What is the statute of limitations for a personal injury case in New York?
Quick answer
In New York, you generally have three years from the accident date to file a personal injury lawsuit under CPLR §214. If a city, state, or transit authority is involved, you have only 90 days to file a Notice of Claim under General Municipal Law §50-e. Medical malpractice runs on 30 months. Miss the deadline and the case is over.
Detailed explanation
The statute of limitations is the legal deadline for starting a lawsuit. In New York, the standard personal injury statute of limitations is three years from the date of the accident, set by CPLR §214. That covers car accidents, slip and falls, dog bites, premises liability, defective products, and most ordinary negligence cases.
Three exceptions matter most. First, when a government body is the defendant, the City, the State, the MTA, NYC Transit, the Department of Education, the New York City Housing Authority, you have to file a Notice of Claim within 90 days of the accident under General Municipal Law §50-e. Second, medical malpractice cases run on two and a half years (30 months) under CPLR §214-a. Third, wrongful death claims have a two-year deadline measured from the date of death under EPTL §5-4.1.
What this means for you
Three years sounds like plenty of time. It isn't. Evidence disappears, witnesses move, surveillance video gets overwritten on a 30-day loop, the construction site gets cleaned up, the broken handrail gets replaced. The longer you wait, the harder it is to prove what happened, even if you're nowhere near the deadline.
The 90-day Notice of Claim is the bigger trap. If a city bus hit you, if you slipped on a sidewalk the City was responsible for, if you fell at a public school, if you were hurt by a Sanitation truck, the 90-day clock is the gate. The three-year statute does not save you if the 90-day Notice of Claim is missed. I have seen this happen. Someone calls four months after a city bus accident. There is nothing left to do.
If the accident happened to you or someone you love and there is any chance a government body was involved, get the 90-day question answered immediately, not eventually.
A few less-common situations have different rules. If the injured person is a minor, the statute of limitations is generally tolled (paused) until they turn 18, with some exceptions. If the injury wasn't discovered right away, for example, a foreign object left inside the body during surgery, the discovery rule may extend the medical malpractice deadline. These are exceptions, not escape hatches, and they have their own technical requirements.
Related FAQ
- What should I do right after an accident in NYC?, the steps in the first 24 hours that matter most
- The time limits for filing a personal injury case in New York, the full deadline matrix by case type
- Workers' comp vs. line-of-duty benefits, different rules for NYC employees
When to talk to a lawyer
If your accident involved a government body, talk to a lawyer this week. The 90-day Notice of Claim deadline runs whether you know about it or not, and once it's gone, the three-year window can't bring it back. For ordinary negligence cases, the calculus is different, three years is real time, but evidence preservation usually makes earlier better than later.
A consultation about deadlines takes 20 minutes. If there's no case, you'll know. If there is one, you'll know what to do next.
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Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. This page is general legal education for New York State and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes change and exceptions apply. Talk to a lawyer about your specific situation before acting on this information.