Arizona Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury Claims

The Two-Year Rule Under A.R.S. § 12-542, and When It Starts

A.R.S. § 12-542 gives you two years to file suit for an injury caused by another person's negligence.^[1] The clock starts on the date of the injury: the day of the crash, the fall, or the incident that hurt you.

The same two-year period covers wrongful death claims, measured from the date of death rather than the date of the underlying accident. Car and truck crashes, premises falls, and most medical negligence claims all live under this statute.

Filing means filing the lawsuit, not opening an insurance claim. An adjuster can negotiate with you politely for twenty-three months and then point at the calendar. Nothing about an open claim file, a pending negotiation, or an unpaid medical bill pauses the statute.

Every Arizona Injury Deadline, From Dog Bites to Government Claims

Different Arizona claims run on different clocks, and the shortest one in your case is the one that matters.

The dog bite line deserves a second look, because it surprises people. Arizona's strict liability statute holds the owner responsible even if the dog never bit before, but a claim built on that statute is a liability created by statute, and those expire in one year under A.R.S. § 12-541.^[2] A negligence claim against the same owner keeps the two-year deadline, and our Arizona dog bite lawyers plead both where the facts allow it.

Product cases carry a ceiling most people have never heard of, because no product liability action may be brought more than twelve years after the product was first sold, unless the claim is based on the manufacturer's negligence or a breached express warranty.^[3]

The 180-Day Government Notice That Outranks the Two-Year Rule

If any public entity shares fault for your injury, the deadline that decides your case is not two years away. It is 180 days away.

A.R.S. § 12-821.01 requires a written Notice of Claim, served on the correct public entity, within 180 days of the injury.^[4] The notice must state the facts and demand a specific dollar amount. Serve it late, serve it on the wrong office, or leave out the required contents, and the claim against the government is barred, no matter how strong it was.

The lawsuit itself must then be filed within one year under A.R.S. § 12-821, half the ordinary time.^[5]

This rule reaches further than most people expect: a city bus, a county road crew, a public school, a state vehicle, a dangerous intersection design. What makes it dangerous is that the government's involvement is not always obvious at the scene, and the 180 days run whether or not anyone has mentioned them to you. Our page on suing the government in Arizona covers the notice requirements in detail.

When Arizona Pauses the Clock: Children, Hidden Injuries, Incapacity

Arizona law recognizes that some people cannot sue on time, and some injuries cannot be found on time. The main exceptions:

• Injured children. Under A.R.S. § 12-502, the statute does not run while the injured person is under 18. A child hurt at ten generally has until their 20th birthday to file.^[6] Parents can bring a claim earlier, and usually should, while the evidence still exists.
• The discovery rule. Where an injury or its cause could not reasonably have been discovered right away, the two years run from when you discovered it or reasonably should have. This is how a surgical error found on a later scan, or a disease traced to an old exposure, can still be actionable. It is argued case by case, and the details live on our page about Arizona medical malpractice law.
• Mental incapacity. Section 12-502 also pauses the clock for a plaintiff of unsound mind, which matters most in the brain injury cases where the person least able to track a deadline is the one who holds the claim.
• An absent or concealed defendant. Time the defendant spends outside Arizona or in hiding generally does not count against you.

Every one of these exceptions is narrow, contested, and fact-specific. The insurer will read each of them against you. Treat them as arguments a lawyer can make, never as extra time you can count on.

Why the Evidence Deadline in Arizona Arrives Months Before the Legal One

The statute of limitations is the last deadline in your case, not the first.

Surveillance video is overwritten in days or weeks. Vehicles are repaired or scrapped. Skid marks fade, witnesses move, and a business's incident file gets thinner with every quarter that passes. A claim filed at month 23 is legally alive and evidentially starved.

That gap is why waiting costs money even when it costs nothing on paper. The car-crash version of this problem has its own page covering the deadline to file after an Arizona car accident, and the practical answer is the same everywhere: the earlier the investigation starts, the more of your case still exists.

Our Arizona injury attorneys confirm the controlling deadline in the first conversation, calendar it, and start preserving evidence the same week. There is no cost to asking, and no fixing a missed deadline.