California Statute of Limitations for Negligence: Deadlines and Tolling

Under the California statute of limitations for negligence, you generally have two years to sue for personal injury or wrongful death and three years to sue for damage to property. Both clocks are set by the Code of Civil Procedure and both usually start on the date the harm occurred, though a handful of rules can move that starting point or pause the countdown once it begins. Miss the deadline that applies to your case and the claim is almost always gone for good, no matter how strong it was on the merits.¹²

The Two-Year and Three-Year Deadlines

Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives you two years to file for bodily injury or death caused by another person’s negligence. That covers the everyday scenarios: car crashes, slip-and-falls, dog bites, and similar incidents where carelessness caused physical harm.¹

Section 338 gives you three years when the negligence damaged only property. A dented car, a broken fence, a ruined piece of equipment.²

Plenty of incidents involve both. A wreck that broke your arm and totaled your car is one case in your head but two deadlines on paper. The injury piece still runs out at two years even though the property piece has an extra year to spare.

When the Clock Starts

For most negligence claims the clock starts the day of the incident. California recognizes a significant exception. Under the discovery rule, if you had no way of knowing you were injured or what caused the harm, the deadline doesn’t begin until you actually discover the problem or a reasonably diligent person in your position would have.³

A contractor who installed defective plumbing behind your walls is the standard example. You don’t know anything is wrong until water starts seeping through the drywall months later. The window opens when the damage becomes apparent, not when the plumber packed up.

Inquiry Notice

You don’t need full knowledge for the clock to start. Once you suspect that someone did something wrong to you, in the everyday sense of “wrong,” the countdown begins. You don’t have to know the specific legal theory or every fact. If a reasonable person would start asking questions based on what you already know, the clock is running whether or not you investigate.³

The rule protects people who couldn’t have known despite acting reasonably. It doesn’t protect people who ignored warning signs. If symptoms appeared and you chose not to see a doctor, a court can find that a diligent person would have looked into things sooner and start the clock from that earlier point.

Tolling That Pauses the Clock

Tolling either pauses a deadline that has already started or keeps it from starting at all. California draws these rules from several different statutes.

Minors and Incapacity

Code of Civil Procedure section 352 stops the clock while the injured person is under 18 or lacks the legal capacity to make decisions. A child hurt on a playground doesn’t see the two-year clock begin until they turn 18.⁴

Incarcerated Plaintiffs

Section 352.1 covers people who are in prison when their cause of action arises. Tolling here is capped at two years and doesn’t apply to claims against government entities. Someone serving a life sentence gets no tolling under this provision.⁵

Defendant Outside California

Section 351 pauses the deadline during any period the person you need to sue is outside the state. If they were already gone when the injury happened, the full period starts running when they return. If they leave later, the time they spend out of state doesn’t count against you.

Active Military Duty

Federal law adds another layer. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act excludes time spent on active duty from any state statute of limitations, and it applies whether the servicemember would be the plaintiff or the defendant.⁶

Bankruptcy

When a defendant files for bankruptcy, the automatic stay under federal law halts most civil lawsuits, including negligence claims. You can’t file or continue an action against the debtor while the stay is in place, and because the stay blocks you from acting, it effectively pauses the deadline for the duration of the proceeding.⁷

Equitable Tolling

California courts also recognize equitable tolling, a judge-made doctrine that can pause the deadline when you were already pursuing the same claim through a different legal channel. The classic case: you file for workers’ compensation after a workplace injury, then later realize you also have a negligence claim against a third party. Time spent on the workers’ comp claim may not count against your negligence deadline.

To qualify, you have to show three things: you filed the earlier proceeding before the statute ran out and it put the defendant on notice; the earlier proceeding involved the same underlying facts; and you acted in good faith in pursuing the other remedy first. Equitable tolling is decided by the court, not a jury, and California courts have held that it does not apply to legal malpractice claims under section 340.6 or to the three-year outer limit for medical malpractice under section 340.5.⁸

Claims Against a California Government Entity

Suing a California city, county, or state agency for negligence runs on a completely different track. You have to file an administrative claim with the entity before you can go to court, and the window is much shorter than two years.

Six Months to File the Claim

For personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage, you have six months from the date of the incident to file an administrative claim. Other types of negligence claims get one year.⁹

This is where people get burned. Six months goes by fast when you’re recovering from an injury. Missing the administrative deadline can end the claim even though the ordinary two-year statute has years left on it.

Government Code section 910 sets out what the claim must contain: your name and addresses, the date, location and circumstances of the incident, a description of the harm as best you know it, the names of any responsible public employees, and an amount if the claim is under $10,000. For claims over $10,000, the statute specifically tells you not to include a dollar figure but to indicate whether the case would be a limited civil case.¹⁰

After the Claim Is Filed

The entity has 45 days to accept or reject the claim.¹¹ Silence past that point counts as a rejection. Once the claim is rejected, whether by an actual notice or by the agency’s failure to respond, you have six months from the mailing date of the rejection to file a lawsuit.¹²

Missing the Six-Month Deadline

A missed six-month window isn’t always fatal. Government Code section 911.4 lets you apply to the entity for permission to file a late claim. The application must be submitted within one year of the injury, include a written explanation for the delay, and attach the proposed claim.¹³ If the entity denies the late application, you can petition the court for relief. Once the one-year mark passes, that option is gone.

Claims Against the Federal Government

Negligence by a federal employee, like a Postal Service driver or a VA physician, falls under the Federal Tort Claims Act. You have two years from when the claim accrues to submit a Standard Form 95 to the responsible federal agency. Missing that deadline permanently bars the claim.¹⁴

After you file, the agency has six months to decide. If it denies the claim or doesn’t answer within six months, you can treat the silence as a denial and file in federal court within six months of the mailing date of the denial notice. Filing in court before the agency has acted, or before the six-month waiting period runs, will get the case dismissed.¹⁵

Medical Malpractice

Medical negligence claims follow a tighter timeline than ordinary personal injury cases. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5, you must file within one year of discovering the injury or three years from the date the injury actually occurred, whichever hits first.¹⁶

The “whichever occurs first” language is what catches people. If a surgical error happened four years ago and you only discovered the harm last month, you are already past the three-year outer boundary. The discovery rule doesn’t help you clear the three-year wall in most cases.

Three narrow exceptions can extend the three-year limit: fraud by the healthcare provider, intentional concealment of the harm, and a foreign object with no medical purpose left inside the body. These exceptions exist because the provider’s own misconduct prevented earlier discovery. Outside them, three years is firm.¹⁶

Legal Malpractice

Claims against attorneys use a similar structure with a longer outer boundary. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.6, you must file within one year of discovering the attorney’s error or four years from the date of the error, whichever comes first.¹⁷

Unlike the medical malpractice statute, section 340.6 spells out specific situations that pause the four-year outer limit:

The attorney made an error but it hasn’t caused actual harm yet.
The same attorney is still handling the matter in which the mistake was made.
The attorney willfully concealed the mistake (this pauses only the four-year deadline, not the one-year discovery period).
A physical or legal disability prevents you from filing.
You and the attorney have an unresolved fee arbitration proceeding.

Continuing-representation tolling is the one that matters most in practice. As long as your attorney is still working on the same case where the error happened, the clock doesn’t start. The moment you hire someone new or the original attorney withdraws, both the one-year and four-year periods begin running.¹⁷

1
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 335.1 – The Time of Commencing Actions Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property
2
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 338 – Statute of Limitations
3
Justia. CACI No. 455 Statute of Limitations – Delayed Discovery
4
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 352 – General Provisions as to the Time of Commencing Actions
5
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 352.1 – Imprisonment Tolling
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3936 – Statute of Limitations
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 362 – Automatic Stay
8
Justia. CACI No. 457 Statute of Limitations – Equitable Tolling – Other Prior Proceeding
9
California Legislative Information. California Government Code 911.2 – Claim Presentation Deadline
10
California Legislative Information. California Government Code 910 – Contents of Claim
11
California Courts | Self Help Guide. Ask a Government Agency to Pay You by a Deadline
12
California Legislative Information. California Government Code 945.6 – Actions Against Public Entities
13
California Legislative Information. California Government Code 911.4 – Late Claim Application
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2675 – Disposition by Federal Agency as Prerequisite; Evidence
16
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 340.5 – Professional Negligence
17
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 340.6 – Actions Against Attorneys