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New Hampshire Statutes

There are many statutes with time limits on filing actions. If RSA 508 does not fit your circumstances, we suggest that you start your research with the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated in print instead of keyword searching online. This is because many statutes say only that an action must be brought within “x” number of months or years and may never use the phrases “statute of limitations” or "limitations of actions." Look in the print index under “limitations of actions.”

RSA 508. Limitation of Actions
Revised Statutes Online
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Westlaw has a Q&A guide to the statutes of limitations in New Hampshire. The guide includes 16 categories. Search on Statutes of Limitations: New Hampshire, Practical Law State Q&A w-020-2641. This link will take you to the page with instructions on setting up your Westlaw Remote account.

New Hampshire Cases

The cases below are here to illustrate various situations that have involved some kind of time limitation on filing an action. They include: statutes of limitations, statutes of repose, non-claim statutes, and laches. There are many, many more cases.

Conant v. O'Meara 167 N.H. 644 (2015)
"Statutes of limitation place a limit on the time in which a plaintiff may bring suit after a cause of action accrues. Although a cause of action arises as soon as all of the necessary elements are present, it does not accrue until the plaintiff discovers, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, both the fact of an injury and the cause thereof."
Beane v. Dana S. Beane & Co., PC. 160 N.H. 708 (2010)
"The discovery rule is a two-pronged rule requiring both prongs to be satisfied before the statute of limitations begins to run. First, a plaintiff must know or reasonably should have known that it has been injured; and second, a plaintiff must know or reasonably should have known that its injury was proximately caused by conduct of the defendant. Thus, the discovery rule exception does not apply unless the plaintiff did not discover, and could not reasonably have discovered, either the alleged injury or its causal connection to the alleged negligent act."
Portsmouth Country Club v. Town of Greenland. 152 NH 617 (2005)
"Equitable tolling, which allows a plaintiff to initiate an action beyond the statute of limitations deadline, is typically available only if the claimant was prevented in some extraordinary way from exercising his or her rights. It applies principally if the plaintiff is actively misled by the defendant about the cause of action. The doctrine of equitable tolling is applicable only where the prospective plaintiff did not have, and could not have had with due diligence, the information essential to bringing suit."
Lakeman v. LaFrance, 102 NH 300 (1959)
"[F]raudulent concealment of a cause of action from the one in whom it resides by the one against whom it lies constitutes an implied exception to the statute of limitations, postponing the commencement of the running of the statute until discovery or reasonable opportunity of discovery of the facts by the owner of the cause of action. It is well established that our courts will not countenance fraudulent conduct. In our opinion the defense that the statute of limitations has been tolled by fraudulent concealment is in the nature of an equitable estoppel. Its purpose is to promote the equity and justice of the individual case by preventing a party from asserting his rights under a general technical rule of law when he has so conducted himself that it would be contrary to equity and good conscience to avail himself of his legal defense."
Big League Entertainment, Inc. v. Brox Industries, Inc. & a. 149 N.H. 480 (2003)
"Statutes of limitation generally begin to run at the time of injury or discovery of the injury. They serve to place a limit on the time in which a plaintiff may bring suit after a cause of action accrues. [...] By contrast, statutes of repose create time limitations which are not measured from the date of injury, but rather usually run from an act of a defendant. They extinguish a cause of action after a fixed period of time regardless of when the action accrues, potentially barring a plaintiff's suit before there has been an injury or before the action has arisen."
Appeal of Henry A. Plantier, M.D. 126 N.H. 500 (1985)
"Where there are no statutory time limitations applicable to particular administrative proceedings the question of whether or not there is a bar by time may turn on the question of laches. [...] Laches, unlike limitation, is not a mere matter of time, but is principally a question of the inequity of permitting the claim to be enforced—an inequity founded on some change in the conditions or relations of the property or the parties involved. In determining whether to apply laches, neither law nor equity nor science has been able to develop any mechanical gauge that will automatically tell litigants or the court the number of months or years that are required to constitute reasonable promptness in bringing a suit to avoid the defense of laches."
Premier Capital v. Gallagher, 144 NH 284 (1999)
"At common law, the limitations period for an action to recover on a demand note is tolled when a renewed promise to pay can be implied from the circumstances, such as partial payment or other acknowledgments of liability and willingness to pay the debt. A maker's payments or acknowledgments of liability indicating a willingness to pay the debt will toll the statute of limitations for an action against the maker, assuming the circumstances give rise to an implied promise to renew the debt, but they will not, ordinarily, diminish a guarantor's defense of staleness. To toll the limitations period, an acknowledgment of debt must be more than a recognition of debt; it must be an admission of liability for an unpaid debt that the party is then willing to pay. Evidence of the debtor's willingness to pay must be presented to the finder of fact."
Stewart v. Farrel 131 N.H. 458 (1989)
"Like most States, New Hampshire has a creditor non-claim statute establishing filing deadlines for claims against an estate."
State v. Lake Winnipesaukee Resort, LLC 159 N.H. 42 (2009)
"The legal issue in this interlocutory appeal is whether this action is timely in light of the common law doctrine nullum tempus occurrit regi, or "time does not run against the king" ... The doctrine of nullum tempus is a common law rule excepting the sovereign from general limitations periods."

Please remember that this guide is for information purposes only and is not comprehensive.
It is intended as a starting point for research, to illustrate the various sources of the law, and to provide guidance in their use.
NH Law About ... is not a substitute for the services of an attorney.