When does the statute of limitations apply for a surgical object found in the body?

• A. Two years from surgery
• B. Six months from discovery
• C. One year from the date the object is found
• D. Three years from injury

Answer: (C)

When a foreign object is left in the body, the time to sue is triggered by discovery rather than by the date of surgery. This uses a discovery rule: the statute of limitations begins when the patient discovers the object (or should have discovered it) and, once that happens, there is typically a defined period to file—commonly one year.

This approach makes sense because symptoms may be delayed or subtle, so it wouldn’t be fair to start the clock at the time of surgery. Instead, patients gain a reasonable window once they learn of the issue, allowing them to pursue a claim without open-ended exposure.

For example, if a retained object is found years after the procedure, the patient has one year from that finding to sue. The other timeframes—starting at surgery, at discovery of symptoms, or a long period from injury—don’t align with how these cases are commonly treated, where the trigger is discovery of the object and the limit follows after that discovery.