline. Filing the property claim on time does nothing to preserve the injury claim, so the shorter window controls how quickly you need to act.

Medical malpractice also uses the one-year deadline, with two important adjustments.² The discovery rule helps you: if you didn’t know about the injury right away, the year starts when you discovered it or reasonably should have. A three-year statute of repose works against you: no matter when you discover the harm, you generally cannot sue more than three years after the negligent act. Two exceptions extend that ceiling. If the provider fraudulently concealed the mistake, you get one year from discovering the concealment. If a foreign object was left inside your body, the one-year clock starts when you discover it, with no three-year outer limit.

Property Damage and Construction Defects

Claims for damage to real or personal property must be filed within three years, whether the damage came from negligence or an intentional act like vandalism.³

Construction defect cases carry an extra restriction. Tennessee imposes a four-year statute of repose on lawsuits alleging deficiencies in the design, planning, or construction of an improvement to real property, and that clock starts at substantial completion rather than when you notice the defect.⁴ A roof that begins leaking five years after the builder finishes is beyond the repose period even though the three-year property damage clock might not yet have started.

Contracts and Sales of Goods

Suits for breach of a written contract must be filed within six years of the breach.⁵ Disputes over the sale of goods fall under Tennessee’s version of the Uniform Commercial Code, which sets a four-year deadline.⁶ Parties to a sales contract can agree in writing to shorten that four-year period to as little as one year, but they cannot extend it.

Defamation and Fraud

Defamation carries the shortest civil filing windows in Tennessee. Spoken defamation (slander) must be sued on within six months of when the words were spoken.⁷ Written defamation (libel) gets the standard one-year personal tort deadline.¹ Six months for slander goes fast, particularly when the person defamed needs time to discover the damage and decide whether litigation is worth the cost.

Civil fraud claims fall under the three-year property tort deadline.³ Because fraud is inherently hidden, the discovery rule commonly applies, starting the clock when you knew or should have known about the deception rather than when the fraudulent act occurred.

Employment Discrimination

Workplace discrimination complaints work on a much shorter timeline than most civil cases, and the deadline is with an agency rather than a court. If you believe you were fired, demoted, or harassed because of a protected characteristic such as race, sex, religion, or disability, you have 180 days from the discriminatory act to file with the Tennessee Human Rights Commission.⁸

Because Tennessee has a state agency enforcing anti-discrimination law, the federal EEOC deadline extends to 300 days from the discriminatory act.⁹ Those are calendar days, weekends and holidays included. Federal employees follow a different process and generally must contact their agency’s EEO counselor within 45 days.

Government Claims and Workers’ Compensation

Suing a city, county, or other government entity in Tennessee runs on a compressed schedule. Under the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act, the lawsuit must be filed within 12 months after the cause of action arises. For injuries tied to a dangerous condition on a government-owned street, sidewalk, or public building, you also have to prove the entity had actual or constructive notice of the condition before your injury. That notice requirement trips up many claimants who assume the government automatically knew about an obvious hazard.

Injured workers must file a petition for benefit determination with the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation within one year of the workplace accident if the employer has not voluntarily paid benefits.¹⁰ When the employer has been making voluntary payments, the deadline extends to one year from the last authorized medical treatment or the last voluntary payment, whichever is later. If a worker dies from a workplace injury, dependents have one year from the date of death to file for death benefits.

Probate: Estate Claims and Will Contests

Creditors owed money by someone who has died must file their claim with the probate court within 12 months of the date of death.¹¹ The deadline runs from the death itself, not from when you learn about it or receive notice from the estate, which catches many creditors off guard.

To challenge the validity of a will, you have two years from the date the court formally admits it to probate.¹² After that, the will is final regardless of any evidence of fraud or undue influence that surfaces later. Minors and persons adjudicated incompetent at the time the will was admitted are protected from the cutoff.

Criminal Prosecution Deadlines

On the criminal side, Tennessee sets prosecution windows by the severity of the offense. These deadlines restrict when the state can bring charges.

Crimes With No Time Limit

Any offense punishable by death or life imprisonment can be prosecuted at any time. That covers first-degree murder and, since July 2019, second-degree murder.¹³ Aggravated rape and rape of an adult victim also carry no time limit, provided the victim reported the offense to law enforcement within three years.

Crimes against children have their own expansive rules. When the victim was under 13 at the time of the offense, there is no statute of limitations at all for a wide range of sexual offenses, including rape, sexual battery, solicitation of a minor, and sexual exploitation.¹³ When the victim was between 13 and 17, the same offenses have no time limit as long as the victim reported before turning 23.

Felonies

For felonies that don’t fall into the no-limit category, the prosecution deadline depends on the felony class, measured from the date the offense was committed:¹³

Class A felony: 15 years
Class B felony: 8 years
Class C or D felony: 4 years
Class E felony: 2 years

Misdemeanors

Most misdemeanor prosecutions must begin within 12 months of the offense.¹⁴ Gaming offenses have an even shorter six-month window.

When the Clock Pauses

Several circumstances can pause (or “toll”) a statute of limitations. The clock stops during a specific condition and restarts when the condition ends.

Minors and persons with mental incapacity. If you were under 18 or had been adjudicated incompetent when your cause of action arose, the statute does not begin running until the disability is removed. A child injured at age 10 would have until age 19 to bring a one-year personal injury claim.

Defendant’s absence from the state. When the person you need to sue leaves Tennessee or lives outside it, the time they spend away does not count toward the deadline.¹⁵ If a driver causes an accident and then moves out of state for two years, those two years are excluded.

Fraudulent concealment. When a defendant deliberately hides their wrongdoing, the clock may be tolled until you discover, or reasonably should have discovered, the concealed conduct. This matters most in financial fraud and medical malpractice cases where the wrongdoer controls the information. On the criminal side, the prosecution clock is paused during any period when the accused concealed the fact of the crime or was not publicly residing in Tennessee.

The Savings Statute: A Second Filing Window

Even a timely case can be dismissed for reasons that don’t resolve the underlying dispute, such as a procedural error or a successful defense appeal. Tennessee’s savings statute gives you a second chance. If the lawsuit was filed within the original deadline but is later dismissed on grounds that don’t conclusively resolve the claim, you can refile within one year of the dismissal or reversal.¹⁶ The provision covers voluntary nonsuits, dismissals without prejudice, and judgments reversed on appeal. It does not rescue a case that was never filed within the original window.

What Happens If You Miss the Deadline

In civil cases, an expired statute of limitations is almost always fatal. The defendant raises it as an affirmative defense, and the court grants a motion to dismiss. Judges have no discretion. It doesn’t matter how strong your evidence is or how clear the defendant’s liability may be. Once the deadline passes, the courthouse door closes.

Criminal cases work the same way. If prosecution begins after the statute of limitations has expired, defense counsel can move for dismissal and the court must grant it.¹³ Even newly discovered DNA evidence or a confession cannot overcome an expired deadline unless the offense carries no time limit.

The one scenario where a missed deadline isn’t total loss is when a tolling provision applies. Once a defendant raises the statute of limitations defense, the burden typically shifts to the plaintiff to show that tolling, the discovery rule, or the savings statute keeps the claim alive. Gathering that evidence before a dismissal motion lands is what separates cases that survive from those that don’t.

1
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-3-104 – Personal Tort Actions; Actions Against Certain Professionals
2
Justia. Tennessee Code 29-26-116 – Statute of Limitations – Counterclaim for Damages
3
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-3-105 – Property Tort Actions
4
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-3-202 – Limitation of Actions
5
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-3-109 – Rent – Official Misconduct – Contracts Not Otherwise Covered – Title Insurance – Demand Notes
6
Justia. Tennessee Code 47-2-725 – Statute of Limitations in Contracts for Sale
7
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-3-103 – Slander Actions
8
TN.gov. Filing a Complaint Process and FAQs
9
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge
10
Justia. Tennessee Code 50-6-203 – Limitation of Time
11
Justia. Tennessee Code 30-2-310 – Limitation on Time of Filing Claims
12
Justia. Tennessee Code 32-4-108 – Statute of Limitations
13
Justia. Tennessee Code 40-2-101 – Felonies
14
Justia. Tennessee Code 40-2-102 – Misdemeanors
15
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-1-111 – Suspension During Absence From State
16
Justia. Tennessee Code 28-1-105 – New Action After Adverse Decision – Contractual Limitations Periods