Taken to the Hospital After an Accident in New York — Which Deadline Is Mine?

Attorney Answer

Most New York personal injury claims run on a three-year deadline, but what kind of accident this was decides whether a far shorter clock is already running — and your message does not say. That is the first question to answer, ahead of anything about the injuries themselves.

The default is CPLR 214(5), which requires that an action be commenced within three years for "an action to recover damages for a personal injury except as provided in sections 214-b, 214-c, 214-i and 215". If your claim is against an ordinary private person or business, that is your period, and it runs from the day of the accident.

Three forks change it, and each one shortens the calendar. First, if a public corporation is involved — a city, a county, a school district, a transit authority, or one of their employees or vehicles — General Municipal Law § 50-e(1)(a) requires that "the notice of claim shall comply with and be served in accordance with the provisions of this section within ninety days after the claim arises; except that in wrongful death actions, the ninety days shall run from the appointment of a representative of the decedent", and § 50-i(1)(c) requires that "the action or special proceeding shall be commenced within one year and ninety days after the happening of the event upon which the claim is based; except that wrongful death actions shall be commenced within two years after the happening of the death." Both run at once, so a claimant who serves a notice and then waits three years is out of time, though § 50-e(5) allows a court to extend the time to serve the notice. Second, a claim against the State of New York itself — a state agency, a state hospital, a state road — is a different thing entirely: it runs under Court of Claims Act §§ 10 and 11, which set out when a claim or a notice of intention must be filed and served and what it must contain, on clocks that differ by claim type, and it is filed in the Court of Claims. Third, if the injury came from medical treatment rather than from the accident, CPLR 214-a applies: "An action for medical, dental or podiatric malpractice must be commenced within two years and six months of the act, omission or failure complained of or last treatment where there is continuous treatment for the same illness, injury or condition which gave rise to the said act, omission or failure" — which is why a treatment claim must never be assumed to have started running at the first visit.

A further branch this page will not guess at: if a motor vehicle was involved, a New York injury claim carries an additional layer under article 51 of the Insurance Law, with its own requirements and its own fault rule. Nothing in your message names a vehicle, so this page states none of it. CPLR 208 separately extends periods for a person under a disability when a claim accrues, within its own limits.

What you can do

1. Get the emergency department records and the discharge instructions — that is the contemporaneous record of the wrist, hip, neck and head complaints.

2. Follow up with a treating physician and keep every referral, imaging report and bill in date order.

3. Write down now, while it is fresh, exactly how the accident happened: where you were, what you were doing, what struck you and who was present.

4. Identify every person, business, vehicle or property involved, and note in particular whether any of them belonged to a government body.

5. Bring all of it to a New York attorney promptly; several of these deadlines start on the day of the accident and the shortest of them is ninety days.

⏱ Time limits apply. CPLR 214(5) gives three years for a personal injury action. Against a public corporation, General Municipal Law § 50-e(1)(a) requires a notice of claim within ninety days and § 50-i(1)(c) requires suit within one year and ninety days, subject to the extension in § 50-e(5). A claim against the State runs under Court of Claims Act §§ 10 and 11 in the Court of Claims. A malpractice claim runs on the two years and six months in CPLR 214-a with its continuous treatment rule, and CPLR 208 may extend a period for a person under a disability. All key to the date of the accident or the treatment; which is yours depends on facts this page cannot see, so have a New York attorney fix the dates rather than estimating them.