Arizona law
Arizona deadlines that quietly end injury claims
More Arizona injury claims are lost to a calendar than to a jury. The two-year rule is the one everybody knows. The 180-day rule is the one that quietly ends cases.
The general rule: two years
Under A.R.S. 12-542, most personal injury and wrongful death claims in Arizona must be filed within two years. For an injury claim that clock starts on the date of the incident. For a wrongful death claim it starts on the date of death, which is not always the same date.
Filing means a complaint on file with the court. It does not mean an open claim with an insurer, a demand letter sent, or an adjuster telling you they are still reviewing. Those do not stop the clock, and an adjuster is under no obligation to remind you.
The rule that catches people: 180 days
If your claim is against a public entity or a public employee, which includes a city, a county, the state, a school district, a transit authority or a public hospital, you must serve a formal notice of claim within 180 days of the event under A.R.S. 12-821.01. Miss it and the claim is barred, whatever the merits are.
- A collision with a city vehicle or a school bus.
- An injury caused by a defective road, an unlit crosswalk or a missing signal.
- Treatment at a public hospital or by a public employee.
- An incident on public property or in a public building.
The notice itself has content requirements. It must state specific facts, and it must contain a specific settlement demand with the facts supporting it. A letter that says "we intend to claim" and nothing more has repeatedly been held insufficient.
One year, then
Even where a notice of claim is properly served, a lawsuit against a public entity must be filed within one year of the cause of action accruing, not two. Two separate shortened deadlines, both of them easy to miss.
The four exceptions worth knowing
Claims on behalf of a child
The limitation period is generally tolled until the child turns 18, which means an injured minor typically has until their twentieth birthday. The notice of claim requirement against a public entity is treated differently, so do not rely on tolling there.
The discovery rule
Where an injury or its cause could not reasonably have been discovered at the time, the clock can start when the claimant knew or should have known. This is narrower than people hope, and courts apply it strictly.
Defendants who leave the state
Time during which a defendant is absent from Arizona may be excluded from the calculation. This matters more often than it sounds in a state with heavy interstate traffic.
Legal disability
Where a claimant is of unsound mind at the time the cause of action accrues, the period can be tolled. In catastrophic brain injury cases this is a genuine and frequently overlooked route.
The deadline that actually decides cases
None of the above. The practical deadline is evidence retention. Dashcam and surveillance footage is overwritten in weeks. Commercial carriers may destroy driver logs after six months under federal retention rules. Vehicles are scrapped, witnesses move, and memories become unusable.
A case filed on day 729 with no evidence is worth less than a case investigated on day 3 and settled on day 400.
If you think you are out of time
Call anyway. Which deadline applies depends on who the defendant is, when the injury was discoverable, how old the claimant was and whether any tolling applies, and people are told they are out of time when they are not far more often than the reverse.
A twenty-minute call settles it. Send the details and we will tell you which clock you are on, even if the answer is that we cannot help.
