Line 15 of the record
What Is the Statute of Limitations for Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit After a Car Accident in Georgia and When Does the Clock Start?
Two years from the day the injury claim arises, which for an injury suffered in the crash is the crash date (O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33). The deadline is for filing a lawsuit, not for opening an insurance claim. It is a statute of limitation, not a statute of repose, so Georgia’s tolling statutes can lengthen it, and a claim against a city, county, or the state adds a notice deadline that arrives much sooner.
The rule and its neighbors
Section 9-3-33 sets three periods in one sentence: actions “for injuries to the person shall be brought within two years after the right of action accrues”, actions for injury to reputation within one year, and actions “for injuries to the person involving loss of consortium” within four years. Damage to a car is an injury to personal property, with four years under § 9-3-31.
| Claim from the same crash | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Your bodily injury | 2 years (§ 9-3-33) |
| Your spouse's loss of consortium from your injury | 4 years (§ 9-3-33) |
| Damage to your car | 4 years (§ 9-3-31) |
| Claim against a city, county, or state agency | Written notice first: 6 months (city) or 12 months (county, state), each from its own starting event; see below |
The bodily injury date comes first, so it is the one to calendar. The spouse’s claim is explained in loss of consortium claims after a spouse’s crash injuries.
Limitation, not repose
A statute of repose cuts off a claim at a fixed point regardless of tolling. Section 9-3-33 is not that kind of statute: it runs “after the right of action accrues”, and the Code contains separate statutes that suspend it. The product liability statute shows the difference: § 51-1-11(b)(2) bars a strict liability action against a manufacturer “after ten years from the date of the first sale for use or consumption” of the product, a fixed outer limit that applies alongside the two-year filing period. A crash claim against a vehicle or parts maker can meet both.
What can extend the two years
| Situation | Statute | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Injured person under 18 when the claim arose | § 9-3-90(b) | Same period counted from the 18th birthday |
| Injured person legally incompetent when the claim arose | § 9-3-90(a) | Same period counted from removal of the disability |
| Injury arose from an alleged crime | § 9-3-99 | Tolled until the prosecution "has become final or otherwise terminated", up to six years |
| Defendant moved out of Georgia | § 9-3-94 | Time of absence "until he returns to reside" not counted in the defendant's favor |
| Defendant's fraud kept the plaintiff from suing | § 9-3-96 | Period runs from discovery of the fraud |
| Case filed on time, then dismissed | § 9-2-61(a) | May be recommenced within the original period or six months after dismissal, whichever is later; once only if after the period expired |
The crime-victim statute can matter in a crash case. In Beneke v. Parker (2009), a passenger hurt when a car was struck from behind sued two years and about two weeks after the crash. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that the driver’s following-too-closely citation, a misdemeanor, was a “crime” under § 9-3-99, so the deadline was tolled until the citation was resolved. A DUI, a hit-and-run, or a vehicular homicide charge can raise the same question. The statute does not help a family’s wrongful death claim: in Hicks v. Universal Health Services (2022), the Court of Appeals held that the parents who sued for their children’s deaths were not “victims” of the crime. The death-claim deadline is covered in the Georgia wrongful death limitation period and who has standing.
Later decisions mark the statute’s limits. It does not help the person who was charged: in Toliver v. Dawson (2023), the driver who sued had been charged with failing to maintain her lane, and the Court of Appeals said the statute “does not benefit an alleged criminal perpetrator”. It does not toll anything when no prosecution was ever pending and the time to bring one has passed: in Jenkins v. Keown (2019), a rear-end case in which no citation was issued, the court refused to apply it. Where it does apply, the tolling also moves the date for serving your own uninsured motorist insurer, as the Supreme Court of Georgia held in Armstrong v. Cuffie (2021), a motorcycle crash case in which the other driver was tried and acquitted.
Settlement talks are not on the list. None of these statutes turns on negotiations with an insurer, so unless one of the situations above applies, a claim still being negotiated near the two-year date has to be filed to be preserved.
When the claim “accrues”
For an injury that happens in the crash, the right of action accrues when the crash happens, even if the full extent of the injury is not yet known; a later diagnosis or a later bill does not restart the count. The “14-day” treatment limit is a condition in Florida’s no-fault insurance law, not part of this count; see what a delay in medical treatment means for a Georgia injury claim. If a symptom appeared only weeks after the crash and there is a question about when that claim accrued, the safe working date is still two years from the crash, and the question is one to put to counsel well before that date, not after it.
Counting the last day
Unless a statute sets its own method of counting, Georgia’s general rule, O.C.G.A. § 1-3-1(d)(3), does not count the first day and does count the last. When the last day falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the deadline runs through the following Monday, and a public and legal holiday moves it to the next business day. Applied to the two-year statute, that makes the second anniversary of the crash a day on which the suit can still be filed: in Reese v. City of Atlanta (2001), the Court of Appeals held that a complaint over an October 27, 1996, arrest “was timely filed on the second anniversary of the event, October 27, 1998.”
Government defendants: notice comes first
A claim against a city requires written notice within six months of the event (§ 36-33-5); against a county, 12 months after the claim accrues (§ 36-11-1); against a state agency, 12 months after the loss was or should have been discovered (§ 50-21-26). For city and state claims, the notice deadline is not extended for a child, and a pending criminal case does not extend it either: § 9-3-99 tolls periods of limitation, and the Supreme Court of Georgia has held that the state’s notice requirement is not one (Department of Public Safety v. Ragsdale, 2020) and has applied the same reasoning to the city’s six-month notice (Dates v. City of Atlanta, 2025). The rules and recipients are in Georgia ante litem notice requirements and what happens if the deadline is missed. A federal agency claim must be presented to the agency within two years under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b).
After filing: the 2025 change to voluntary dismissal
Senate Bill 68 (2025) narrowed a plaintiff’s right to drop a case and refile. As passed, it rewrote § 9-11-41(a)(1)(A) so that a plaintiff may dismiss without a court order by written notice only before “the sixtieth day following the date the opposing party serves an answer”, replacing the earlier rule that allowed dismissal “before the first witness is sworn”. SB 68 states the General Assembly’s intent that, apart from its negligent-security and medical-expense sections, its provisions apply “to causes of action pending on the effective date of this Act, unless such application would be unconstitutional”. After that window, dismissal requires the court’s order. Filing near the deadline with a plan to dismiss and refile later is therefore riskier than it was before 2025.
One crash, several dates
For example, imagine a crash on March 10, 2026, with a city truck, in which you are hurt and your car is damaged. Six months from the event is September 10, 2026, a Thursday; the written notice is due by then, served on the mayor or the chair of the city council or commission in one of the ways § 36-33-5(f) lists. Your injury lawsuit runs two years, to March 10, 2028. Your spouse’s consortium claim and the claim for the car each run four years; March 10, 2030, is a Sunday, so under § 1-3-1(d)(3) they run through Monday, March 11, 2030. If the truck’s driver was charged with a crime, § 9-3-99 can toll the two-year period for the injury suit while the prosecution is pending, but it does not extend the notice to the city, and a minor’s own claim follows § 9-3-90(b) instead.
A calendar check after any crash
- Write down the crash date and add two years.
- Ask whether any defendant is a city, county, state agency, or federal agency; if so, the notice date comes first.
- Ask whether the injured person is a minor or legally incompetent.
- Ask whether the other driver was charged with a crime, and when that case ends.
- Ask whether any claim targets a product maker, which adds the ten-year repose.
Sources
- O.C.G.A. §§ 9-2-61, 9-3-31, 9-3-33, 9-3-90, 9-3-94, 9-3-96, 9-3-99, 36-11-1, 50-21-26, 51-1-11 (text as published in March 2024); §§ 1-3-1, 36-33-5 (text of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, November 2022 release; no amendment listed in the 2023 to 2026 summaries of general statutes enacted).
- Reese v. City of Atlanta, 247 Ga. App. 701 (2001)
- Jenkins v. Keown, No. A19A0510 (Ga. Ct. App. June 27, 2019)
- Toliver v. Dawson, No. A23A1252 (Ga. Ct. App. Dec. 29, 2023)
- Armstrong v. Cuffie, 311 Ga. 791 (2021)
- Department of Public Safety v. Ragsdale, 308 Ga. 210 (2020); Dates v. City of Atlanta, No. S24G1246 (Ga. June 10, 2025)
- Senate Bill 68 (2025), as passed, §§ 3, 9.
- Beneke v. Parker, 285 Ga. 733 (2009)
- Hicks v. Universal Health Services, Inc., No. A22A0204 (Ga. Ct. App. June 17, 2022)
- 28 U.S.C. § 2401
This page describes Georgia law as of October 2026 for general information. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.