Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: statute of limitations

Sorry to hear about the problems. Yes, there are statutes of limitations which can bar lawsuits on all types of legal matters - breach of contract, personal injury, etc... That being said, Small Claims Court is often referred to as a "Court of Equities" which means that the judges and commissioners who hear matters in Small Claims Court aren't 100% bound by strict law. I would say that regardless of when the money was loaned, if you want to get it back, you need to file the small claims action as soon as possible. The clerks at the Small Claims counter are very helpful in preparing the forms, and helping you understand what you need to do to serve the defendant. With respect to the money - if you are saying you are the business owner, and wrote a check from your business account to the borrower, then you could file either personally or the business as the plaintiff. If you had someone else lend the money for you to your friend, the person who actually made the loan should be the plaintiff. The Defendant (the borrower) has to raise the statute of limitations as a defense, and even then I have seen Small Claims Court commissioners reject that and enter judgment anyway.

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Re: statute of limitations

In general, the statute of limitations for a suit based on breach of an oral agreement (which this probably was ??? ) is two years from the time of breach. For a suit based on a written agreement, the limit is four years.

Certain situations where money is owed, bills are tendered and go unpaid without dispute by the debtor are viewed differently, and the statute of limitations re-starts each time a new bill is tendered.