All lawsuits are governed by certain time limits, which are referred to as statutes of limitation. In most cases, if you fail to file a lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations, you are barred from bringing the lawsuit or any related claim on a permanent basis. Therefore, if you fail to abide by the wrongful death statute of limitations, you may lose your only chance to receive financial compensation for the wrongful death of your loved one. As a general rule, statutes of limitation for wrongful death actions range from one to three years in most states. The key question for many wrongful death lawsuits, however, is not the length of the statute of limitations period, but the time at which the statute of limitations begins to run. In some states, this period may begin at the time of death, but in other cases, it does not begin to run until evidence of the wrongful death is discovered; in some states, this is called the discovery rule.