How Long Do I Have to File a Personal Injury Claim in California?

Reviewed by Ron Chini, Esq. · CA State Bar No. 263308 · Attorney in Irvine, CA since 2009.
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Two years sounds like plenty of time. For most California personal injury claims it is the rule — but "most" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. A handful of exceptions can shorten that window dramatically, or extend it in narrow circumstances, and the sharpest one is easy to miss entirely if you don't know to look for it.

The general rule: two years

Under California Code of Civil Procedure §335.1, the general deadline to file a personal injury lawsuit is two years from the date of the injury. This applies to most car accidents, slip-and-falls, dog bites, and similar claims against a private individual or business. Miss it, and the court will almost always dismiss the case regardless of how strong it otherwise was — the deadline is jurisdictional, not a formality.

Exception: minors

When the injured person is a minor at the time of the incident, California Code of Civil Procedure §352 tolls (pauses) the limitations clock until they turn 18. Practically, that means a minor injured at any age generally has until their 20th birthday — two years after turning 18 — to file a personal injury claim in their own right, even though an adult injured the same way would have only two years from the incident itself.

This tolling exists because minors generally can't bring a lawsuit on their own, and the law doesn't want a child's claim to expire before they're legally able to act on it. That said, if a government entity is also involved in a minor's injury, separate and more complex claim-presentation rules can come into play — another reason to have an attorney confirm the actual deadlines rather than assuming the standard extension covers every scenario.

Exception: the delayed discovery rule

Some injuries aren't obvious right away. In cases where the injury or its cause genuinely couldn't reasonably have been discovered at the time it happened — certain product-defect cases, some toxic-exposure claims — California's delayed discovery rule can start the clock from when the injury was discovered, or reasonably should have been discovered, rather than from the date of the underlying incident.

This is a narrower exception than it sounds. Courts scrutinize delayed-discovery arguments closely and the analysis is highly fact-specific and often disputed — it's not a rule that routinely extends the deadline in an ordinary car accident or slip-and-fall where the injury was apparent at the time. It matters most in situations where the connection between the harm and its cause genuinely wasn't knowable until later.

Exception: government defendants — six months, not two years

This is the deadline most people don't know exists until it's too late. If your injury involves a city, county, or state government entity — a collision with a government vehicle, a dangerous condition on public property, a fall caused by a poorly maintained sidewalk or road — you generally cannot simply sue within two years. Instead, the Government Claims Act requires you to first file a formal administrative claim with the public entity within six months of the incident, under Government Code §911.2. Only after that claim is filed (and typically denied or not acted on) can a lawsuit generally proceed.

Why calling early matters, even with two years

Even when the standard two-year deadline applies, waiting is costly for reasons that have nothing to do with the calendar. Skid marks fade, surveillance footage gets overwritten or deleted on a routine cycle — sometimes within days or weeks — and witnesses' memories degrade the further they get from the event. A case built on evidence gathered promptly is simply stronger than one reconstructed a year and a half later.

And critically, the six-month government-claims deadline can already be running — or already expired — before an injured person even realizes a public entity was involved at all. A pothole on what looks like an ordinary street, a bus that turns out to be a transit-authority vehicle, a fall on property that's actually owned by a school district: none of these are obvious at a glance, and by the time someone connects the dots, six months can pass faster than it sounds. Getting a claim evaluated early is the only reliable way to know which deadline actually applies to your situation before it's too late to do anything about it.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• California Code of Civil Procedure §335.1 — Personal injury statute of limitations (California Legislative Information)
• California Code of Civil Procedure §352 — Tolling for minors (California Legislative Information)
• California Government Code §911.2 — Government Claims Act, six-month claim deadline (California Legislative Information)

Ron Chini, Esq.

Personal Injury Attorney · CA State Bar No. 263308

Ron has practiced law from his Irvine office since 2009. You work directly with him — not a paralegal or a call center.

Learn more about Ron Chini →