How long do you actually have to file an injury claim in New York?

Every week someone calls our office with a strong case and a fatal problem: the deadline has passed. Statutes of limitations are the least forgiving rules in all of injury law — miss one by a single day and it almost never matters how badly you were hurt or how clear the fault was. The case is simply over.

So here is the plain-English version of New York's deadlines, what they actually mean, and the traps built into them.

The basic deadlines

For most personal-injury claims in New York — car accidents, falls, most negligence — you generally have three years from the date of the injury to file a lawsuit (CPLR 214). Medical malpractice is shorter: two years and six months from the malpractice, with limited extensions such as continuous treatment, foreign objects, and Lavern's Law for missed cancer diagnoses (CPLR 214-a). Wrongful-death claims generally must be brought within two years of the death. Workers' compensation runs on its own clock: written notice to your employer within 30 days, and a claim filed within two years.

Those look like comfortable windows. They are not — for two reasons.

Trap one: the 90-day notice of claim

If your claim is against New York City, the MTA, NYCHA, a public school, a public hospital, or almost any other government entity, a lawsuit isn't the first deadline you face. You must generally serve a formal notice of claim within 90 days of the incident (General Municipal Law 50-e). Trip on a defective city sidewalk in January, and by mid-April — while you may still be in physical therapy, before you've even thought about lawyers — your window to preserve the claim can already be closing.

Courts can sometimes grant permission to file late, but it's discretionary, expensive to seek, and regularly denied. The safe assumption in any case that might involve a public entity: you have 90 days, not three years.

Trap two: evidence ages faster than deadlines

The legal deadline is when your right to sue expires. Your evidence expires much sooner. Surveillance systems overwrite footage in days or weeks. Skid marks fade. Hazards get quietly repaired. Witnesses move, forget, and stop answering calls. A vehicle's event-data recorder can be lost the moment the wreck is scrapped.

This is why 'I have three years, I'll deal with it after I heal' is the most expensive sentence in personal injury. Preservation letters — formal demands that footage, logs, and physical evidence be retained — only work if they arrive before the evidence is gone. In our office they typically go out within 48 hours of the first call.

What this means for you

None of this is a reason to panic. It's a reason to make one free phone call early — even if you're not sure you have a case, even if you never end up hiring anyone. A case review costs nothing, obligates you to nothing, and starts the evidence clock working for you instead of against you.

And if a deadline is genuinely about to run, say so when you call. Filing a protective notice of claim or complaint on short notice is something an injury firm can often do — but only while the window is still open.