How Long Do You Have to Sue After a Car Accident in Woodland Hills?

Arya Firoozmand, Esq.

Local Woodland Hills Injury Attorney · UCLA Law

Arya Firoozmand is the founding partner at L&F Brown. He grew up in Woodland Hills, graduated from El Camino Real High School and UCLA Law School, and has spent his career representing injured clients across the San Fernando Valley. He still lives in the area today.

Miss it, and your case is over regardless of how serious your injuries are or how clearly the other driver was at fault. Understanding this deadline and its exceptions isn't just legal trivia. It's practical information that affects every decision you make about your claim.

Why Deadlines Matter Differently in Woodland Hills

The general California statute of limitations for personal injury gives you two years. Two years sounds like a long time, and in some ways it is. But Woodland Hills presents specific evidence challenges that make acting early far more important than the two-year window suggests.

Traffic cameras on the 101 don't keep footage for long. Most systems overwrite within a week or two. If a camera near the Topanga Canyon Blvd interchange or the De Soto Ave exit captured your crash, that footage is almost certainly gone by the time two weeks have passed. Witness contact information from a freeway crash is even more time-sensitive. People who stopped at the scene or saw what happened from other vehicles are effectively unreachable once they've driven off.

Beyond the freeway, dashcam footage from other vehicles, which has become a key evidence source in Woodland Hills traffic crashes, disappears as soon as those vehicles overwrite their storage, typically within 24 to 72 hours unless a driver deliberately preserves it. Physical evidence from the crash scene, debris, skid marks, vehicle fluids, is cleared by Caltrans or LAPD West Valley Division road maintenance crews within days.

The two-year deadline gives you time to pursue your claim. It does not give you time to gather the evidence that makes your claim viable. Those are different problems with different timeframes.

California's Two-Year Statute of Limitations

California gives you two years from the crash date to file a lawsuit. That's the rule under CCP 335.1, and the clock starts on the date of the accident, not the date you first felt symptoms, not the date you were diagnosed, not the date you decided to pursue a claim.

If you were injured in a Woodland Hills car accident on June 16, 2026, you have until June 16, 2028 to file your lawsuit. If you miss that deadline, even by one day, you lose your right to sue. The court will not accept the filing. The other driver's insurance company, if they've been negotiating with you in good faith right up until that date, can simply stop and let the deadline expire.

This is not a technicality that courts waive for sympathetic reasons. The statute of limitations is a hard cutoff that courts enforce strictly in California civil litigation. If your case is filed at the Chatsworth Courthouse one day after the deadline, it will be dismissed.

The Government Entity Exception: Six Months, Not Two Years

Here's where many Woodland Hills accident victims get caught off guard. If any government entity is potentially liable for your crash, an entirely different and much shorter deadline applies.

Before you can sue a government entity in California, you must first file a government tort claim with that entity. For most personal injury claims, you have just six months from the date of injury to file this claim. This applies to:

Caltrans (California Department of Transportation): Responsible for US-101 and state routes in Woodland Hills. If a road defect, missing signage, pothole, or inadequate lighting on the 101 contributed to your crash, Caltrans may be liable, but you have six months to file the government claim.

City of Los Angeles: Woodland Hills is part of the City of Los Angeles. LAPD West Valley Division patrols city streets. If a signal malfunction, deteriorated road surface, or other city infrastructure issue on Ventura Blvd, Topanga Canyon Blvd, Canoga Ave, or De Soto Ave contributed to your crash, the City may be liable, six-month deadline.

LADOT or other city agencies: Similar six-month deadline for any Los Angeles city agency with potential liability.

The six-month government claim deadline is the most frequently missed deadline in California personal injury practice. Attorneys sometimes miss it too if they don't investigate government liability early. In any crash involving road conditions, traffic signals, or any other infrastructure component, potential government liability must be assessed immediately.

The Discovery Rule: When the Clock Starts Later

California recognizes a limited exception called the discovery rule: the two-year clock begins when you knew or reasonably should have known that you suffered an injury caused by someone else's negligence. This rule has limited application in car accident cases, you generally know you were in a crash and that someone else caused it. But it applies in some specific scenarios:

Delayed-onset injuries: If a traumatic brain injury or internal injury wasn't discovered until days or weeks after the crash, the discovery rule may extend your clock from the date of discovery rather than the crash date. However, courts scrutinize this exception closely in car accident cases, and it is not a reliable safety net.

Unknown responsible parties: In hit-and-run crashes on the 101 near Topanga Canyon Blvd or De Soto Ave, the identity of the at-fault driver may not be known immediately. The clock runs from when the defendant's identity is reasonably discoverable, with limitations. This exception is narrow and requires careful legal analysis.

Minors and the Statute of Limitations

If the injured person is a minor, under 18 at the time of the crash. California law tolls (pauses) the statute of limitations until they reach age 18. A child injured in a Woodland Hills car accident then has until age 20 to file (two years after turning 18). However, the six-month government tort claim deadline is not tolled for minors in the same way, so government claims involving injured minors still require prompt action by a parent or guardian.

Negotiating With Insurance Doesn't Pause the Clock

This is critical: the statute of limitations continues to run even while you are actively negotiating a settlement with the other driver's insurance company. Insurers know this. In some cases, adjusters will delay negotiations, asking for more records, requesting additional information, scheduling reviews, in ways that coincidentally extend the claim toward the deadline. If the deadline expires while you're still negotiating, the lawsuit option disappears and the insurer's leverage immediately increases.

An experienced attorney monitors these deadlines precisely. If negotiations aren't producing a fair result within a reasonable time, a lawsuit will be filed before the deadline, not because the goal is to litigate, but because maintaining the lawsuit option is essential negotiating leverage. Cases filed at the Chatsworth Courthouse often settle once the litigation timeline becomes real to the insurance company.

If you're unsure where your deadline stands, a Woodland Hills car accident lawyer can identify all applicable deadlines in your case, including the government tort claim window if it applies, at no cost to you.

What Happens If You Missed the Deadline?

If the two-year deadline has already passed, your lawsuit option is almost certainly gone. There are extremely narrow exceptions, fraudulent concealment by the defendant, certain insanity or incapacity tolling provisions, but they are genuinely rare. If you're approaching or past your deadline, contact an attorney immediately to understand exactly where you stand. Don't assume it's over without getting a professional assessment.

Act Early, Protect Your Options

The timeline of a Woodland Hills car accident claim is not "two years to figure things out." It's two years to file a lawsuit if needed, but days to preserve freeway evidence, weeks to secure medical records and witness information, and six months to identify and file against any government entity. The earlier you get legal advice, the more options you have and the stronger your evidence base.

Our Woodland Hills personal injury attorneys are available for a free consultation to review your timeline and advise on next steps. If you're worried you may be running out of time, call us now, not next week.