I was badly hurt in a rollover in New York — is it too late?

Attorney Answer

Whether you can still do something about this turns on your actual accident date rather than on an estimate of it. CPLR 214(5) allows three years from the date of the crash to commence a personal injury action in New York, and that period runs from your own accident date — which only you and a lawyer with your records can fix. The harder question is not the calendar. It is Insurance Law § 5104(a), which decides whether pain and suffering can be sued for at all, and whose answer turns on when a lawsuit is commenced rather than on when the rollover happened.

The threshold comes first because it governs everything else. Insurance Law § 5104(a) provides: "Notwithstanding any other law, in any action by or on behalf of a covered person against another covered person for personal injuries arising out of negligence in the use or operation of a motor vehicle in this state, there shall be no right of recovery for non-economic loss, except in the case of a serious injury, or for basic economic loss." Basic economic loss — medical expense and lost earnings, within the limits the statute sets — is paid instead as first-party no-fault benefits, and Insurance Law § 5106(a) makes those benefits overdue if they are not paid within thirty days after the claimant supplies proof of the fact and amount of the loss. Lifelong injuries are exactly the kind a lawyer will want documented against that definition.

Which definition applies is decided by the filing date. For an action commenced on or after May 26, 2026 — which is what filing now means — Insurance Law § 5102(d) provides: "(d) "Serious injury" means a personal injury which results in death; dismemberment; significant disfigurement; a 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; or significant limitation of use of a body function or system." In that same regime CPLR 1411(b) bars recovery where the claimant's culpable conduct is greater than the defendant's, and Insurance Law § 5104(d) caps non-economic damages at $100,000 for certain at-fault classes of injured driver.

If a lawsuit was already commenced before May 26, 2026, that action runs under the former text instead, which read: "(d) "Serious injury" means a personal injury which results in death; dismemberment; significant disfigurement; a 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 medically determined injury or impairment of a non-permanent nature which prevents the injured person from performing substantially all of the material acts which constitute such person's usual and customary daily activities for not less than ninety days during the one hundred eighty days immediately following the occurrence of the injury or impairment." Fault in such an action is apportioned under CPLR 1411 (former text), with no percentage bar. So the first question a New York attorney will ask you is whether a suit has already been filed.

What you can do

1. Gather the medical records and imaging from the crash forward, including anything documenting permanence or lasting limitation — that record is what the definition above is measured against.

2. Ask a New York attorney to fix the exact accident date against the records and tell you what remains of the CPLR 214(5) period, rather than estimating it yourself.

3. Ask that attorney about the filing question specifically, since the definition that applies to you depends on when an action is commenced.

4. Preserve what exists: photographs, the police report, repair or salvage records, and the names of anyone who was there or who saw you afterward.

5. Do not give a recorded statement to the driver's insurer, and do not sign a release, before you have advice.

⏱ Time limits apply. In New York a personal injury action must generally be commenced within three years under CPLR 214(5), measured from the date of the accident, and the section names exceptions of its own. Other rules can change the period in an individual case, and this page will not calculate any date for you from a general description like "a year or so." Because the serious-injury definition that governs your case is also tied to when an action is commenced, the timing decision is legal strategy rather than arithmetic. A brief consultation with a local New York attorney is worth more than any general guidance, including this page, and most offer a short initial call at no cost.