How Long Do You Have to File a Personal Injury Claim in Texas?
How long do you have to file a personal injury claim in Texas? In most cases, Texas gives people two years from the date of an injury to take legal action. However, how long you have to file a personal injury claim may be different, depending on if the injured person is a minor. In addition, delayed discovery of an injury or cause of death may extend the timeframe, but if a government entity is involved, the time to file can shorten considerably.
In Texas, one person was hurt every two minutes and six seconds in a crash in 2023. If you’ve been hurt, talk with a lawyer as soon as possible to protect your rights and options. Call Bradshaw Law at 775-738-7444.
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How Long Do You Have to File a Personal Injury Claim?
In Texas, legal time limits for injury claims are usually two years from the date of the injury. In other words, most people have two years from the date of their accident or injury to file a lawsuit, after which they risk losing the right to seek compensation through the courts. This is why knowing when to file a personal injury claim is crucial.
Being proactive about the statute of limitations serves several important purposes. One is to preserve evidence since it can decay, become lost, or get destroyed with time. Also, the statute of limitations helps with the resolution of your case. This can make a world of difference mentally, emotionally, and even physically. You avoid prolonged uncertainty by having to file within the personal injury claim deadline.
Are There Exceptions to the Statute of Limitations?
Two-year legal time limits for injury claims typically apply to the majority of Texas personal injury cases. However, there are exceptions to this personal injury claim deadline. Depending on what they are, you could have more or less time than two years to file your personal injury lawsuit.
Discovery Rule
In some cases, you may not realize right away that you have been injured or that someone else’s negligence caused your injury. One example is if you underwent exposure to harmful chemicals and did not experience symptoms until months or years later. The two-year clock starts on the date you discovered the injury, or the date you should reasonably have discovered it.
Another example relates to medical malpractice. Surgeons sometimes leave foreign objects, such as sponges, inside patients’ bodies. If this happened to you, you might not know right away. Symptoms might take months or years to manifest. In this type of situation, the two-year personal injury claim deadline does not start from the date of the surgery. Rather, it begins when you found out, or should have found out, about the surgeon’s mistake.
It can be confusing to know when you reasonably should have found out about something. Using the surgical example above, suppose this happens to a patient who experiences minor symptoms to start with, mostly occasional discomfort or fatigue. The patient figures these signs are due to recovery after surgery. The symptoms do worsen over time, but the patient does not seek medical attention, still thinking they are due to surgical recovery.
A few years later, the patient does consult a specialist due to the ongoing pain. Imaging shows the sponge left inside his or her body. The opposing side could argue that symptoms becoming progressively worse should have led the patient to seek medical help sooner. The patient, meanwhile, could still have a strong argument for not discovering the injury.
With these gray areas, courts evaluate the medical evidence and the patient’s behavior to decide if a lawsuit was filed within a reasonable time.
Wrongful Death Claims
Usually, the statute of limitations for a wrongful death claim is two years from the date of death. However, this can be extended based on the discovery rule if the cause of death was not immediately apparent.
Minors
If the person who is hurt is younger than 18 years old, the statute of limitations could be extended until the minor turns 18, giving the minor until he or she turns 20 to file a personal injury lawsuit. This pause, known as tolling, may apply differently to each case, depending on the age of the minor involved. Such situations can be complex, and it is wise to act as proactively as possible.
Medical Malpractice
Additional exceptions can apply to both adults and minors in medical malpractice situations.
- The law in Texas grants an additional 75 days beyond two years if the claim is for medical negligence. To get this extra time, you must follow certain steps, such as getting an affidavit of merit from a medical expert.
- If the lawsuit relates to a continuing course of treatment, the statute of limitations could begin on the treatment’s end date. Sometimes, malpractice is part of a continuum of care versus a single event.
- In fraudulent concealment, medical professionals purposefully hide their negligent actions from patients. The statute of limitations may start when the patient finds out about the malpractice.
- The 10-year statute of repose sets an absolute 10-year deadline from the date of a negligent act or omission, no matter when an injury was discovered. This statute of repose acts to give medical providers protection from indefinite claims and to offer finality.
Overall, how long you have to file a personal injury claim may not be as clear-cut as a simple two years. One of the dangers of not hiring a personal injury lawyer is simply not filing because you think the statute of limitations has passed or something similar. Attorneys can help you evaluate the specifics of your situation and guide you through the next steps. You may have more options than you think.
Benefits of Filing a Claim Soon After an Accident
Understanding when to file a personal injury claim is essential. Being proactive can help your case in several ways, perhaps with a settlement that avoids a lengthy and stressful trial with an uncertain outcome. How a settlement works is that the parties agree on a specific amount of money for the defendant to pay.
Negotiate With Insurance
Before you file a lawsuit, you may have to negotiate with an insurance company. Starting these talks earlier gives you more leverage to get a fair settlement since you are not up against a looming deadline for the statute of limitations.
Preserve Evidence
There are many ways evidence could “go bad” in personal injury cases. To name just a few, witnesses may not remember important details, and that is if they can be located at all. Meanwhile, physical evidence such as debris from an accident may degrade.
Filing sooner rather than later helps preserve evidence and increases the chances of it being available to support your case.
Link the Accident and the Injury
Getting medical treatment as soon as possible after an injury is important. It helps with your recovery, of course, and provides documentation of the extent of your injuries. If you wait too long, the link between the accident and the injury may weaken, which hurts your case. Insurance companies or defendants may also say that the injury is worse than it would have been if you sought treatment right away.
Show You Are Serious
Negotiating with insurance companies and filing a lawsuit if these talks fail shows you are serious about compensation. If you go back and forth about suing or seem uncertain about the severity of your injuries or related issues, the other parties may not take you seriously.
Waiting longer means delaying compensation. Being proactive could get you earlier access to needed financial resources in the face of mounting medical bills, lost income, and other expenses.
Lawyers can assist with insurance talks as well as filing a lawsuit. They can ensure any settlement offers you accept are fair. Questions to ask your attorney should cover his or her experience with your type of personal injury claim and the outcomes of your case. Contact us at Bradshaw Law for help with your personal injury claim.
