Nevada Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury

How Long You Have to File an Injury Claim in Nevada

You have two years from the date of the injury to file most personal injury lawsuits in Nevada.

That deadline comes from NRS 11.190, and it covers car crashes, slip and falls, dog bites, and the broad run of negligence claims.

A few claim types run on their own clock. Medical malpractice, claims against a government entity, and certain delayed-discovery injuries each follow different rules.

The deadline is hard. Miss it and the court dismisses the case, no matter how clearly someone else was at fault.

The two years pass faster than injured people expect while they are still in treatment and dealing with the insurer.

If you are unsure which deadline applies to your situation, talk to a Nevada injury lawyer before the clock decides the question for you.

How Long Do You Have to File a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Nevada?

Two years from the date of the injury. Nevada sets the personal injury deadline at two years under NRS 11.190(4)(e), and the clock starts the day you are hurt.^[1]

That single rule governs most of the cases people think of as injury claims: car and motorcycle crashes, pedestrian and bicycle collisions, slip and falls, dog bites, and ordinary negligence. The deadline is the date you must have the lawsuit on file with the court, not the date you start talking to an insurer.

Settling a claim and filing a lawsuit are two different things. You can negotiate with an adjuster for months, but if those talks stall and the two years run out before suit is filed, the leverage is gone. The only thing that stops the clock is a filed complaint.

Nevada Filing Deadlines by Type of Claim

The two-year rule is the default, not the whole picture. Several claim types carry their own deadline, and a few are shorter in practice than the calendar suggests.

Car Accidents and Most Injury Claims: 2 Years

Crashes, falls, dog bites, and general negligence follow the two-year personal injury deadline. Product-defect claims that caused a physical injury run on the same two-year clock against the manufacturer and the seller.

Wrongful Death: 2 Years From the Date of Death

A wrongful death claim runs two years from the date the person died, not from the date of the injury that caused it. When someone is hurt and dies weeks or months later, the family's filing window is measured from the death.

Medical Malpractice: 3 Years or 1 Year From Discovery

Nevada medical malpractice claims run three years from the date of the injury or one year from the date you discovered it, whichever comes first, under NRS 41A.097.^[2] The one-year discovery clock is the trap. Patients often learn a procedure went wrong long after it happened, and the one-year window can close before the three-year outer limit ever matters. Concealment by the provider can pause the deadline, and injured children have separate protections.

Property Damage: 3 Years

Damage to your vehicle or other property carries a three-year deadline under NRS 11.190(3). The injury and the property pieces of the same crash can run on different clocks, so the safer course is to treat the shorter two-year injury deadline as the one that controls.

Claims Against a Government Entity

When a city, county, or state vehicle or property caused your injury, the two-year deadline still applies, and NRS 41.036 adds a written claim requirement you have to satisfy before or alongside the lawsuit.^[3] A crash with an RTC transit bus, an NDOT vehicle, or a city truck moves you into this track, where the damages are also capped. Government claims reward early action because the procedural steps take time.

 

What Can Pause or Extend Nevada's Deadline?

A handful of circumstances can pause the clock, a concept courts call tolling. They are exceptions, not a safety net, and you should never assume one applies without legal advice.

The Discovery Rule

When an injury could not reasonably have been discovered right away, the clock can start when you knew or should have known you were harmed. This matters most in medical cases and in injuries that surface over time rather than at a single moment.

Injured Minors

For a child hurt by someone else's negligence, the deadline is generally paused until the child turns 18 under NRS 11.250, which gives the young person time to bring a claim as an adult.^[4] Medical malpractice involving a child follows separate timing rules, so a parent should confirm the specific deadline rather than assume the general tolling applies.

The Defendant Leaves Nevada

If the person who hurt you is absent from the state, the time they are gone may not count against your deadline. This comes up often in Las Vegas, where a large share of at-fault drivers are visitors who go home after the crash.

Fraudulent Concealment

When a defendant actively hides the wrongdoing, the clock can pause until the concealment is uncovered. This is common in medical cases where the records, not the patient, hold the proof of what went wrong.

What Happens If You Miss the Deadline in Nevada?

The case ends. Once the statute of limitations runs, the at-fault party can ask the court to dismiss the lawsuit, and the court will, even if liability was obvious and the injuries were severe.

That finality is exactly why an adjuster has no reason to hurry. Every week a claim drifts is a week closer to the deadline that erases it, and the side holding the clock benefits from the wait. By the time people call worried about running out of time, they have often already lost weeks to a friendly-sounding adjuster who was happy to let them.

We would rather hear from you too early than a day too late. A missed deadline cannot be fixed, and there is no cost to asking where yours stands. For more on the consequences, see what happens when you miss the statute of limitations on an injury claim.