Dismissal, almost without exception
If a personal injury lawsuit is filed in Maine after the applicable statute of limitations has run — the general six-year deadline under 14 M.R.S. § 752, or a shorter deadline like the two-year wrongful death rule — the court will almost always dismiss the case as time-barred. This happens regardless of how strong the underlying claim actually is or how serious the injury turned out to be.
Courts apply these deadlines strictly
Statutes of limitations exist specifically to create a firm, predictable cutoff, and Maine courts generally enforce them that way. Being close to the deadline, or having a sympathetic reason for the delay that doesn't fit a recognized legal exception, isn't on its own a basis for a court to excuse a late filing.
A genuinely counterintuitive risk: Maine's own generosity
Because Maine's general six-year rule is so much longer than the deadlines most people are familiar with from other states, there's a real, distinctive risk of assuming that generous timeline applies to every type of Maine claim. In practice, wrongful death claims carry just a two-year deadline, and medical malpractice claims carry three years — both genuinely shorter than the general rule, and both easy to miscalculate if someone assumes the more famous six-year window covers everything.
Negotiations end along with the legal leverage behind them
One of the more painful practical consequences: once the statute of limitations has actually run, an insurance company has no legal obligation to keep negotiating, to make any offer, or to pay anything at all — even if settlement talks were active and seemingly productive right up until the deadline passed.
If there's any doubt at all
Because the consequence of missing a deadline is generally permanent, and because Maine's rules genuinely differ depending on the type of claim, the only reliable way to know where things actually stand is to confirm the exact date with a licensed Maine attorney as early as possible.