New York Statute of Limitations for Injury Claims

How Long Do You Have to File an Injury Lawsuit in New York?

Three years from the date of injury for most New York personal injury claims, under CPLR § 214.

That is more time than most states allow, and it is exactly why New Yorkers lose cases to deadlines.

Because several claims run much shorter, and one of them runs 90 days.

Sue the City of New York, the MTA, a public hospital, or a school district and you must serve a sworn notice of claim within 90 days or the case is over.

Medical malpractice runs two years and six months. Wrongful death runs two years from the date of death. Assault and battery run one year.

Which clock governs your case is not always obvious on day one, and there is no repairing a deadline once it passes.

Every New York Injury Deadline, Side by Side

New York does not use one deadline. It uses a set of them, keyed to what happened and who the defendant is.

The bottom two rows are where New York cases actually die. Everything above them gives you years. The public-entity rules give you three months, and they apply far more often than people expect.

What the Three-Year Rule Covers

CPLR § 214(5) gives three years to commence an action to recover damages for a personal injury, running from the date the injury occurred.^[1] That covers the ordinary range of negligence claims:

• Car, truck, motorcycle, bus, and bicycle collisions
• Pedestrian injuries
• Slip, trip, and fall claims, including sidewalk cases against a private building owner
• Construction accidents, including Labor Law § 240 and § 241(6) claims
• Dog bites, product defects, and nursing home neglect, though a facility claim under Public Health Law § 2801-d has its own limitations analysis

Three years sounds generous, and it is. But the deadline is only the outer boundary of when a lawsuit can be started, not a description of when a case should be built. Evidence has its own, much shorter calendar.

Commenced, Not Settled

The deadline is for commencing the action, which in New York means filing the summons and complaint with the county clerk. Negotiating with an adjuster does not stop the clock, and an insurer under no obligation to warn you about it has no reason to.

One Crash Can Carry Two Deadlines

A collision with a city bus is a three-year personal injury claim against the private driver who also contributed, and a 90-day notice claim against the transit authority. Handle only the first and the deepest pocket in the case is gone. Which is why the first question in a New York injury claim is who all the defendants are, not what the deadline is.

The Claims That Run Shorter Than Three Years

Four categories of New York claim get less time, and in each one the shorter deadline catches people who reasonably assumed they had three years.

Medical Malpractice: Two Years and Six Months

CPLR § 214-a gives 30 months from the act or omission, or from the end of continuous treatment for the same condition. Because patients usually keep seeing the same doctor, the continuous-treatment rule often extends the clock, but relying on it without a lawyer reading the chart is a gamble. Our page on the New York malpractice deadline walks through every exception.

Wrongful Death: Two Years From the Death

EPTL § 5-4.1 runs two years from the date of death, not the date of the injury.^[2] When someone is hurt and dies months later, that distinction matters. If a criminal prosecution arises from the same event, the estate gets at least one year from the end of the criminal case, even if the two years has already run. See our overview of New York wrongful death law.

Assault and Battery: One Year

CPLR § 215(3) gives one year for assault, battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, libel, and slander. An injury caused deliberately gets less time than one caused carelessly, which surprises most people. Note that a negligent-security claim against a property owner for failing to prevent an assault is an ordinary negligence claim with the three-year deadline.

Public Entities: Ninety Days

General Municipal Law § 50-e requires a sworn notice of claim within 90 days of when the claim arises, and § 50-i requires the lawsuit within one year and 90 days.^[3] The MTA and New York City Transit run on the same 90-day notice and one-year-90-day suit deadline under Public Authorities Law § 1276. The State of New York has its own track in the Court of Claims. Details are on our page about the 90-day notice of claim.

When the New York Clock Starts Later Than the Injury

Several rules move the start date. None of them should be assumed without a lawyer confirming it, but each one has revived cases people had written off.

• Injured children. CPLR § 208 tolls the deadline while a person is under 18, generally giving three years after the child turns 18. The toll is capped at 10 years from the date the claim accrued in medical, dental, and podiatric malpractice cases, but that 10-year cap does not apply to a child's ordinary injury claim.^[4]
• Continuous treatment. In a malpractice case, the 30 months can run from the last date of treatment for the same condition rather than from the error itself.
• Foreign objects. A surgical instrument or sponge left inside a patient carries its own rule: one year from the date the object is discovered, or from when facts that would reasonably lead to its discovery were known.
• Lavern's Law. A failure to diagnose cancer or a malignant tumor runs 30 months from when the patient knew or should have known of both the negligence and the resulting injury, subject to a seven-year outer limit from the act itself.
• Latent toxic exposure. CPLR § 214-c starts the three years at the discovery of the injury, or when reasonable diligence would have discovered it, which is what makes asbestos and chemical exposure claims viable decades later.
• A related criminal case. In a wrongful death claim, a criminal prosecution arising from the same event gives the estate at least one year from the termination of that prosecution.

Every one of these is fact-specific and litigated hard by defendants. Confirming which start date applies is cheap. Guessing wrong is not.