What are the time limits for filing a personal injury case in New York?
Quick answer
New York personal injury deadlines vary by case type. Most negligence cases: three years (CPLR §214). Government defendants: 90-day Notice of Claim under GML §50-e, then one year and 90 days to sue. Medical malpractice: 30 months (CPLR §214-a). Wrongful death: two years from date of death (EPTL §5-4.1). Miss the deadline and the case is over.
Detailed explanation
New York doesn't have one personal injury deadline. It has a matrix. The headline deadline is three years from the date of the accident under CPLR §214, which covers most ordinary negligence: car accidents, slip and falls, dog bites, premises liability, defective products, and similar tort claims.
Cases involving government defendants run on a different track. Under General Municipal Law §50-e, you must file a Notice of Claim within 90 days of the accident before you can sue. After the Notice of Claim, you typically have one year and 90 days from the accident to file the lawsuit itself under General Municipal Law §50-i for cities, with parallel rules for the State (Court of Claims Act §10) and authorities like the MTA (Public Authorities Law §1212). The 90-day Notice of Claim deadline is the gate; if you miss it, the rest of the deadlines don't matter.
Medical malpractice runs on 30 months from the date of the malpractice under CPLR §214-a. There are exceptions: continuous treatment can extend the date the clock starts running, and Lavern's Law allows a discovery rule for missed cancer diagnoses. If a foreign object was left in the body during surgery, the discovery rule applies. These are exceptions, not escape hatches.
Wrongful death has its own clock. Under EPTL §5-4.1, the personal representative of the decedent's estate has two years from the date of death to file. The wrongful death clock and the underlying personal injury clock can diverge, if someone is hurt and survives for a year before dying, the personal injury claim and the wrongful death claim have different deadlines.
A few specialty rules. Cases against the New York City Housing Authority and other public authorities have specific Notice of Claim variants. Cases involving sexual abuse have been extended by recent legislation. Product liability cases against manufacturers can run on different timelines depending on the type of defect alleged.
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. A case filed at month 35 is often a worse case than the same case filed at month six.
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 a Sanitation truck struck you, if you fell at a public school, the 90-day clock is running from the day of the accident. The three-year personal injury statute will not save you. I have seen people call four months after a city bus accident, and there was nothing left to do.
Wrongful death cases are particularly painful when the deadline is missed because the family is grieving and not thinking about lawsuits. Two years is shorter than people expect. If a family member died because of someone else's negligence, the legal calendar is running while the family is still in shock. The personal representative of the estate has to be appointed before the suit can be filed, which adds a procedural step before the deadline.
Minors are tolled in some situations. The general rule is that the personal injury statute of limitations does not start running against a minor until they turn 18, but there are important exceptions, including Notice of Claim requirements that don't toll the same way. If a child was hurt by a government defendant, the family should not wait until the child turns 18 to consult a lawyer. The 90-day rule still matters.
Related FAQ
- What is the statute of limitations for a personal injury case in New York?, the standard three-year rule explained
- What should I do right after an accident in NYC?, the first 24 hours
- Workers' comp vs. line-of-duty benefits, including the 90-day Notice of Claim for City employees
When to talk to a lawyer
For any case involving a government body, talk to a lawyer this week, not next month. The 90-day Notice of Claim deadline is short and unforgiving. For ordinary negligence cases, the calculus is different but the answer is usually the same: earlier is better than later.
A 20-minute consultation can answer the deadline question for your specific situation. If there is no case worth pursuing, you'll know. If there is, you'll know what to do next and how much time you have to do it.
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Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Statutes of limitations have exceptions and statutory tolling rules that are highly fact-specific. Recent New York legislation has extended deadlines in certain categories. This page is general legal education and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Talk to a lawyer about your specific situation before relying on this information.