Home How Long After a Car Accident Can You Claim Injury in California?

How Long After a Car Accident Can You Claim Injury in California?

Car Accidents Behind The Law Know Your Rights

Reading Time: 5 Minutes

March 31, 2026Michelle Lysengen

A split image showing a rear-end car accident with a damaged silver Toyota Camry on a residential street on the left, and an October calendar on a wooden desk with 'Insurance/Repair' circled in red on the 21st and an appointment noted for the 22nd, alongside a pen and coffee cup on the right.

Two years. Under California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1, you have two years from the date of your injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. Miss that window and your case is gone. No exceptions based on merit, no judicial discretion, no second chances.

But two years is just the default. Several situations shorten that timeline dramatically, and the confusion between insurance deadlines and lawsuit deadlines trips people up constantly. You also need to file an SR-1 accident report with the DMV within 10 days if anyone was injured or property damage exceeded $1,000.

Key Takeaways

California gives you two years to file a personal injury lawsuit after a car accident under CCP § 335.1. The clock starts on the date of injury, not when you finish medical treatment or settle with insurance.
If a government entity is involved (city bus, Caltrans road defect, public transit), your deadline shrinks to six months for filing a mandatory administrative claim. Miss it, and you likely cannot sue at all.
Insurance claim deadlines and lawsuit deadlines are completely separate. Negotiating with an insurer does not pause the two-year statute of limitations.
Some injuries don’t show up right away. California’s discovery rule can extend your filing deadline if symptoms like a concussion or soft tissue damage appear days after the crash.

What Is California’s Statute of Limitations for Car Accident Injuries?

A statute of limitations is a hard deadline for filing a lawsuit. For personal injury from car accidents, that’s two years under CCP § 335.1. Some older sources still cite CCP § 340 as the governing statute. That hasn’t been accurate since 2003, when the legislature moved personal injury into its own section. Section 340 now covers defamation and false imprisonment. Not car accidents.

The two-year clock starts running on the date of your injury. Not the date you hired a lawyer. Not the date insurance denied your claim. Not the date your doctor cleared you from physical therapy. The date it happened.

Property damage runs on a separate, longer timeline of three years under CCP § 338. So if your personal injury deadline has passed, you may still have a window for vehicle damage.

What Exceptions Can Shorten or Extend the Deadline?

The two-year rule has teeth, but it also has exceptions. Some of them work in your favor. One does not.

Government entity claims. If a city vehicle, county bus, Caltrans road defect, or any public agency contributed to your accident, the timeline collapses. You must file a formal written claim with that entity within six months under Government Code § 911.2. You cannot skip this step and go straight to a lawsuit. Once filed, the agency has 45 days to respond. If they reject or stay silent, you have six months from the rejection to file suit.

Minors. Under CCP § 352, the statute of limitations is tolled (paused) while the injured person is under 18. A child hurt at age 10 has until their 20th birthday to file. One critical catch: this tolling does not apply to government claims. Even for a minor, the six-month government filing deadline still applies.

Delayed discovery. Not every injury announces itself at the scene. Soft tissue damage, concussions, and PTSD can take days or weeks to surface. California’s discovery rule, from Jolly v. Eli Lilly & Co. (1988), holds that the statute of limitations begins when the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered the injury and its connection to negligence. Once you suspect wrongdoing, the court expects you to investigate. You can’t sit on it.

How Are Insurance Deadlines Different from Lawsuit Deadlines?

This is where people get confused, and where insurance companies benefit.

The two-year statute of limitations applies to lawsuits filed in court. Insurance claims run on a completely separate track governed by your policy terms. Most policies require “prompt” notification, and the California Department of Insurance advises reporting accidents immediately. No blanket California law mandates a specific number of days.

The dangerous part: negotiating with an insurer does not pause the statute of limitations. Settlement talks can drag on for months while the clock keeps running. Some insurers use delay as a deliberate tactic, running out the clock while you wait for a fair offer that never comes.

California regulates the insurer’s side of the timeline. Under Cal. Code Regs. § 2695.7, insurers must accept or deny a claim within 40 calendar days of receiving proof. Violations of that standard can form the basis of a bad-faith claim.

What Happens If You Wait Too Long?

The court dismisses your case. There’s no weighing of circumstances, no consideration of how strong your evidence is or how badly you were hurt. An expired statute of limitations is an absolute bar. The defendant raises it as a defense, the judge grants the motion, and your right to compensation is permanently gone.

Evidence deteriorates with time, too. Witnesses forget details, surveillance footage gets overwritten, and physical evidence from the crash becomes harder to reconstruct. The longer the gap between your accident and your first doctor visit, the easier it is for the defense to argue your injuries came from something else.

If you’ve been injured in a car accident in California and aren’t sure where you stand on the timeline, contact DK Law for a free case review. Even if you think you might be close to a deadline, there may still be options.

About the Author

Michelle Lysengen

Michelle is a content specialist at DK Law and creates content that highlights company events and breaks down complex legal topics into digestible, engaging content. She earned her B.A. in Marketing from California State University, Fullerton.

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