For most California injury claims you have two years from the day you were hurt to file a lawsuit. Miss that date and the claim is almost always gone, no matter how strong it was. That is the rule most people need.
Some claims get much less time than that. In particular, if a government agency may be involved in your injury—a city or county, a public transit district like AC Transit or BART, a state highway, a public school district—you generally have only six months to present a written claim to that agency before you can sue.
If that might describe your case, talk to an attorney early rather than assuming you have two years. (The two-year rule comes from Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1.)
The Six-Month Rule: Cases Involving a City, County, or Transit Agency
This is the exception that costs people their cases. If a government body might be responsible—the City of Oakland, Alameda County, the State, AC Transit, BART, Caltrans, a public school district—you usually cannot just wait and sue within two years. You first have to deliver a written claim to that agency within six months of the injury.
The agency then has 45 days to respond. If it rejects your claim in writing, you generally get six months from that rejection to file suit. If you blow the six-month window, there is a way to ask permission to file late, but it is discretionary—meaning the court can simply say no—and it is hard to win.
In a city where a crash can involve a bus, a city truck, a pothole, or a public sidewalk, this is the first deadline I check on every case. The step-by-step is in my guide to claims against the City of Oakland and other public entities. (These rules live in the Government Claims Act, at Government Code sections 911.2 and 945.6.)
Other Deadlines Worth Knowing
- Damage to your car but no injury: three years, not two—longer than the deadline for the injury itself, which surprises almost everyone. (Code of Civil Procedure section 338.)
- Wrongful death: generally two years from the date of death, which is not always the date of the injury that caused it.
- Medical malpractice: a different system entirely—generally three years from the injury or one year from the date you discovered it, whichever comes first, plus its own advance-notice requirement.
- Claims against your own insurer (uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage): governed by your policy’s own terms and deadlines, not just the court rule. Do not assume the two-year rule protects you here—read the policy or have someone read it for you.
When the Clock Pauses or Starts Late
A few situations stop the clock or start it later than you would expect. None of these are safe to rely on without advice—they are tools a lawyer uses to rescue a case when the calendar already looks bad, not reasons to wait:
- Children. For most injury claims the clock is paused (lawyers say “tolled”) until the child turns 18, so the two years generally run from the 18th birthday. Claims against a government agency are the painful exception— the six-month rule still applies to a child, through a parent or guardian.
- Injuries you could not have known about. If neither the injury nor its cause was something a reasonable person would have discovered right away, the clock can start when you did discover it. Courts read this narrowly.
- A defendant who leaves the state. Time a responsible party spends outside California can, in some circumstances, stop the clock from running.
Why Waiting Hurts Even Inside the Deadline
The filing deadline is real and unforgiving—but it is not the only clock running. Security camera footage is overwritten in days. Damaged vehicles get repaired or scrapped. Witnesses move and stop answering the phone. Memories soften, including yours.
So a case investigated in week one and the same case picked up in month eighteen are not the same case, even though both are comfortably inside the two years. You have until the deadline to file. You have far less time than that to build something strong. If you are unsure which deadline applies to you, ask me—it costs nothing, and you will know where you stand.