28 U.S.C. § 2416
Section 2416 · Time for commencing actions brought by the United States - Exclusions
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 98 court decisions — leading case Federal Deposit Insurance v. Petersen (1985)
Most recently applied in United States ex rel. Hunt v. Cochise Consultancy, Inc. (April 2018)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
For the purpose of computing the limitations periods established in section 2415, there shall be excluded all periods during which—
(a) the defendant or the res is outside the United States, its territories and possessions, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; or
(b) the defendant is exempt from legal process because of infancy, mental incompetence, diplomatic immunity, or for any other reason; or
(c) facts material to the right of action are not known and reasonably could not be known by an official of the United States charged with the responsibility to act in the circumstances; or
(d) the United States is in a state of war declared pursuant to article I, section 8, of the Constitution of the United States.