Time Limits on Personal Injury Cases

The Two-Year Rule

Under Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) 11.190(4)(e), most personal injury claims must be filed in court within two years from the date of the incident. This applies to the injury claims our firm handles most often, including car accidents, motorcycle accidents, and slip-and-falls.

A few points are worth emphasizing, because they trip people up:

• The clock starts on the date of the incident. The crash, the fall, the injury-causing event; not the date treatment ends or a case settles.
• Ongoing insurance negotiations do not pause the deadline. An adjuster can keep talking to you for a year and a half and then walk away with weeks left on your filing window. The negotiation process and the legal filing deadline are separate tracks that run at the same time, not one after the other.
• Nevada courts enforce this deadline strictly. If a lawsuit is filed even one day late, the court will dismiss the case regardless of how strong the evidence is or how serious the injury was.

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The Discovery Rule Is a Narrow Exception, Not a Fallback

Nevada recognizes a limited “discovery rule” that can, in rare circumstances, delay the start of the two-year clock until an injury or its cause was reasonably discoverable. In practice, courts apply it narrowly, and it should not be treated as a backup plan if the standard deadline is approaching.

This matters because of a common misconception. In the large majority of personal injury cases, a car accident, a fall on someone’s property, the triggering event is obvious the moment it happens, whether that’s being rear-ended or slipping on a wet floor. The fact that pain or the full extent of an injury doesn’t show up until days or weeks later does not restart the two-year clock. Anyone counting on delayed symptoms to buy extra time is taking on real risk.

Situations That Do Extend the Deadline

While the discovery rule has limited application, Nevada law does recognize a handful of specific circumstances where the standard two-year window is extended:

Injured minors. Under NRS 11.250, the two-year clock does not begin running until the injured person turns 18. In practice, this means someone injured as a child generally has until their 20th birthday to file a claim.

Legal incapacity. The same statute tolls the deadline for a person under a qualifying legal incapacity until that incapacity ends, since they aren’t in a position to pursue a claim on their own.

Claims against a government entity. If the at-fault party is a city, county, state agency, US government agency, or public employee acting within the scope of their duties, different rules apply under NRS 41.036 or the Federal Tort Claims Act. These claims involve additional procedural requirements, including a formal notice filed with the responsible government body on top of the underlying statute of limitations. Because government claims carry extra steps and stricter compliance requirements, anyone whose injury involves a government vehicle, public property, or a public employee should get the claim reviewed as early as possible, not near the two-year mark.

Wrongful death. When an accident results in a death, the two-year period under NRS 11.190(4)(e) still applies, but it runs from the date of death, not the date of the original incident. In cases where death follows an injury by months or longer, this can result in a different filing deadline than the injury claim itself would have had.

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What Happens If You Miss the Deadline

If a lawsuit isn’t filed within the applicable period, the court will dismiss the case as a matter of law. This isn’t a matter of the judge’s discretion or the strength of the claim, a case filed after the deadline is barred outright, and the right to pursue compensation for that injury is lost permanently.

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Why Waiting Is Risky, Even Within the Window

Two years can feel like a long time immediately after an accident, but it closes faster than most people expect. Evidence has a shelf life: skid marks fade, video records and data are overwritten, witnesses move or forget details. Insurance companies are aware of the deadline too, and some use delay as a strategy, hoping a claim will run out of time before it becomes a lawsuit.

The earlier a claim is reviewed, the more time there is to gather evidence, identify every applicable deadline (including any that may be shorter than the general two-year rule), and build a case properly, rather than racing the clock at the end.

Bottom Line

Nevada gives injury victims two years to file suit in most cases, but that number comes with real nuance: what actually starts the clock, when it can be extended, and when a shorter or different deadline applies instead. Because these rules depend heavily on the specific facts of each case, anyone who has been injured should have their situation reviewed as soon as possible rather than relying on general assumptions about how much time remains.