How Long to File a Personal Injury Claim in California

The single most consequential number in any California injury case is a date: the day the statute of limitations runs out. File before it and the courthouse doors are open. File after it and, in most cases, the claim is over before it begins, no matter how strong the facts are. This brief lays out the deadlines that govern personal injury claims in California, with the statutes that set them. As of September 2026, the sections below reflect current law.

How long do you have to file a personal injury claim in California?

For most personal injury claims you have two years from the date of injury to file a lawsuit. This covers car, motorcycle, and truck collisions, pedestrian injuries, slip and fall incidents, and dog bites. The rule comes from Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1, which covers actions for "injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another."

Two things follow from the statute's wording:

• Wrongful death claims use the same two-year clock, generally measured from the date of death rather than the date of the underlying accident.
• The clock ordinarily starts on the date of injury, not the date you hired an attorney, finished medical treatment, or resolved an insurance claim.

The two-year rule is the ceiling, not a guarantee. Several common situations cut the available time sharply.

What is the deadline to sue a city or government agency in California?

If the responsible party is a public entity, you generally cannot simply file a lawsuit. A written claim for injury to person or personal property must be presented to the entity within six months of the date the cause of action accrues under Gov. Code § 911.2. Only after the claim is rejected, or deemed rejected, does a short window to sue open.

The six-month claim requirement applies statewide, whether the defendant is a large city, a county road crew, a state agency, or a small rural school district. Missing it is one of the most common ways an otherwise valid case ends early.

Medical malpractice: a different statute entirely

Claims for professional negligence against a health care provider are governed by Code of Civil Procedure § 340.5: three years from the date of injury, or one year from the date the plaintiff discovers, or reasonably should have discovered, the injury, whichever comes first. In practice the one-year discovery deadline controls more often than people expect. Medical malpractice also carries its own pre-suit notice requirement and its own timing rules for minors. The law and public record on medical malpractice in California go into more detail.

Rules that can extend the clock

California law recognizes circumstances that pause, or "toll," the limitations period:

• Minors. Under Code of Civil Procedure § 352, the clock is generally tolled while the injured person is under 18, so most injury claims belonging to a child do not expire until two years after the child's eighteenth birthday. Medical malpractice and government claims follow different, less forgiving rules.
• Delayed discovery. California courts apply a discovery rule in limited situations where the injury or its cause was not reasonably knowable at the time it happened. It is a fact-intensive doctrine, not something to rely on by default.
• Defendant out of state, incapacity, and other statutory grounds can toll the period in narrower circumstances.

Tolling doctrines are decided on specific facts, and guessing wrong is unforgiving.

As of September 2026, California measures most personal injury deadlines from the date of injury: two years to sue under Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1, three years for property damage under Code Civ. Proc. § 338, three years or one year (whichever is first) for medical malpractice under Code Civ. Proc. § 340.5, and just six months to present a written claim to a public entity under Gov. Code § 911.2. A single crash can trigger several of these at once, each running on its own calendar. Tolling for minors under Code Civ. Proc. § 352 and the delayed-discovery rule can extend the period, but they turn on specific facts and apply differently to malpractice and government claims. Nothing here is legal advice; it is a statement of what the cited statutes say.

Deadlines at a glance

Damage to your vehicle or other property carries a three-year period, longer than the injury claim arising from the same crash. The two claims can expire on different days. For how these limits appear across other case types, see California filing deadlines by claim.

The insurance deadline is not the legal deadline

Reporting a crash to an insurer, opening a claim, and negotiating with an adjuster do not stop the statute of limitations. Settlement talks can, and sometimes do, run past the filing deadline, and once it passes the leverage is gone. The lawsuit deadline is satisfied only by filing a complaint in court, or, for public entities, presenting a timely government claim first.

How these deadlines apply to any specific set of facts is a question for a licensed California attorney, because they interact: one crash can involve a two-year injury claim, a three-year property claim, and a six-month government claim at the same time. The California Attorney Registry is an independent index of the public roll maintained by the State Bar of California. You can browse attorneys who handle personal injury matters and verify any California attorney's license in about two minutes before you make a single call.