civil prescription tort damages 3 years CC art 206
Tort claims, for material and moral damages, prescribe in 3 years (CC art. 206 §3º V), but the starting point is not always the day of the accident or the act: in several cases it is the day the victim learned of the damage, and that is where most back-of-the-envelope calculations get the final date wrong.
The year 2023 has no February 29, so the UTC year addition rolls the date forward to March 1 instead of back to February 28.
While days remain, the claim can still be filed with no risk of being time-barred.
Suspension adds calendar days to the end of the term, it does not restart the count the way an interruption would.
The general period is 10 years, set out in art. 205 of the Civil Code, and applies to claims that have no specific statutory period, including contractual civil liability, per settled STJ case law. Whenever a situation does not fit the special periods of art. 206 or a dedicated law, this ten-year period applies. It runs from the violation of the right (actio nata).
It depends on the case: the general rule counts from the violation of the right (CC art. 189), but for many claims, especially insurance ones, STJ Súmula 278 requires counting from unmistakable awareness of the damage and its extent, which can come well after the event that caused the harm.
No. CC art. 202 allows only one interruption per claim; a second interrupting event, if any, does not restart the term again. That differs from suspension under arts. 197 to 201, which can have several intervals added to the end of the term.
No. Decree 20,910/1932 sets 5 years for claims against government entities, a longer term than the Civil Code's 3 years, and the Federal Supreme Court (RE 669.069, general repercussion) confirmed that this special term prevails over the Civil Code's general rule.
Educational estimate. Civil prescription rules vary by claim type. Consult an attorney.
CC art. 205