1 New York Civil Practice: CPLR P 203.00

Summary

CPLR 203 addresses the important subject of the manner in which a period of limitations is to be computed. Initially, it provides that in determining whether an action has been commenced within the appropriate period of limitations, the court must determine the interval between the accrual of the cause of action and the interposing of the claim.1 Thus, in determining whether an action has been initiated within the time period allowed by CPLR Article 2, the litigant must establish the date of the claim’s accrual and the date when the claim was interposed.

While the date of accrual is frequently easily fixed by the occurrence of the harm, in some instances the harm is not known or does not manifest itself until long after the insult has occurred. In those cases the discovery provisions of CPLR 214-c may delay accrual of the cause of action.

The other key date—that when the claim was interposed—is governed by CPLR 203. In that section the several acts which constitute the ...