(1) An action is commenced on the day the complaint is filed with the court. (2) Each defendant in the action must be properly served within one hundred eighty days of the commencement of the action. If the action is stayed or enjoined during the one-hundred-eighty-day period, then any defendant who was not properly served before the action was stayed or enjoined must be properly served within ninety days after the stay or injunction is terminated or modified so as to allow the action to proceed. (3) If any defendant is not properly served within the time specified by subsection (2) of this section then the action against that defendant is dismissed by operation of law. The dismissal is without prejudice and becomes effective on the day after the time for service expires.
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-217
Action; commencement; defendant not properly served; effect
Applied in 45 court decisions — leading case Kocsis v. Harrison (1996)
Most recently applied in 34 Neb. Ct. App. 83 - Kudlacek v. Olson Zalewski Wynner (February 2026)
R.S.1867, Code § 19, p. 396; R.S.1913, § 7580; C.S.1922, § 8523; C.S.1929, § 20-217; R.S.1943, § 25-217; Laws 1979, LB 510, § 1; Laws 1986, LB 529, § 21; Laws 2002, LB 876, § 5;…
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. 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.
Official source: Nebraska Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Nebraska statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.