The Colorado Statute of Limitations for Injury Claims, Explained

If you were hurt in Colorado by someone else's carelessness, there is a deadline to file a lawsuit, and missing it usually ends the claim no matter how strong it is. In most Colorado injury cases the deadline is two years from the date you were hurt, under C.R.S. 13-80-102. If a motor vehicle was involved, the deadline is generally three years, under C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n). If the person or agency that hurt you is part of state or local government, there is a much shorter step first: written notice within 182 days under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, C.R.S. 24-10-109.

That is the short answer. The rest of this post explains what those deadlines actually mean, which one applies to which kind of case, and why filing one day late is the one mistake in an injury claim that nobody can undo.

What a statute of limitations really is

A statute of limitations is a law that sets the outside date for starting a lawsuit in court. It is not the deadline to call a lawyer, not the deadline to report the crash to your insurance company, and not the deadline to finish treatment. It is the date by which a complaint has to be filed with the court. Settlement talks with an adjuster do not stop the clock. A pending claim number does not stop the clock. An adjuster telling you they are still reviewing the file does not stop the clock.

If the deadline passes and no lawsuit has been filed, the other side can ask the court to dismiss the case, and the court will normally grant it. The judge does not weigh how badly you were hurt or how obviously the other driver was at fault. The question becomes only whether the case was filed in time.

The Colorado deadlines that come up most often

Colorado does not have one deadline for everything. These are the ones we are asked about most.

• General negligence: two years. C.R.S. 13-80-102 covers most personal injury claims, including slip and fall and other premises cases, dog bites and ordinary negligence.
• Crashes involving a motor vehicle: three years. C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n) gives injuries arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle three years. This covers car, truck and motorcycle collisions, and it commonly covers pedestrians and bicyclists struck by a vehicle.
• Wrongful death: two years from the date of death, not the date of the injury, and the two dates are not always the same.
• Medical malpractice: two years under C.R.S. 13-80-102.5, with an outside limit, called a statute of repose, that cuts off most claims three years after the act or omission even if the harm was not discovered.
• Claims against a government entity: the 182-day written notice under C.R.S. 24-10-109 comes first, and the ordinary filing deadline still applies after that. This matters for crashes with city or county vehicles, RTD buses and light rail, and injuries on government property.
• Uninsured and underinsured motorist claims follow their own rule under C.R.S. 13-80-107.5, which can set a different deadline from the claim against the at-fault driver. If part of your recovery will come from your own UM or UIM coverage, treat that as a separate deadline to check, not as something that automatically rides along with the claim against the other driver.
• Dram shop claims against a bar or retailer that served a visibly intoxicated person, or served someone underage, are governed by their own statute and carry a much shorter deadline than an ordinary negligence claim. If a business may share responsibility for a drunk driving crash, that part of the case needs attention early.

Which statute applies is a legal question, and it is not always obvious from the facts. A fall in a parking lot is a two-year case. A fall caused by a delivery van backing up may be a vehicle case. A crash involving a city plow truck is a vehicle case with a 182-day notice sitting in front of it. The safe assumption is always the shortest deadline that could apply, not the longest.

When does the clock start

Usually on the day you were hurt. Colorado law says a claim accrues when the injury and its cause are known or should have been known through reasonable diligence, under C.R.S. 13-80-108. In a rear end collision that is the day of the crash. In a case where the harm shows up later, a surgical injury discovered months afterward, for example, the start date can be later. Do not plan around that. Arguing about when the clock started is a fight you have after you are already too close to the line, and it is a fight you can lose.

There are situations that pause or extend the deadline. A person who was a minor when they were injured generally gets time after turning eighteen. Certain disabilities can toll the running of the clock. A defendant who leaves the state or conceals themselves can affect it. These are real rules, but they are exceptions with their own conditions, and none of them is something to count on without a lawyer confirming it applies to your situation.

What actually happens if a case is filed one day late

The defense files a motion to dismiss and attaches a calendar. There is no hearing about your medical records, no discussion of the other driver's conduct, no chance to explain that the adjuster kept saying a check was coming. The case ends. That is the whole story, and it is why we treat deadlines as the first thing to pin down in a new case rather than the last.

Something quieter happens before that date too. An adjuster who knows your deadline is three weeks away has very little reason to negotiate seriously. Their leverage grows as your time shrinks. People who wait until the deadline is close often find that the offer they are given is worse than the offer they could have had a year earlier, and by then there is no time left to file and keep working. Time is negotiating power, and it only runs one direction.

What to do this week

1. Write down the date you were hurt. Not the month, the date. Everything is counted from it.
2. Work out whether a government entity may be involved. A city, county, school district, transit agency, state employee or public hospital changes the timeline immediately, because 182 days arrives long before two years does.
3. Find out who all the possible defendants are. Different defendants can carry different deadlines in the same incident. The driver, the driver's employer, a bar that overserved, the owner of the property, a vehicle manufacturer.
4. Check your own policy for UM, UIM and med pay. These involve notice requirements to your own insurer, and they matter most in exactly the cases where the at-fault driver has little or no coverage.
5. Gather the proof while it still exists. Deadlines are not the only clock running. Video gets overwritten and witnesses move, which is why the first two days after a crash matter so much to a claim filed later.
6. Stop assuming the insurance company will tell you. The other side's adjuster has no obligation to remind you that your time is running out, and they will not.
7. Get an opinion before the halfway point. If it has been a year on a three-year case, you still have room to investigate, treat and negotiate. If it has been two years and ten months, most of your options are already gone.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Colorado statute of limitations for a car accident two years or three years?

For injuries arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle, Colorado generally allows three years under C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n), while most other negligence claims get two years under C.R.S. 13-80-102. Whether a particular incident counts as a motor vehicle case is a legal question, so if there is any doubt, the careful approach is to work from the two-year date until a lawyer confirms otherwise.

Does the deadline stop while I am negotiating with the insurance company?

No. Settlement discussions, claim numbers, open medical treatment and ongoing adjuster phone calls do not pause the statute of limitations. The only thing that stops the clock is filing a lawsuit in court by the deadline, and an insurance company is under no obligation to warn you that the date is approaching.

What is the deadline if a city, county or RTD vehicle was involved?

Claims against Colorado public entities and their employees fall under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, which requires written notice within 182 days of discovering the injury under C.R.S. 24-10-109, with specific content and delivery requirements, and the ordinary filing deadline still applies after that. Missing the notice step can end the claim even though years remain on the ordinary statute, so government cases need attention within weeks, not months.

What if the injured person is a child?

Colorado law generally tolls the limitations period for a person who was a minor when they were injured, so the clock typically begins when they turn eighteen. There are exceptions and there are related claims, such as a parent's claim for medical expenses, that may run on the ordinary schedule instead. If a child was hurt, do not assume the family has many years to decide.

Can anything be done if my deadline has already passed?

Sometimes, but it depends entirely on the specifics, such as whether the clock actually started when you think it did, whether a tolling rule applies, or whether a different defendant with a different deadline is still available. It is worth having someone look at the dates rather than assuming the answer, and it is worth doing that immediately, because every option in that situation gets narrower with time.

Where to start

Deadlines are the part of an injury claim that cannot be repaired after the fact. Medical records can be gathered late, witnesses can be tracked down late, a lowball offer can be answered late. A missed statute of limitations cannot be fixed by anyone.

If you were hurt in Colorado and want to know where you stand, Anderson Hemmat offers a free case review. Call 303-782-9999 or send us a message and we will tell you honestly whether you have a claim, and which deadline applies to it.