If you have been hurt in an accident, there is a deadline for bringing a claim. Miss it and you usually lose the right to bring that claim at all, however strong it was and however badly you were injured. The deadline is called the statute of limitations.
The rules are different in New York and New Jersey, and they are different again if a city, a state agency or a public authority is involved. This page explains the general position. It is not legal advice about your situation, and the only way to know your deadline is to have someone look at the facts.
New Jersey: two years for most injury claims
In New Jersey, most personal injury claims have to be filed within two years of the date of the accident (N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2). That covers car accidents, falls on someone else’s property, dog bites and most other negligence claims.
Wrongful death claims are also two years, running from the date of death rather than the date of the incident (N.J.S.A. 2A:31-3).
New York: three years for most injury claims
In New York, most personal injury claims have to be filed within three years of the date of the accident (CPLR 214).
Wrongful death is shorter. A wrongful death claim in New York has to be brought within two years of the date of death (EPTL 5-4.1).
Medical malpractice is different again, and shorter still, at two years and six months. If that is what you are dealing with, treat the clock as already running.
Claims against a city, a state or a public authority are much shorter
This is where people get caught out. If a public body is responsible — a city, a county, a state agency, a transit authority, a public hospital or a school district — you usually have to give formal notice long before any lawsuit is filed.
In New York, a notice of claim generally has to be served within 90 days of the incident (General Municipal Law 50-e), and the lawsuit itself within one year and 90 days (GML 50-i).
In New Jersey, the Tort Claims Act requires a notice of claim within 90 days (N.J.S.A. 59:8-8), and the two-year deadline still applies to the lawsuit.
Ninety days sounds like a long time when you are lying in a hospital bed. It is not. If your accident involved a bus, a subway, a public building, a municipal vehicle, a pothole on a city street or a sidewalk maintained by a public body, the clock you need to worry about is the 90-day one, not the two or three-year one.
The date the clock starts is not always the date you think
The usual rule is that the clock starts on the date of the accident. There are situations where it does not.
If the injured person was under 18 at the time, the deadline is generally extended, though the rules differ between the two states and there are exceptions, particularly where a public body is involved.
If an injury could not reasonably have been discovered at the time — some toxic exposure and some medical cases — the clock may start when it was discovered or should have been. This is narrow and it is argued about often. Do not assume it applies to you.
Contacting a lawyer does not stop the clock
This one matters and it is widely misunderstood. Calling a law firm, sending a message through a website, or having a free case review does not pause the deadline and does not put anyone on your case. Nothing stops the clock except filing, and only a signed retainer agreement puts a firm on your matter.
Insurance companies are not obliged to remind you either. An adjuster who is still “reviewing” your file in month twenty-two of a New Jersey claim is not doing you a favor.
What this means in practice
If your accident was recent, you have time, but less than you think once medical treatment and insurance correspondence eat into it. If it was some months ago, find out where you stand now rather than later. And if a public body might be involved in any way, treat it as urgent.
There is no cost to ask. Call us on 866-456-HUNT or send a short description of what happened, and we will tell you what deadline we think applies and whether we can help.
Thinking about your own situation?
Tell us what happened and an attorney will read it and call you back. There’s no cost to ask, and you pay nothing unless we recover money for you.