The general rule: two years
California Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives you two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. This covers most car accidents, motorcycle crashes, slip and falls, dog bites, and general negligence claims.
Two years sounds like plenty. It isn't. Medical treatment often takes a year. Investigation, records collection, and negotiation take months more. Cases that come to a lawyer at twenty-two months routinely have to be filed immediately, before anyone has a complete picture of the injuries.
The six-month rule: government claims
This is the one that destroys otherwise strong cases.
If your injury involves a public entity — a city bus, a county vehicle, a school district, a dangerous condition on a public road, a municipal employee — you generally must file an administrative claim within six months under Government Code section 911.2. Only after that claim is rejected does a lawsuit deadline begin, and it's typically six months from the rejection notice.
Miss the six-month window and, absent a successful late-claim application, the case is over regardless of merit.
Situations this covers more often than people expect: crashes with Metro buses, LADOT or city vehicles, potholes and defective roadway design, poorly maintained public sidewalks, injuries at public schools or parks, and collisions with police or fire vehicles.
If any part of your accident involved something publicly owned or operated, treat the clock as six months until a lawyer confirms otherwise.
Other deadlines
Medical malpractice runs on a different clock: generally one year from discovery of the injury, or three years from the date of injury, whichever comes first.
Property damage — repairing or replacing your vehicle — is three years.
Wrongful death is generally two years from the date of death, which may be later than the date of injury.
Breach of a written contract, including some insurance disputes, is four years.
When the clock pauses
Several situations extend or delay the deadline.
Minors. The clock generally doesn't start until the child turns 18, giving them until 20 to file most claims. Government claim deadlines are a major exception and still apply.
Delayed discovery. Where an injury couldn't reasonably have been discovered right away, the clock may start when it was or should have been discovered.
Defendant leaves the state. Time a defendant spends outside California may not count against the period.
Incapacity. Insanity or incapacity at the time of injury can toll the period.
These are fact-specific and frequently litigated. Do not rely on one without legal advice.
Why the real deadline is much earlier
The filing deadline is the last possible moment, not the right one. Long before it arrives:
- Surveillance footage is overwritten, often on a 30-day cycle.
- Vehicles get repaired or scrapped, destroying physical evidence.
- Skid marks and roadway conditions disappear.
- Witnesses move, change numbers, and forget.
- Commercial trucking companies' records retention obligations expire.
- An insurer that knows your deadline is approaching has every reason to stall.
COMMON QUESTIONS
The defendant will move to dismiss, and the court will almost certainly grant it. The merits never get reached. Exceptions exist but they are narrow and hard to establish.
WHAT WE GO AFTER
- Most California injury claims: two years from the date of injury.
- Claims against a government entity: six months to file an administrative claim.
- Medical malpractice, property damage, and minors' claims run on different clocks.
- The deadline to file a lawsuit is not the deadline to start — evidence disappears long before.
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