You have likely heard or seen personal injury lawyers warn you in advertisements that the law limits how long you have to sue.

Don't treat such statements as unnecessary sales pitches. Personal injury lawyers tell you this because of the statute of limitations. Defense lawyers invoke them when you fail to meet the deadline for filing a lawsuit. Generally, courts regard statutes of limitations as “inflexible” and firm. To be sure, they can prove unforgiving. Even claims with otherwise clear-cut liability or extensive damages fall when plaintiffs are tardy in filing lawsuits.

Statutes of limitations seek to prevent the pitfalls of stale claims. Overtime, witnesses to incidents causing personal injury may die or become unavailable to testify. Records and physical evidence might disappear or become unreliable.

What is a Personal Injury Case?

As we explain below, California law imposes a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury cases. Initially, it helps that you understand the nature of a personal injury case.

Personal injuries consist of physical, mental, and emotional harm caused by someone’s carelessness, recklessness, or intentional wrongdoing. Injuries often include:

*Fractures

*Bruises

*Lacerations

*Loss of cognitive functions, hearing, or eyesight

*Anxiety, depression, and negative changes in behavior

*Insomnia

*Diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular illness, and kidney failure

In a personal injury case, you seek compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, and non-economic damages such as pain and suffering caused by negligence, reckless acts, assaults, batteries, or dangerous products. Such cases commonly involve motor vehicle crashes resulting from speeding, running stop signs or red lights, unsafe movements, distracted driving, and operating vehicles under the influence of alcohol, narcotics, or other controlled substances.

Unsafe property conditions, products, or animals can also hurt victims. These involve incidents such as:

*Falls or slips from liquid or objects left on a store aisle or warehouse

*Assaults occurring at a store, hotel, or parking lot due to inadequate or negligent security

*Dog bites

*Explosion of defective airbags when deployed

*Contaminated food or drink resulting in illness

What is the Personal Injury Statute of Limitations?

Generally, California law gives you two years from the date of injury to start a personal injury lawsuit. The clock starts running when you suffer any injury as a result of an incident, even if other injuries do not materialize or manifest themselves until later. This is because your right to sue for negligence or other acts causing personal injuries arises the moment of some injury. If you don't start the clock until your injuries get worse or reaches a maximum level, you risk filing your lawsuit too late because you have allowed time to pass without acting.

Typically, the two-year window opens on the date of the crash, bite, fall, attack, or other incident. For most personal injury claims, you will want a record of the date of the injury or incident to prove you started the lawsuit in time. Accident reports from the California Highway Patrol or local police or sheriff’s departments list the date of the accident. If you fall or trip at a store or shopping center, you may want to complete or see an incident report that states the date you fell, slipped, or tripped. Police reports may document the date you were attacked if you pursue a claim against a store or other property owner for negligent security.

What If You Don't Know That You're Injured?

Not all incidents produce an injury that you immediately notice. Unlike most accidents from negligent drivers, defective products, or unsafe property conditions, exposure to contaminated food or toxic materials may not cause an illness for some time. Indeed, you may not even know that you ate, drank, or came into contact with something harmful until you become sick or diagnosed with a disease.

Even injuries from car accidents can sometimes go unnoticed for some time.

In these cases, the statute of limitations begins when you discovered or should have discovered the injury rather than the date of the accident or incident. This may come from a diagnosis or when you feel pain, discomfort, or other symptoms. For instance:

*You get a diagnosis of cancer after exposure to a pesticide that lacks a warning of the potential for cancer

*A doctor diagnoses you with kidney failure or end-stage renal disease, but you sometime later that you were exposed to a chemical in hair straighteners or nail polish

*You feel pain, not at the time of a crash, but some days thereafter

Medical records may prove valuable in fixing the date of discovery of the injury.

Putting the Brakes on the Statute of Limitations

Certain circumstances may interrupt the running of the statute of limitations after it has started. These holds or “tolling” of the statute of limitations arise in the following scenarios.

Youth

Those under age 18 at the time of the injury or incident have until two years after turning age 18 – or the twentieth birthday to start the lawsuit.

Mental Incapacity

California statutes also exclude from the clock any period in which the injured party lacks the legal capacity to bring a lawsuit. This means that some mental illness or condition prevents a personal injury victim from being able to understand the nature of and make decisions in a lawsuit. Such a victim would lack the capacity to decide whether to settle or proceed to trial, determine witnesses and evidence, and respond to pretrial requests to produce documents or questions about the claim.

When the Prospective Defendant is not in California

If the at-fault party lives in California but has left, you get a pause on the statute of limitations for the time that party is out of the state. Consider a California driver who rear-ends you on May 1, 2024, and at some point afterwards, embarks on a six-month trip across the United States. So long as the trip started before the statute expired, those six months do not count in the two-year running of the limitations period. Thus, the deadline would pass on May 1, 2026, but on November 1, 2026.

This tolling rule seeks to keep defendants leaving the state to avoid responsibility for their wrongful conduct.

Injured While on the Job?

The clock is paused for plaintiffs who file for workers’ compensation arising from the same incident that creates a personal injury claim. Workers' compensation pay workers injured while performing their jobs for medical expenses and loss of earning ability. For example, a furniture store worker injured in a crash while driving a truck and delivering to a customer may have a claim against the employer for workers’ compensation benefits as well as a negligence claim against the at-fault driver.

To take advantage, you must:

*File your workers’ compensation claim

*Notify the prospective personal injury defendants you have done so; and

*Show that facts or events giving rise to the personal injury claim are the same as those in the personal injury case

You must file the workers’ compensation claim and notify the defendants before the two-year statute of limitations expires.

Other Reasons to Pause the Statute of Limitations

The statute of limitations comes to a halt:

*While a plaintiff is on active military duty

*For those serving prison sentences, the shorter of the period of incarceration or two years

*When the personal injury victim dies within six months of the otherwise expiration of the statute. (In that case, the estate has six months after the date of death to file the personal injury action.)

What if the Government Hurts You?

You might have a personal injury claim against the State of California or a county, municipality, or local board in the State. For example, people may suffer injury from:

*A crash with a police vehicle

*Broken playground equipment at a city-run park or a school

When it comes to deadlines, you have two to meet. First, before you can take the state or local government to court, you must present your claim to the government. That must happen within six months after the injury or the incident. Afterwards, the body or agency must either accept or reject your claim.

If the rejection occurs within 45 days after you present the claim, you then get six months to sue. The statute of limitations becomes two years if you don't get a rejection within the 45 days.