How Long Do You Have to Sue After a Slip and Fall in California?

Of the ways a legitimate premises claim gets lost, running out of time is the most avoidable and the most final. The complication in slip and fall cases is that there is not one deadline — there are at least two, and they differ by a factor of four.

Short answer: most California slip and fall claims must be filed within two years of the injury. If the property is owned or controlled by a public entity, a written government claim is generally required within six months first. This is general information, not legal advice.

The general rule: two years

Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years for an action for "injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another." That covers the ordinary premises case — a fall in a shop, a restaurant, an apartment building, or a private home.

Claims for damage to property run on a different track and generally carry three years, which is why a single incident can produce two different expiry dates.

The six-month trap: public property

If you fell on property owned or controlled by a city, county, school district, transit agency, or the state, the ordinary two-year clock is not the operative one. Government Code section 911.2 requires a claim for death or injury to person to be presented no later than six months after the cause of action accrues. Claims relating to other causes of action carry a one-year presentation deadline.

Six months arrives far sooner than people expect, and public property is easy to misidentify — a library, a civic centre, a transit platform, a public pool, a courthouse walkway, a sidewalk adjoining a public building. Our guide to injuries on government property covers how those claims work.

Situations that change the date

• Minors. The limitations period is generally tolled during minority, so the usual clock does not run in the ordinary way before age 18. Government claim requirements still demand prompt attention.
• Delayed discovery. Where an injury could not reasonably have been discovered at the time, the period may begin when it was or should have been discovered. This is narrower than people hope.
• Defendant absent from the state. Certain periods of absence may not count toward the limitations period.

Why the real deadline is sooner than the legal one

This is the part that costs people more often than the statute does. The proof in a fall case has a much shorter life than the claim:

• Surveillance footage is frequently overwritten within days or weeks.
• The hazard itself is usually cleaned, repaired, or replaced within hours.
• Incident reports and sweep logs are subject to retention policies.
• Witnesses — especially customers — become unreachable quickly.
• Treatment gaps widen the longer someone waits to be seen.

A claim filed comfortably inside two years, with the footage long gone, is a weaker claim than the facts deserved. The evidence steps are covered in our guide to proving a property owner was negligent.

If the deadline passes

A late lawsuit is ordinarily subject to dismissal, and California courts enforce these deadlines strictly regardless of how strong the underlying claim is. Narrow, fact-specific exceptions exist, but they are not something to rely on.

If you are unsure which deadline applies — particularly if there is any chance the property is public — it costs nothing to find out. Our premises liability attorneys can identify the operative dates in a free case evaluation. Every case turns on its own facts.