Statutes of limitations are an important part of our judicial system. The idea is that people who have claims against other people should not wait indefinitely to assert them, and should not be able to hold them "over someone's head" forever. When a statute of limitations applies, it means that law suits filed after the statute of limitations period has expired are barred and will not be heard.

Statutes of limitations are very common and most lawsuits are based on claims that are subject to them. For example, if you want to sue someone over a car accident, a slip and fall, sexual harassment, or a breach of contract, you usually must do so within the period allowed by law. This is usually a period of several years. It varies, depending on the State in which you live or in which the complained of action took place. An attorney should always be consulted to determine the applicable limitations period.

In many States, murder has no statute of limitations. The reason is that murder is such a terrible crime that no one should be allowed to get away with it simply because he or she remained in hiding until an arbitrary period of time elapsed.

Now, there is another kind of lawsuit that has no statute of limitations. In New Jersey, a court has recently confirmed that in certain instances environmental pollution claims have no statute of limitations as well.

In the case of Mason v. Mobil Oil, the plaintiffs purchased an abandoned gas station in 1985. In 1990, they contracted to sell the property to a bank. At that time, the plaintiffs learned that their property was contaminated with gasoline.

Electing not to hire an attorney, on their own they filed a lawsuit against the people who sold them the property and their former real estate attorney. Among other things, the plaintiffs wanted the defendants to pay all of the cleanup costs.

After the lawsuit was filed, the plaintiffs hired an attorney who re-drafted the lawsuit. This time, the attorney also sued Mobil Oil, who last operated the property as a gas station.

In New Jersey, the statute of limitations for most lawsuits involving injury to property is six years (it varies, an independent determination must be made for every case). Since the new, amended lawsuit was filed more than six years after the contamination was discovered, Mobil asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit because, Mobil asserted, it was filed after the statute of limitations expired.

The court disagreed. It ruled that the claim that Mobil should pay cleanup costs was not time barred even though more than six years had lapsed.

The only defenses for environmental claims under the applicable New Jersey environmental cleanup law are acts or omissions, caused by "war, sabotage, or God." Since the law, which is called the "Spill Act," mentions no statute of limitations defense, the New Jersey Court ruled that there is no statute of limitations for private environmental lawsuits brought under this particular law.

So in New Jersey, polluters and murders are seen in the same light. By no means does this suggest that New Jersey pollution victims should wait forever to file a lawsuit to collect cleanup costs. Even though a court has ruled there is no legal statute of limitations for claims filed under the Spill Act, a court can nevertheless rule that too much time has passed such that it would simply be unfair to allow the lawsuit to go forward. For example, over time documents tend to be lost or destroyed and witnesses tend to become lost or unavailable.

This means that even without a statute of limitations bar, if you have a legal claim, it is generally most prudent to assert it now, rather than to sit on it. In any event, important questions such as these should only be answered with the advice of an attorney.

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Published: January 20, 2000

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