If you were hurt in New York by someone else's conduct, you generally have three years from the date of the injury to file a personal-injury lawsuit. The deadline comes from CPLR section 214(5), and the clock starts on the date the harm occurred. Miss the window and the courthouse door closes, even if the underlying case is strong.
The three-year number is the rule most New York injury searches return. The pitfalls are everything around it: a 90-day notice of claim for municipal-corporation defendants under General Municipal Law section 50-e, a two-and-a-half year medmal SOL, a separate two-year wrongful-death SOL, the no-fault serious-injury threshold for auto cases, and a two-year wrongful-death window that runs alongside the three-year general SOL. This post walks through what the three-year SOL really means in 2026, where the exceptions are, and the fact patterns we see trip people up most.
The default New York PI window: three years under CPLR 214(5)
CPLR section 214(5) sets a three-year statute of limitations for actions to recover damages for personal injury, except as otherwise prescribed. It is the catch-all SOL for the vast majority of New York PI cases: car crashes, slip-and-falls, dog bites, premises liability, and most negligence claims.
The clock starts on the date the injury occurred. Continuous-treatment doctrines apply in medmal cases but generally not in general PI.
New York is a no-fault auto-insurance state. PIP benefits are paid under Insurance Law section 5103 regardless of fault. Tort recovery for non-economic damages requires crossing the serious-injury threshold under Insurance Law section 5102(d): death; dismemberment; significant disfigurement; fracture; loss of a fetus; permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function, or system; permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member; significant limitation of use of a body function or system; or a non-permanent injury that prevents performance of substantially all material acts which constitute usual and customary daily activities for not less than 90 days during the 180 days immediately following.
Exception one: the 90-day notice-of-claim trap for municipal defendants
If your injury involves a municipal corporation (a city, a county, a town, a village, the MTA, a public hospital, a school district), General Municipal Law section 50-e requires a written notice of claim within 90 days of accrual. The notice is mandatory and is a condition precedent to the lawsuit.
After the notice, suit must be commenced within one year and 90 days of accrual under General Municipal Law section 50-i. That is shorter than the general three-year SOL. The notice deadline AND the truncated suit deadline both apply.
For claims against the State of New York, the Court of Claims Act section 10 requires a 90-day notice of intention with a two-year SOL on the underlying action.
Late-notice relief is available in limited circumstances under General Municipal Law section 50-e(5): the court may permit late filing if the public corporation had actual knowledge, the delay was not substantial, the delay was not prejudicial, or specific factors weigh in favor of the claimant. Late-notice relief is discretionary, not automatic.
Exception two: medical malpractice and Lavern's Law
Medical-malpractice cases run under CPLR section 214-a: a two-and-a-half year (30-month) SOL from the act, omission, or failure complained of, or from the last treatment where there is continuous treatment for the same illness, condition, or injury.
The foreign-object exception extends to one year from discovery.
Lavern's Law (2018) changed the cancer-misdiagnosis SOL: claims accrue at discovery rather than at the negligent act, subject to a seven-year outer limit. The change applies to claims involving the failure to diagnose cancer or a malignant tumor.
Claims against public hospitals require the 90-day General Municipal Law notice in addition to the medmal SOL.
Exception three: minors and disability tolling
CPLR section 208 tolls the SOL for minors and persons under legal disability until the disability is removed (the minor turns 18, the person regains legal capacity), capped at 10 years for most claims and 10 years from the underlying act for medmal claims. The toll does not apply to wrongful-death actions (which run from the date of death) or to the 90-day notice of claim against municipal defendants (which runs from accrual regardless of the claimant's age).
What New York's pure-comparative-fault rule means for your case
New York follows pure comparative fault under CPLR section 1411: recovery is reduced by the plaintiff's percentage of fault but is never barred outright. A plaintiff found 75% at fault still recovers 25% of damages.
The practical effect: New York defense lawyers will try to push percentage points, not break 50%. Document the scene, the conditions, the other party's conduct, and your own conduct cleanly from day one.
A common New York fact pattern that ends cases early
The single most common New York trap: a claimant injured by a city bus or on a city sidewalk assumes the three-year SOL applies, contacts an attorney four months after the incident, and learns the 90-day General Municipal Law notice has already run. The general three-year SOL never matters; the 90-day notice was the live deadline.
If any municipal corporation is potentially involved (city, county, MTA, public hospital, public school), treat the 90-day notice as the operative deadline and act inside that window, not the three-year general SOL.
Other New York-specific PI rules worth knowing
Dog bites. New York follows a mixed regime. Under Bard v. Jahnke, 6 N.Y.3d 592 (2006), negligence is NOT a viable theory; the plaintiff must prove the owner had knowledge of the dog's vicious propensities. Under Agriculture and Markets Law section 121, a dog adjudicated as dangerous triggers strict liability for medical and veterinary expenses without proof of prior knowledge. Three-year SOL.
Wrongful death. EPTL section 5-4.1 sets a two-year SOL from the date of death. Only the personal representative of the decedent's estate has standing. The underlying conscious-pain-and-suffering claim retains the general three-year PI SOL.
Sidewalk slip-falls in NYC. NYC Administrative Code section 7-201(c)(2) requires prior written notice to the city as a prerequisite to liability for most defects. This is on top of the General Municipal Law 90-day notice.
How the LawSensai Personal Injury Recovery Center helps with New York matters
We built the Recovery Center to handle the day-one organizational work in a New York PI case so that nothing falls through the cracks during the three-year window. We document the incident through a calm, save-and-resume intake, build a medical-and-evidence timeline, and surface every applicable deadline, including the 90-day General Municipal Law notice when a municipal corporation is involved, the one-year-90-day suit deadline that follows, the 2.5-year medmal SOL, Lavern's Law for cancer-misdiagnosis claims, and the underlying CPLR 214(5) three-year window. When the matter is well-documented and ready, we route it to a verified personal-injury attorney licensed in New York. Start your New York intake here.
We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice. We are the file-organization and deadline-surfacing layer that sits in front of a real attorney.
Personal injury statute of limitations in other states
Each state has its own SOL window, government-notice deadline, comparative-fault regime, and case-type quirks. The deep-dive posts here cover the ten highest-volume jurisdictions. The full LawSensai PI Recovery Center routes 50-state coverage at /personal-injury.
- California (CCP 335.1, MICRA, pure comparative)
- Texas (CPRC 16.003, TTCA 6-month notice, 51% bar)
- Florida (HB 837 2-year SOL, no-fault PIP)
- Illinois (1-year SOL for local public entities under the Tort Immunity Act)
- Pennsylvania (MVFRL limited tort, MCARE 7-year repose)
- Ohio (1-year medmal SOL, 180-day letter)
- Georgia (Tiered ante-litem notice, 50% comparative-fault bar)
- North Carolina (Pure contributory negligence)
- Michigan (No-fault threshold, 1-year PIP)
Informational only
LawSensai is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. The information in this post is general and does not account for your specific facts. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this post or by using the Personal Injury Recovery Center. Deadlines, exceptions, and procedural rules vary by case type and by the parties involved; verify your specific situation with a licensed attorney in New York before relying on any window described here.
Last verified: 2026-06-03.