What's my deadline to bring a partnership dispute claim?

Several different limitations periods can potentially apply depending on exactly how your specific claim is legally framed. A claim for breach of a written partnership agreement generally carries a four-year deadline under Code of Civil Procedure section 337. Breach of fiduciary duty claims are commonly treated as carrying a similar four-year period under most interpretations, though this can genuinely vary based on the specific facts. Fraud-based claims carry a shorter three-year deadline under section 338, but critically, that clock is counted from when you actually discovered the wrongdoing, not from when it originally occurred.

This discovery-based timing on fraud and certain fiduciary duty claims can meaningfully extend your effective deadline in situations where your partner actively concealed their conduct, since the law generally doesn't expect you to have sued over misconduct you had no reasonable way of knowing about, provided you can demonstrate that the concealment itself was what delayed your discovery.