Statute of Limitations: New York's 3-Year Clock
New York gives most personal injury plaintiffs three years to file suit. The authority is CPLR §214(5), which sets a three-year limitations period for actions "to recover damages for a personal injury." Fail to file within that window and the court will dismiss your case — regardless of how strong your evidence is, how severe your injuries are, or how obviously the defendant was at fault.
The clock generally starts ticking on the date of the injury-causing event. A car accident on June 14, 2026 means your lawsuit must be filed no later than June 14, 2029. In most cases that's a comfortable runway, but it shrinks fast once you factor in attorney retention, investigation, medical treatment, and motion practice.
Discovery Rule and Latent Injuries
New York recognizes a discovery rule for certain latent injury cases — most notably toxic exposure claims under CPLR §214-c, where the three-year clock runs from the date the plaintiff "discovered the injury" rather than the date of exposure. Ordinary traumatic injury cases (car crashes, slip and falls, assaults) do not get a discovery rule extension; the cause of injury is known at the moment it happens.
Medical Malpractice: A Shorter Deadline
If your claim involves negligent medical, dental, or podiatric care, the standard three-year period does not apply. CPLR §214-a cuts that window to two years and six months from the date of the malpractice act or omission — or, in cases of continuous treatment by the same provider for the same condition, from the end of that treatment. This is a firm departure from the general SOL and one of the most frequently missed deadlines in New York tort practice.
Infancy Toll Under CPLR §208
When the injured person is a minor at the time the cause of action accrues, the limitations period is tolled — paused — for the duration of the infancy under CPLR §208. For most personal injury claims, the minor has until three years after turning 18 (age 21) to file. There is an outer cap: the extended period cannot push the filing deadline more than ten years past the date the cause of action accrued (except in cases of infancy, where the cap does not apply). Parents asserting derivative claims on behalf of an injured child are not tolled; only the child's own claims benefit from the infancy extension.
Government Claims: The 90-Day Notice Trap
If your injury involves a New York municipality — the City of New York, the MTA, a school district, the State itself, a county highway department, or any public authority — the standard three-year period is almost irrelevant because a far shorter preliminary requirement governs. General Municipal Law §50-e requires that you file a Notice of Claim within 90 days of the injury. Miss that 90-day window and your lawsuit is, in the vast majority of cases, dead. Courts treat this requirement as jurisdictional and enforce it with minimal sympathy.
If a government entity caused your injury in New York, you have just 90 days to file a Notice of Claim under General Municipal Law §50-e. This applies to trips and falls on city sidewalks or MTA subway platforms in New York City, car accidents involving city vehicles in Brooklyn or the Bronx, incidents at public schools or SUNY campuses in Buffalo or Albany, and injuries on state-owned property across New York.
After the Notice of Claim is filed, you may not commence the lawsuit until at least 30 days have passed (giving the municipality a chance to examine you under oath or settle). The ultimate deadline to sue a municipality is one year and 90 days from the date of the incident. Extensions of the 90-day Notice of Claim deadline require a court order and are difficult to obtain — courts consider factors including whether the municipality had actual notice of the injury and whether it was prejudiced by the delay. Do not wait.
Official source: CPLR §214 — NYSenate.gov
Pure Comparative Fault — and New York's Modified Joint Liability
New York abolished contributory negligence in 1975 and replaced it with a pure comparative fault system. The governing statute is CPLR §1411, which provides that a plaintiff's own "culpable conduct" — including contributory negligence and assumption of risk — "shall not bar recovery, but the amount of damages otherwise recoverable shall be diminished in the proportion which the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or decedent bears to the culpable conduct which caused the damages."
In plain terms: if a jury finds you 60% responsible for your own injuries and assigns $100,000 in total damages, you collect $40,000. If a jury finds you 90% at fault, you collect $10,000. There is no floor. A plaintiff who is 99% responsible for an accident can still recover 1% of their damages from the other party. This is the hallmark of pure comparative fault — as distinct from the "modified" systems in states like Texas or Florida that bar recovery once the plaintiff's fault exceeds 50% or 51%.
New York's Modified Joint and Several Liability (Article 16)
Joint and several liability means that when multiple defendants share fault, each can be held responsible for the entire judgment — the plaintiff can collect the full amount from any one of them, leaving that defendant to seek contribution from the others. New York once applied full joint and several liability across the board, but CPLR §1601 (the Article 16 reform, sometimes called the Dole-Munzer rule) significantly narrowed it.
Under §1601, a defendant found 50% or less at fault for the total liability is only severally liable for non-economic damages — meaning that defendant's responsibility for pain and suffering is capped at its own proportionate share. It cannot be forced to pay another defendant's non-economic damages. Full joint and several liability survives for economic damages (medical bills, lost wages) in most cases, meaning a deep-pocket defendant who is only 10% at fault can still be compelled to pay 100% of a plaintiff's lost earnings and then seek reimbursement from co-defendants.
Several important exceptions preserve full joint and several liability even for non-economic damages: defendants acting with intentional conduct, those who polluted the environment, municipalities liable under the vehicle and traffic law, and certain other statutory categories are exempted from Article 16's limitation. A Long Island municipality involved in a road defect case, for example, cannot hide behind §1601 to cap its exposure on pain and suffering.
Settlement Credits Under GOL §15-108
When one defendant settles before trial, General Obligations Law §15-108 governs how that settlement affects the remaining defendants. The non-settling defendant's liability is reduced by the greater of: (1) the amount paid in settlement, (2) the settling defendant's equitable share of the damages as determined at trial, or (3) the percentage of fault attributed to the settling defendant multiplied by the total damages. This provision matters enormously in multi-defendant cases — a savvy early settlement by one insurer can shift significant exposure to the remaining defendants at trial.
Damage Caps in New York: What Limits Apply?
New York imposes no statutory cap on compensatory damages in general personal injury cases. A Manhattan jury that awards $15 million for a catastrophic spinal cord injury is not constrained by any legislative ceiling. This distinguishes New York from states like California (where med mal non-economic damages are capped) or Texas (which caps non-economic damages in medical malpractice at $250,000 per defendant).
That said, the absence of a cap does not mean unlimited verdicts go unchallenged. Appellate courts in New York routinely reduce jury awards they find to "materially deviate from what would be reasonable compensation" — the standard under CPLR §5501(c). Remittitur (court-ordered reduction of jury awards) is common in high-profile New York personal injury cases, particularly those involving pain and suffering awards that dramatically outstrip medical expenses or economic loss.
Periodic Payment of Future Damages: CPLR Articles 50-A and 50-B
For large future damages awards, New York does not allow defendants to walk out of court and hand over a single lump-sum check. CPLR Article 50-B governs personal injury and wrongful death actions (other than medical malpractice): when a future damages award exceeds $250,000, the defendant may request — and the court must order — that future damages be paid periodically rather than in a lump sum. The structured payment is calculated at present value, then paid out over the period the damages are meant to cover.
CPLR Article 50-A applies the same periodic payment structure specifically to medical malpractice cases. For future damages over $250,000 in a medical malpractice verdict, the court sets up an annuity or other structure. One significant consequence for plaintiffs: if they die before all periodic payments are received, the remaining installments stop — the estate does not collect them. This provision gives defendants a meaningful hedge against paying decades of future medical costs if the plaintiff's prognosis proves overstated.
Itemized Verdicts Under CPLR §4111
In all personal injury cases in New York, juries are required by CPLR §4111(e) to return itemized verdicts — specifying exactly how much they are awarding for past medical expenses, future medical expenses, past pain and suffering, future pain and suffering, past lost earnings, and future lost earnings. In medical malpractice cases, the itemization requirement under §4111(d) is even more granular. This itemization serves two purposes: it gives appellate courts a clear record to evaluate on remittitur review, and it feeds directly into the periodic payment calculation under Articles 50-A and 50-B.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages are available in New York personal injury cases but are not routine. Courts permit them only when the defendant's conduct was "wanton, reckless, or malicious" — rising well above ordinary negligence. New York imposes no statutory cap on punitives, though appellate courts will reduce awards that are grossly disproportionate to compensatory damages. In practice, drunk driving cases with egregious BAC levels, product liability cases involving deliberate concealment of known defects, and intentional assault cases are the most fertile ground for punitive damages in New York courts.
New York's No-Fault PIP System and the Serious Injury Threshold
New York is one of a dozen states that operates under a mandatory no-fault automobile insurance system, codified at Insurance Law §5101 et seq. (Article 51). The philosophy behind no-fault is straightforward: after a car accident, your own insurer pays your immediate medical bills and lost wages — regardless of who caused the crash — without requiring you to establish fault first. This speeds up compensation for minor injuries and reduces the volume of small-claims litigation in court.
Mandatory PIP Coverage: $50,000 Per Person
Every motor vehicle registered in New York must carry Personal Injury Protection (PIP) — called "first-party benefits" in the statute — of at least $50,000 per person. This coverage pays for medical expenses, up to $2,000 per month in lost wages (for up to three years), and miscellaneous reasonable expenses up to $25 per day. Motorcyclists are notably excluded from the no-fault system; they are not required to carry PIP and cannot collect first-party benefits, though they retain their right to sue in tort.
Optional additional PIP coverage of $25,000 is available for purchase, bringing the total to $75,000 — a wise investment given the cost of trauma care in New York City hospitals. The no-fault carrier must pay valid claims within 30 days of submission. Denials must be issued within 30 days as well, and insurers who delay without justification lose the right to dispute the claim.
The "Serious Injury" Threshold Under §5102(d)
Here is the crucial trade-off of New York's no-fault system: by accepting guaranteed PIP benefits, you give up the right to sue the at-fault driver for non-economic damages (pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life) unless your injuries qualify as a "serious injury" under Insurance Law §5102(d). If your injuries don't make the list, you can still collect your economic losses from PIP — but you cannot touch the defendant's liability insurance for pain and suffering.
The statute defines "serious injury" as a personal injury which results in any of the following nine categories:
- 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
- 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 90 days during the 180 days immediately following the occurrence of the injury
The ninth category — the "90/180 day" rule — is the most litigated. Defense insurers routinely deploy independent medical examiners (IMEs) to challenge whether the plaintiff's limitations were truly medically determined, whether the injury genuinely prevented "substantially all" customary activities, and whether the plaintiff satisfied the 90-day threshold. Gaps in treatment are particularly damaging: if you stopped treating for six weeks after the accident, defense counsel will argue the gap proves your injuries were not as debilitating as claimed.
The Fracture Category: Plaintiff's Best Friend
Notice that a fracture is its own standalone category — with no qualifying adjective attached. Any broken bone satisfies the serious injury threshold as a matter of law in New York. A fractured finger from a fender-bender on the Long Island Expressway qualifies just as readily as a shattered femur from a T-bone collision in Buffalo. This is why fractures are so significant in New York car accident litigation; they bypass the entire "significant limitation" and "permanent consequential limitation" debates entirely.
Minimum Liability Insurance Requirements
New York sets mandatory minimum liability limits for passenger vehicle owners: $25,000 per person / $50,000 per accident for bodily injury, with a doubled requirement of $50,000 / $100,000 for death claims. Property damage coverage is required at a minimum of $10,000. New York also requires uninsured motorist (UM) coverage in amounts matching the bodily injury minimums. Given that these limits are often woefully inadequate for serious injuries — and that New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County are among the most expensive medical markets in the country — purchasing supplemental uninsured/underinsured motorist (SUM) coverage is a particularly sound investment for New York drivers.
Practical Implications for NYC, Long Island, and Upstate Claims
New York's no-fault system plays out differently depending on where your accident occurred. In New York City, where MTA buses, city taxis, rideshare vehicles, and bicycles all share the street, the serious injury analysis can be complicated by the involvement of multiple carriers and the possibility that a government entity (the MTA or the City) is responsible — triggering the 90-day Notice of Claim requirement on top of the no-fault framework. On Long Island, Nassau and Suffolk County courts handle enormous volumes of auto litigation; the "fracture" category is the most commonly pled serious injury threshold in those jurisdictions. Upstate plaintiffs in Buffalo, Rochester, or Albany who suffer soft tissue injuries face an uphill battle satisfying the 90/180-day category without consistent, documented medical treatment from day one.
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