How Long Do You Have to File an Injury Claim in California?

California does not give every injured person the same number of days. The deadline that applies to a car accident between two drivers is not the deadline that applies when a city bus, a public roadway, or a school is involved. A lawsuit filed one day late is subject to dismissal even when the injuries are serious and fault is clear.

This is general information about California deadlines, not a calculation for your file. The date that matters is the one a court would use for your facts.

The two-year limit for most injury claims

Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years to file a lawsuit for injury or death caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another person. For a collision or a fall, that period often starts on the day you were hurt.

Two years is the outside date for filing in court. It is not a reason to wait two years to get care, report the crash, or ask a lawyer to send a preservation letter. Witnesses move, storefront cameras overwrite, and truck modules record over older events. The steps in our guide on what to do after an accident protect the facts while the legal clock is still running.

An insurance negotiation does not stop the statute. An adjuster can keep discussing the claim until the deadline passes and then tell you the case is too late. A settlement offer, a request for more records, or a promise to “be in touch” is not a signed agreement to extend the time to sue. Extensions have to be written, and many carriers will not give one.

Damage to your vehicle is a different clock

The claim for your injuries and the claim for your car are not the same cause of action. Injury to personal property, including vehicle damage, generally falls under a three-year period in Code of Civil Procedure section 338. You can still be inside the property-damage window after the injury window has closed, or the other way around if the facts differ.

People in Irvine and Santa Ana often resolve the repair estimate with one insurer while the medical claim stays open. Paying for the bumper does not file your lawsuit, and it does not admit that the insurer will pay the medical bills, wage loss, or future care.

Claims against a city, county, or public agency

When the defendant is a public entity — a city, a county, a transit district, a school, Caltrans — the Government Claims Act comes first. Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim for death, personal injury, or damage to personal property to be presented within six months after the claim accrues. Claims for other kinds of harm generally have one year.

That six-month claim is not the lawsuit. It is a prerequisite. If you skip it, the agency can argue that the court has no power to hear the case. After the agency rejects the claim in writing, Government Code section 945.6 generally requires the lawsuit to be filed within six months of the date the rejection is delivered or deposited in the mail. If the agency never sends a written rejection, a different and longer outside date can apply. Reading the rejection letter for the mailing date is part of counting correctly.

A dangerous condition of public property, a city vehicle, or a public bus is exactly the kind of case in which families lose rights by using the ordinary two-year date. A bus accident and a fall on a city sidewalk need the government calendar, not the calendar printed on a private auto policy.

Late-claim relief exists in narrow circumstances, including for some injured children, but it is a request, not a right. Courts deny it when the excuse is simply that nobody looked up the deadline.

When the injury is not obvious on the first day

The clock starts when the claim “accrues.” In a rear-end crash on a freeway, with neck pain the same afternoon, accrual is usually the crash. You knew you were hurt and you knew a collision caused it.

California also recognizes situations in which a person did not know, and should not reasonably have known, both that they were injured and that someone’s negligence caused it. A harm a specialist connects to an incident months later can raise that question. It is a fact dispute, not a bonus year you can count on. Insurers fight delayed-accrual arguments, and a judge can decide that a reasonable person would have investigated sooner.

The practical rule is to get examined when symptoms appear and to ask, early, which deadline applies. Waiting for the pain to “become official” does not pause section 335.1.

A child’s claim and a death are not the adult injury date

If the injured person is under 18, Code of Civil Procedure section 352 often pauses the time to sue a private defendant until the 18th birthday. Parents still should not warehouse the case. Medical records are harder to gather years later, and a defendant can disappear.

That pause does not automatically apply to a government claim. A minor hurt by a public entity still faces the claims-presentation rules, with a separate late-claim procedure that has its own one-year outer application period. A school injury or a city-vehicle crash involving a child is one of the files most often lost to a wrong assumption.

A wrongful death claim generally runs two years from the death, which may be later than the original crash. If the person lived with the injury for a long time before dying, the defendant may argue that the underlying injury claim had already expired. Who is allowed to file that lawsuit is a separate question from the deadline. It is covered in who can file a wrongful death lawsuit in California.

Some other claims use still shorter statutes. Many professional-negligence claims, including medical malpractice, are not governed by the ordinary two-year injury period. If a doctor’s care is part of the story, do not borrow the car-accident deadline and apply it there.

What waiting costs even when you are still “on time”

A deadline tells you the last day a clerk will accept the complaint. It does not preserve the evidence. In a truck accident, electronic logs and engine data can be overwritten while you are still months inside the two years. In a slip and fall, the store repairs the floor and the incident report sits in a file that nobody is holding for you.

Nordean Law checks the correct statute at the start of a case, presents government claims when a public entity is involved, and files suit when the insurer’s number is wrong. The consultation is free.

Not sure which deadline applies to your injury? Contact Nordean Law or call 888.254.3222. You pay nothing unless we win.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Deadlines depend on the defendant, the type of harm, and when the claim accrued.