Pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure Section 340(3), an action for a person injury or death, caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another, must be filed within one year of the date of the accident that caused the injury or death. While we will detail situations in which subrogation may be pursued more than one year from the date of injury, the general principle to consider is a one-year timeframe from the date of injury.
Even though there is one year from the date of injury in which to institute a third party action via the filing of a complaint in the civil court system, by no means should this indicate that your investigation should be postponed until that time. As with all potential third party claims, it is advisable that investigation, including depositions, photographing of accident scenes, obtainment of maintenance logs, and the procurement of witness
statements, be done at the first opportunity. Timely and thorough investigation in turn will at least initially help determine whether a third party action is in fact viable and may lead to the success of the same in the long run.
As stated above, the general rule dictates that a complaint must be filed in the civil court system within one year from the date of injury. An exception to this rule, however, exists when the worker files an action within one year thus tolling the statute of limitations and allowing the employer to file a Complaint in Intervention at any time before trial on the facts. Labor Code § 3853. Also, it should be noted that a variation on the one-year statute of limitations also exists in cases of suit against a public entity, wherein an administrative claim must first be filed with a governing agency within six months of the date of injury as a precondition to filing a civil complaint. See California Government Code Section 900 et seq. |
