Most people who walk into Attorney Dustin’s office after a serious injury have already done some version of the same math. I have time. I’ll wait until my treatment is finished. I’ll wait to see how my body settles before I file anything. The instinct makes sense personally. It is also the instinct that, more than any other, ends otherwise strong cases before they begin.
California’s deadlines for filing a personal injury claim are not guidelines. They are jurisdictional cutoffs. Once they pass, the case is over, regardless of how clear the liability is or how serious the injuries. The general rule sounds simple. The exceptions are where most people get hurt.
The Two-Year Rule Is the Starting Point
For most personal injury cases in California, the statute of limitations is two years from the date of the injury, set by Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. It applies to:
- Car, truck, and motorcycle crashes
- Slip and fall and other premises liability claims
- Dog bites and most animal attacks
- Most product liability claims involving personal injury
- Wrongful death actions, measured from the date of death rather than the underlying incident
Two years sounds generous when you are still in physical therapy. It compresses quickly. Investigation, medical record collection, demand negotiation, and settlement discussions routinely take twelve to eighteen months on a serious case, and a lawyer needs lead time to do that work properly. Bringing a file to a firm thirty days before the deadline is not the same case as bringing it eighteen months in.
Government Defendants and the Six-Month Trap
If a public entity is involved, the calendar shrinks dramatically. Under the California Government Claims Act, Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim notice to be filed with the responsible agency within six months of the incident.
This rule catches more people than any other deadline issue in California practice. A short list of when it applies:
- A crash with a city, county, or state vehicle, including law enforcement, fire, and public works
- A pothole, missing sign, or defective traffic signal on a public road
- A slip and fall in a courthouse, public school, public hospital, or other government facility
- A bus or transit accident involving a public agency carrier
- An injury caused by a public employee acting in the scope of employment
After the claim notice is filed, the agency has 45 days to respond. A formal denial triggers a separate six-month deadline to file suit under Government Code section 945.6. Missing the original notice deadline is rarely curable. Late claim applications under Government Code section 911.4 are granted sparingly and only on specific statutory grounds.
Medical Malpractice Has Its Own Calendar, and the Stakes Just Went Up
Medical negligence claims run on a different statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5. The deadline is the earlier of:
- One year from the date the injury was discovered, or reasonably should have been discovered
- Three years from the date of the injury itself
The discovery rule shortens the window rather than extending it. A patient who learns about a misdiagnosis two years after the fact has one year from that discovery date, not the full three years.
The biggest recent change in California medical malpractice does not touch the deadline. It changes what the case is worth. Assembly Bill 35, effective January 1, 2023, raised California’s long-frozen non-economic damages caps for the first time since 1975. As of January 1, 2026, the cap stands at $470,000 in non-death cases and $650,000 in wrongful death cases, with annual increases scheduled through 2034 to reach $750,000 and $1 million respectively, and inflation adjustments after that. Filing on time matters more than it has in nearly fifty years, because the dollar value of timely-filed cases is now substantially higher.
Minors, Tolling, and the Real Calendar for Children’s Cases
For most personal injury claims involving a child, the statute is tolled until the child turns 18 under Code of Civil Procedure section 352. The two-year clock then runs to the child’s twentieth birthday for general negligence cases.
Two large carve-outs apply. Medical malpractice involving children under six is governed by section 340.5, which requires filing within three years of the injury or before the child’s eighth birthday, whichever provides a longer period. Tolling does not save these cases. Government Claims Act notices remain on the same six-month track for minors as for adults, and a missed notice deadline can extinguish a child’s case before they ever know it existed. Parents are responsible for protecting that window.
Sexual Abuse and Assault Claims Have Seen the Biggest Recent Shifts
California has reshaped the deadline rules for sexual abuse and assault civil claims more than any other category in recent years. Four bills matter:
- Assembly Bill 218, effective in 2020, expanded the deadline for childhood sexual abuse claims to age 40 or five years from discovery of the related injury.
- Assembly Bill 452, effective January 1, 2024, eliminated the statute of limitations entirely for childhood sexual assault civil claims arising from conduct occurring on or after that date.
- Assembly Bill 2777, the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, opened a three-year revival window for certain adult sexual assault claims that runs through December 31, 2026. Eligible claims involve assaults occurring on or after January 1, 2009 and meet specific statutory criteria.
- Assembly Bill 250, signed in October 2025 and effective January 1, 2026, opened a separate two-year revival window through December 31, 2027 for adult sexual assault claims involving entity cover-up conduct.
Two of those windows are open right now and will not stay open indefinitely. Eligibility under each turns on conduct dates, defendant categories, and procedural requirements that differ across the bills. Anyone considering a claim in this category should speak with counsel quickly.
When to Call Attorney Dustin
The single most preventable reason a personal injury case fails in California is delay. Evidence disappears. Witnesses move and forget names. Surveillance footage gets overwritten on rolling cycles. And the deadlines keep running quietly in the background while the injured person focuses on recovery.
Attorney Dustin offers free consultations and works on contingency, which means there is no fee unless the claim recovers compensation. If a government vehicle or property is involved, call within days, not months. If a minor is involved, do not assume the tolling rule covers everything. If medical malpractice is on the table, the discovery clock may already be running. And if a sexual assault claim falls inside one of the current revival windows, the calendar to act is measured in months, not years. The right time to find out where the deadline sits is before it is a problem, not after.