How long do I have to sue after a car accident in California?

Two years from the date of the crash for injuries, under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, and three years for damage to your vehicle under section 338(c). If a government vehicle or a dangerous road condition was involved, you must present a written claim to the public entity within six months.

What happens if I miss the deadline?

The defendant will ask the court to dismiss the case, and courts routinely grant that request no matter how strong the underlying claim was. A missed deadline is one of the few problems in injury law that generally cannot be fixed.

Does the two-year clock start on the date of the accident or the date I found out I was hurt?

Usually the date of the injury. California's delayed discovery rule can start the clock later where an injury or its cause could not reasonably have been discovered right away, but it is an exception that has to be established, not a general extension you can count on.

Is the deadline different for a child?

Yes. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 352(a), the two-year period is generally paused while the injured person is under 18, so it typically runs from their eighteenth birthday. Claims against public entities are treated differently and the six-month claim deadline still demands immediate attention.

How long does a personal injury case take once it is filed?

That is a separate question from the filing deadline. Most California injury claims settle without a lawsuit, often within several months to about a year, depending on how long treatment takes. Cases that are filed and litigated commonly run one to two years or more. The filing deadline is a hard legal cutoff; the timeline of your case is not.

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

Deadlines are the least interesting part of an injury claim and the most unforgiving. Nearly everything else can be argued, negotiated, or fixed later. A missed filing deadline usually cannot.

The general rule: two years

For most California personal injury claims — car crashes, truck collisions, motorcycle and bicycle wrecks, pedestrian injuries, dog bites, and slip-and-fall cases — Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives you two years from the date of the injury to file a lawsuit.

Two years applies to wrongful death claims as well, measured from the date of death, which is not always the date of the incident that caused it.

Damage to property runs on a different clock. Under section 338(c), you generally have three years to sue over damage to your vehicle. So it is entirely possible for your injury claim to expire while your property damage claim is still alive.

The six-month trap: claims against a government entity

This is the deadline that ends the most otherwise-winnable cases.

If your claim is against a public entity — a city, a county, the state, a school district, a transit agency, a public hospital — you cannot simply sue within two years. Under the Government Claims Act, you must first present a written claim to that entity within six months of the incident (Government Code section 911.2).

Only after the entity responds, or the time to respond runs out, does a lawsuit deadline begin — and under Government Code section 945.6, that deadline is short: generally six months from the date a written rejection is mailed.

People are frequently surprised by which cases this covers:

a collision with a city or county vehicle
a bus or transit accident
a crash caused by a poorly designed intersection, a missing sign, or an unrepaired road defect
a fall on public property
an injury at a public school

If any part of what happened to you involves a government body, six months is the number that matters, and it starts running immediately.

Deadlines at a glance

Type of claim	Deadline	Authority
Personal injury	2 years from injury	CCP § 335.1
Wrongful death	2 years from date of death	CCP § 335.1
Damage to personal property	3 years	CCP § 338(c)
Claim against a public entity	6 months to present a written claim	Gov. Code § 911.2
Suit after a rejected public entity claim	Generally 6 months from the rejection notice	Gov. Code § 945.6
Medical malpractice	3 years from injury or 1 year from discovery, whichever is first	CCP § 340.5

The exceptions that change the date

Injured children. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 352(a), the clock is generally paused while the injured person is under 18. In practice, that usually means two years from their eighteenth birthday. Claims against public entities are handled differently, and a separate late-claim procedure exists — this is not a reason to wait.

Delayed discovery. California recognizes that some injuries are not apparent right away. Where an injury, or the fact that someone else caused it, could not reasonably have been discovered at the time, the clock can start when it reasonably should have been discovered. This is a genuine doctrine, but it is an argument you have to win, not a default extension.

Medical malpractice. Section 340.5 sets its own rule: three years from the injury, or one year from when you discovered or should have discovered it, whichever comes first. The one-year branch frequently expires long before the three-year one.

The defendant leaves California. Time during which a defendant is absent from the state may not count toward the period, under Code of Civil Procedure section 351.

Why waiting costs you even inside the deadline

The legal deadline is the last possible day, not the sensible one. The evidence that decides injury cases degrades much faster than two years:

Traffic and business surveillance video is commonly overwritten within days to weeks.
Skid marks, debris, and vehicle damage are gone or repaired quickly.
Witnesses move, change numbers, and stop remembering specifics.
A commercial trucking carrier’s driver logs and maintenance records are subject to federal retention periods measured in months, not years.
Gaps in medical treatment become the insurance company’s central argument that you were not really hurt.

A case filed on day 729 with none of that evidence is worth considerably less than the same case worked from week one.

What to do now

Write down the date of the incident. That single date drives every deadline above. Then find out whether any government entity was involved, because that answer changes your timeline from two years to six months.

If you are not certain which deadline applies to your situation, ask someone before assuming you have time. At Singh Law HQ the consultation is free, we handle these cases across Riverside and the Inland Empire and throughout California, and we will tell you honestly what your deadline is even if we are not the right firm for your case.