In California you have two years from the date of the injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. That deadline comes from California Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, and it covers most of what people mean by a personal injury case: car crashes, truck crashes, dog bites, and falls. Miss it and the court will not hear the case, however strong it is. Two years is only the default, though. Some situations cut it to six months, and a few push it out much further.
The two-year rule: Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1
Section 335.1 gives you two years for “an action for assault, battery, or injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another.” That is broad. It sets the deadline for almost every injury case in California.
That covers a lot of cases. California superior courts took in 49,326 unlimited civil motor vehicle personal injury, property damage and wrongful death filings in fiscal year 2024-25, and 59,077 other filings in the same injury, property damage and wrongful death category (Judicial Council of California, 2026 Court Statistics Report, Tables 5c and 5d). Those counts are lawsuits, and the claims that settled without one are not in them.
The clock normally starts the day you were hurt. Rear-ended on March 4, your lawsuit is generally due by March 4 two years later. A claim brought by a family after a death runs on its own timeline. See the wrongful death statute of limitations.
Some claims that feel different are still governed by section 335.1. A dog bite claim is one. California Civil Code section 3342 makes a dog owner liable for a bite that happens in a public place or where the person bitten was lawfully on private property, whether or not the owner knew the dog was dangerous. You do not have to prove carelessness. The time limit is still the ordinary two years.
Filing means filing a lawsuit, not opening an insurance claim
Reporting the crash to an insurance company does nothing to the statute of limitations. An insurance claim is not a lawsuit. The deadline is met only when a complaint is filed with the court and a case is opened. Calling the adjuster, sending photos and trading settlement offers for eighteen months all leave the two-year clock running.
Insurers are not required to warn you that your deadline is approaching, and a claim still “under review” on the day the statute runs is worth very little the next morning. If negotiations are unfinished as the two-year mark comes into view, a lawsuit gets filed to protect the claim. Settlement talks continue afterward.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage has its own trap. Under California Insurance Code section 11580.2, subdivision (i), no claim arises under that coverage unless, within two years of the date of the accident, you have either filed suit against the uninsured driver, reached an agreement on the amount owed, or formally demanded arbitration in writing by certified mail. Telling your own insurer about the accident does not do it. Neither does an open claim file.
Damage to your car or other property: three years
Property damage gets three years, not two. Code of Civil Procedure section 338, subdivision (c)(1), gives three years for “an action for taking, detaining, or injuring goods or chattels,” which is where a wrecked vehicle, a destroyed phone or damaged tools fall. Damage to land or a building runs three years as well, under section 338, subdivision (b).
One crash can carry two deadlines. The claim for your broken wrist is due in two years. The claim for your totaled car is due in three. Both are normally filed together, so the shorter deadline is the one to plan around.
Suing a city, county, or state agency: six months to file a claim
If a government entity injured you, you have six months to file an administrative claim. That is separate from the lawsuit deadline. It is also much earlier. Nothing about this deadline is obvious from the outside, and it is one people find out about too late.
Under the Government Claims Act, California Government Code section 911.2, a claim for death or for injury to a person or to personal property “shall be presented … not later than six months after the accrual of the cause of action.” Six months. Not two years. Other kinds of claims against a public entity get one year. You present that claim directly to the agency, on its own form, not to a court.
Miss the six months and the case is usually over, even though two years have not passed.
Government Code section 911.4 allows a written application for leave to present a late claim, but it has to be made within a reasonable time and no later than one year after the claim arose, and it has to explain the delay. The agency can refuse.
The six-month claim is a step, not the lawsuit itself. The lawsuit comes after. Once the agency rejects the claim in writing, Government Code section 945.6 gives you six months from the date that rejection notice was personally delivered or mailed to file suit. If the agency never sends written notice of rejection, you have two years from the date the claim arose.
A pothole or missing guardrail on a public road, a collision with a city vehicle, a bus or trolley crash, or a fall at a public school can all put you inside the six-month window.
These claims are not unusual. The City of San Diego received 1,557 new public liability claims in fiscal year 2022, an increase of 144 claims or 10 percent over the prior year, which the City attributed mainly to water main breaks, trip and falls, and pothole damage (City of San Diego Risk Management Department, Fiscal Year 2022 Risk Management Annual Report). The City also discloses that it changed how it counted claims that year, so read the increase as approximate.
The volume is not unique to San Diego. Los Angeles County reported 4,248 claims in its other general liability category in fiscal year 2024-25, an increase of 583 claims or 15.9 percent over the prior year, plus 1,406 vehicle liability claims, 173 of which the County says were not related to County department functions (County of Los Angeles Chief Executive Office, Risk Management Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2024-25). Claims like these go to the agency first, on the agency’s own form. The court comes later.
When the clock starts later: the delayed discovery rule
Some injuries are not obvious the day they happen, and California courts start the clock when the injury is discovered instead. That is the delayed discovery rule. The California Courts self-help guide states it plainly. Where an injury was not discovered right away, the limitations period generally runs from the date the problem was discovered or reasonably should have been discovered, whichever comes first.
“Reasonably should have discovered” is the part that does the work. You do not need certainty. Once you have enough information that a reasonable person would start asking questions, the clock is running, even if you do not yet know who is responsible.
Injured children: Code of Civil Procedure section 352
A child’s two-year clock generally does not start until the child turns 18. Lawyers call this tolling, which means the clock is paused. Code of Civil Procedure section 352, subdivision (a), provides that if the injured person was under the age of majority when the claim arose, the time of that disability “is not part of the time limited for the commencement of the action.” That is the tolling rule. The same subdivision tolls the deadline for a person who lacked the legal capacity to make decisions when the claim arose. In practice, an injured child usually has until their twentieth birthday. A parent can file on the child’s behalf before then, and often should, while witnesses and records still exist.
There is a large exception. Section 352, subdivision (b), says this tolling does not apply to claims against a public entity or public employee that require a government claim. A child hurt on a school bus or at a public pool is still inside the six-month Government Claims Act window. Do not assume a child’s case can wait.
Sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse have separate, longer deadlines
These claims are not governed by the two-year rule, and survivors are often told otherwise. Two different statutes apply. Deadlines for adult sexual assault run under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.16, and childhood sexual assault runs under section 340.1, which sets no time limit at all for abuse occurring on or after January 1, 2024.
A separate California law, AB 250, also reopened some claims that had expired. Some expired claims are alive again. If you were told your deadline passed, check it before you accept that. Our guide to California’s sexual assault statute of limitations covers the current deadlines and the revival window in full.
Deadlines this firm does not handle: medical malpractice
Medical malpractice runs on its own schedule. That schedule is shorter. Section 340.5 requires suit within three years of the date of injury or one year after the plaintiff discovers, or with reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury, whichever comes first. The three-year outer limit can be extended only on proof of fraud, intentional concealment, or a foreign object left in the body with no diagnostic or therapeutic purpose. Children under six get a longer period: three years, or until their eighth birthday, whichever is longer.
Gomez Trial Attorneys does not handle medical malpractice cases. The rule appears here because an accurate picture of California deadlines has to include it. That one-year discovery period is short. Anyone in that situation should speak with a firm that takes those cases promptly.
What happens if you miss the deadline
The other side asks the court to throw the case out, and the court does. The case ends there. The statute of limitations is a defense the defendant raises, and once a complaint is filed late, the strength of the underlying case stops mattering. Liability, injuries and medical bills all become irrelevant.
The effect reaches past the courthouse. An adjuster who knows your deadline has passed has no reason to pay anything, because you no longer have any way to make them. In an injury case, almost all of your bargaining power comes from being able to file suit.
Courts do recognize narrow doctrines that can pause a limitations period, including equitable tolling. Do not count on them. Those are exceptions argued after the fact, not deadlines you can plan around.
Nobody publishes a count of these cases
California does not report how many cases are thrown out for missing the statute of limitations. The Judicial Council’s Court Statistics Report records how each civil case ended, using categories such as disposed of before trial, decided by a jury, decided by the court, and dismissed for lack of prosecution. There is no statute-of-limitations category. Any page that gives you a number for California cases lost to a missed deadline did not get it from the state.
California does count a different deadline dismissal, and the two are easy to confuse. A filed lawsuit has to keep moving. A case that sits can be dismissed for lack of prosecution under Code of Civil Procedure sections 583.310 and 583.410. That rule reaches only cases that are already in court, and it has nothing to do with the two-year deadline for getting into court in the first place.
Those dismissals are counted. In fiscal year 2024-25 California superior courts dismissed 1,017 unlimited civil motor vehicle personal injury, property damage and wrongful death cases for lack of prosecution, against 389 disposed of after any trial, 211 by jury and 178 by a judge (Judicial Council of California, 2026 Court Statistics Report, Table 5c). In fiscal year 2023-24 it was 1,693 lack-of-prosecution dismissals against 360 after trial (2025 Court Statistics Report, Table 5c). None of those are statute-of-limitations dismissals. They are cases that got filed and then stalled.
Common questions
When exactly does my two years start?
Usually the date of the injury. If you did not know you were hurt right away, the delayed discovery rule may push the start date to when you discovered the injury or reasonably should have.
Does the two-year deadline pause while I negotiate with the insurance company?
No. Only filing a lawsuit with the court stops the clock. An open claim, a pending settlement offer and an adjuster who has gone quiet all leave the deadline running.
I was hit by a city bus. How long do I really have?
Six months. You file an administrative claim with the agency under Government Code section 911.2. If the agency rejects it in writing, Government Code section 945.6 then gives you six months from the date of that notice to file suit. The two-year rule does not save a late government claim.
My child was injured. Do we have to file now?
Usually the child’s own deadline is tolled until they turn 18 under Code of Civil Procedure section 352, which typically leaves until age 20. Two cautions. That tolling does not apply to government claims, and evidence gets harder to gather every year.
Is the deadline different for a dog bite?
No. A dog bite claim follows the ordinary two-year rule in Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, even though California Civil Code section 3342 can make the owner liable without any proof that they were careless.
If your deadline is close
Deadlines in California injury cases are fact specific, and the difference between six months and two years often turns on who owned the vehicle or the property where you were hurt. The details decide it. This article is general information, not legal advice about your situation. If a deadline may be approaching, or you are not sure whether one has already passed, talk to a personal injury attorney about the facts before you assume either way.