Article 1541

A right of action to compensate for injury or to pay a stipulated penalty is prescribed by five years from the beginning of the day following the one on which the victim has become aware of both the injury or the exigibility of the penalty and the person responsible therefore, and, in any case, by twenty years following the event which has caused the injury or has made the penalty exigible.

The twenty years by which a right of action to compensate for injury is prescribed in any case, does not apply where the injury results from air, water or land soil pollution.