Professional Negligence Statute of Limitations in California

The professional negligence statute of limitations in California depends on which profession you’re suing. Medical malpractice runs on the tightest clock: one year from when you discovered the injury or three years from when it happened, whichever comes first. Legal malpractice gives you one year from discovery or four years from the act. Claims against accountants, architects, engineers, and surveyors run on different statutes again. Miss the deadline that applies to your case and the court will almost certainly dismiss it, no matter how strong the underlying facts.

Medical Malpractice Deadlines

California Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5 sets two overlapping deadlines, and the shorter one controls. You have one year from the date you discover (or reasonably should have discovered) the injury, or three years from the date the injury actually occurred. If you learn about a surgical error eleven months after it happened, you have one year from that discovery. If you don’t learn about it for four years, you’re generally out of time because the three-year outer limit has already passed.¹

The three-year cap can be pushed only in three narrow situations: the healthcare provider committed fraud, the provider intentionally concealed the negligence, or a foreign object with no medical purpose was left inside the patient’s body. Outside those exceptions, three years is the hard ceiling.¹

Before suing any healthcare provider in California, you must send a written notice of intent to sue at least 90 days before filing. The notice needs no particular format, but it must describe the legal basis of your claim and the specific injuries you suffered. If you serve that notice within 90 days of the statute expiring, the deadline automatically extends by 90 days from the date of service. That extension exists precisely because the law can’t require 90 days’ warning and simultaneously let your claim expire during the waiting period.²

Injured Children

The clock works differently when the patient is a minor. A child generally has three years from the date of the alleged negligence, not from discovery. For children under six years old, the deadline is three years from the negligent act or the child’s eighth birthday, whichever gives more time. A birth injury claim for a newborn, for example, could be filed until the child turns eight.¹

If a parent or guardian and the defendant’s insurer colluded or committed fraud to keep a claim from being filed on the child’s behalf, the statute is tolled for the entire period of that misconduct.¹

Legal Malpractice Deadlines

Claims against attorneys sit under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.6, with its own pair of deadlines. You get one year from the date you discover (or should have discovered) the attorney’s wrongful act or omission, or four years from the date the act occurred, whichever comes first. That four-year outer limit is a full year longer than the medical malpractice equivalent.³

Section 340.6 lists five situations that pause the clock:

You haven’t suffered actual injury yet. The limitations period doesn’t begin until you’ve suffered real, concrete harm, not just a theoretical risk.
The attorney continues to represent you on the same matter where the alleged malpractice occurred. The clock is paused for the entire duration of that representation.
The attorney willfully conceals the facts. This tolls the four-year deadline only, not the one-year discovery period.
You have a legal or physical disability that prevents filing.
A fee arbitration is pending under the State Bar’s mandatory fee arbitration program. The clock is paused from the date of filing until 30 days after the arbitration resolves.

The continuous representation rule catches many people off guard. An attorney might make a critical error early in a case and continue representing the client for years afterward. Without this tolling, the client’s claim could expire before they even know something went wrong.³

A separate carve-out applies to wrongful criminal convictions. If your legal malpractice claim requires you to prove your innocence of an underlying criminal charge, you get two years from the date of your final postconviction exoneration rather than one year from discovery. This reflects the reality that an imprisoned person generally can’t pursue civil malpractice claims while still fighting a conviction.³

Accountants, Architects, Engineers, and Surveyors

Not every professional negligence claim falls under the medical or legal statutes. Accountant malpractice in California typically runs on the two-year statute for oral contracts or negligence under Code of Civil Procedure section 339. If the relationship was governed by a written engagement letter, the four-year deadline for written contract claims under section 337 may apply instead. Which clock runs depends on the nature of the agreement and how the claim is framed.

Architects, engineers, and land surveyors carry an additional procedural requirement under Code of Civil Procedure section 411.35. Before filing a negligence claim against any of these design professionals, your attorney must file a certificate of merit. The certificate has to declare that your attorney consulted with a licensed professional in the same discipline as the defendant and concluded there is reasonable and meritorious cause for the lawsuit. The consulting expert must specifically opine that the defendant was negligent.⁴

If the statute of limitations is about to expire before your attorney can arrange that consultation, the law allows a temporary workaround. You can file the lawsuit with a certificate stating the consultation couldn’t be completed in time, then file the full certificate of merit within 60 days.⁴

How the Discovery Rule Starts the Clock

The discovery rule is the single most litigated issue in professional negligence deadline disputes. In every profession-specific statute, California starts the shorter limitations period not from the date of the negligent act, but from the date you discovered (or through reasonable diligence should have discovered) the injury and its connection to the professional’s conduct.⁵

The phrase “should have discovered” is where most disputes land. Courts apply an inquiry notice standard: once you have information that would make a reasonable person suspicious enough to investigate, the clock starts, even if you haven’t confirmed the negligence yet. You don’t need to know the full extent of the harm or have a diagnosis nailed down. A botched surgery that leaves you with unexpected symptoms you later learn were caused by negligence could trigger inquiry notice when the symptoms first appeared, not when you got a second opinion confirming malpractice.

The burden of proving delayed discovery falls on the plaintiff. If your filing looks late on its face, you need to explain in your complaint exactly when you discovered the injury, what you didn’t know before then, and why a reasonable person in your position wouldn’t have discovered it earlier. Vague assertions that you “didn’t know” rarely survive a motion to dismiss.⁵

When the Clock Pauses for Minors and Incapacitated Plaintiffs

Beyond the special rules for minors in medical malpractice, California has a broader tolling provision under Code of Civil Procedure section 352. If you were under 18 or lacked the legal capacity to make decisions when your cause of action arose, the time spent in that condition doesn’t count toward the filing deadline. The clock starts when you turn 18 or regain legal capacity.⁶

Section 352 does not apply to claims against public entities or public employees where a government tort claim is required. If a minor’s professional negligence claim is against a county hospital or a state-employed physician, the government claims process has its own deadlines, and those aren’t paused by the child’s age.⁶

If the Provider Was Federal, State Deadlines Don’t Apply

If your medical negligence occurred at a Veterans Affairs hospital, military treatment facility, or federally qualified health center, California’s state deadlines don’t govern. These claims fall under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which has its own filing rules and a mandatory administrative process that must be completed before you can sue.

Under the FTCA, you must submit a written administrative claim, typically on Standard Form 95, to the responsible federal agency within two years of the date the claim accrues. The form must include a specific dollar amount, called a “sum certain,” for your claimed damages. Without a specific amount, the submission isn’t considered a valid claim regardless of how detailed the description of the negligence is.⁷

Only after the agency denies the claim, or fails to respond within six months, can you file suit in federal court. You then have six months from the date of the denial letter to get the case filed. This is a trap for people who assume California’s state-court deadlines give them more time. The two-year FTCA clock runs from the injury itself and has no state-law equivalent of the 90-day notice extension.⁷

1
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 340.5
2
Judicial Branch of California. Deadlines to Sue Someone – California Courts – Self Help Guide
3
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 340.6
4
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 411.35
5
Justia. CACI No. 455 Statute of Limitations – Delayed Discovery
6
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 352
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States