The Maryland statute of limitations for personal injury sets the hard deadline for filing a lawsuit after an injury. Miss the deadline, and the case almost always ends before it begins. This article explains the Maryland statute of limitations for personal injury in general terms. It covers the three-year default rule, the shorter notice deadlines that apply when a government entity is the defendant, the tolling rules for minors and people under a disability, and the most common traps that end cases prematurely.
This is general legal information, not legal advice. Deadlines depend on the specific facts of each case, the type of claim, and the identity of the defendant. Some deadlines run shorter than the general statute of limitations and can bar a claim within months. If you may have a claim, consult an attorney promptly. Do not rely on a general article.
The Three-Year Rule Under the Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury
The starting point for almost every Maryland personal injury claim is Section 5-101 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article. Its language is short and absolute. It states that “a civil action at law shall be filed within three years from the date it accrues unless another provision of the Code provides a different period of time within which an action shall be commenced.” You can read the section on the Maryland General Assembly’s official statutes page here.
That three-year period covers most negligence claims. Common examples include car crashes, truck crashes, slip and falls, and dog bites. The clock generally starts on the date the cause of action accrues. In a straightforward injury case, that date is usually the date of the incident. The catch is the phrase “unless another provision of the Code provides a different period of time.” Maryland’s Code is full of those different periods. The rest of this article walks through the most important ones for injury victims.
Why the Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury Is Not Always Three Years
Even when Section 5-101 applies, several rules can shift the deadline. The clock can start later, pause temporarily, or get cut short by a notice requirement. Among those rules, two stand out: the discovery rule and the tolling provision for minors and people under a legal disability.
The Discovery Rule
Maryland recognizes a discovery rule. Under that rule, a cause of action accrues when the injured person knew, or with reasonable diligence should have known, of the injury and its likely cause. Courts most often apply the discovery rule in medical malpractice, latent disease, and similar cases. In those cases, the harm is not obvious at the time it is inflicted. The rule is fact-specific. A judge decides whether a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position would have known enough to investigate. Anyone who suspects a delayed-onset injury should not assume the discovery rule will rescue a late filing. The safer course is to file before three years from the date of injury. Then let a judge sort out the discovery question only if needed.
Tolling Under the Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury: Minors and Disability
Section 5-201 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article pauses the limitations clock for two specific categories of plaintiffs. You can read the official statute text on the General Assembly’s site. The statute applies when a cause of action accrues in favor of a minor or a person who is mentally incompetent. That person has the lesser of three years or the applicable limitations period after the disability is removed. For a minor, the disability ends when the child turns 18. For a person who is mentally incompetent, the disability ends when the incompetency ends. The tolling does not apply if the statute of limitations would still have more than three years to run when the disability ends.
The statute also says, in clear terms, that imprisonment, absence from the State, and marriage do not extend the statute of limitations. Some people assume that if a defendant moves out of state, the clock pauses. Section 5-201(c) says it does not.
One important warning about minors’ tolling under the Maryland statute of limitations for personal injury: it applies to the general three-year clock. Yet separate medical malpractice rules in Section 5-109 limit how far that tolling can stretch in malpractice cases. More on that below.
Wrongful Death Under the Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury
When another person’s negligence kills someone, Maryland law allows certain family members to bring a wrongful death claim. The deadline lives in Section 3-904 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article. You can read the full text here. Section 3-904(g)(1) sets the general rule. A wrongful death action must be filed within three years after the death of the injured person.
Two narrower exceptions follow. If the death an occupational disease caused the death, the family must file within ten years of death or within three years of the date the cause of death was discovered, whichever is shorter. In cases arising from criminal homicide where the wrongdoer concealed his or her identity, the statute defines a different accrual rule. That rule ties accrual to discovery and the unsealing of charging documents.
One subtle point trips families up. The three-year wrongful death deadline runs from the date of death. It does not run from the date of injury. If a crash injures a person who dies eighteen months later, the wrongful death clock starts on the date of death. The underlying personal injury claim the decedent could have brought is a separate cause of action. It has its own deadline.
Survival Actions
Maryland law also allows the estate of a deceased person to continue a claim the decedent could have brought during life. Section 7-401 of the Estates and Trusts Article sets out the personal representative’s authority to bring such actions. It states that the personal representative may “prosecute, defend, or submit to arbitration actions, claims, or proceedings in any appropriate jurisdiction for the protection or benefit of the estate, including the commencement of a personal action which the decedent might have commenced.” You can read the official text on the General Assembly site here.
A survival action is, in essence, the decedent’s own personal injury claim brought after death by the estate. Whatever statute of limitations would have governed the underlying claim still applies. For an ordinary negligence claim, the underlying period is the three years set by Section 5-101. Survival claims and wrongful death claims often proceed together after a fatal accident. Yet each follows its own rules.
Medical Malpractice Under the Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury
Medical malpractice claims have their own statute of limitations. Section 5-109 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article sets it. You can read the official statute here. The general rule is that a medical malpractice action must be filed within the earlier of:
- Five years from the date the injury was committed; or
- Three years from the date the injury was discovered.
Lawyers sometimes call the five-year outer limit a statute of repose. It caps how long the discovery rule can extend the filing deadline. Once five years have passed since the negligent act, courts generally bar the claim. That is true even if the patient only just learned of the injury, subject to limited exceptions.
Section 5-109 also contains special rules for minors. For most malpractice injuries to a child, the limitations clock does not begin until the child turns eleven. For two specific categories, the clock does not begin until the child turns sixteen. Those two categories are injuries to the reproductive system and injuries caused by a foreign object negligently left in the body.
Medical malpractice claims in Maryland also require a separate procedural step before suit. The claimant must file a claim with the Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office. Section 5-109(d) provides that filing a claim with that office counts as filing the action for limitations purposes. Anyone considering a malpractice claim should talk to a lawyer well before the limitations deadline. The procedural requirements take time to satisfy.
The Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury Claims Against Local Government
If your claim is against a Maryland county, municipality, or another local government entity, the three-year clock is not your main concern. The Local Government Tort Claims Act controls. It is codified at Section 5-304 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article. The statute requires written notice within one year after the injury. You can read the official text here. The notice must be in writing. It must state the time, place, and cause of the injury. Delivery must be in person or by certified mail with a return receipt and a Postal Service postmark. The recipient depends on which local government is involved:
- In Baltimore City, send notice to the City Solicitor.
- For Howard County or Montgomery County, send notice to the County Executive.
- In Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Frederick County, Harford County, or Prince George’s County, send notice to the county solicitor or county attorney.
- Elsewhere in Maryland counties, send notice to the county commissioners or county council.
- And for any other local government, send notice to the corporate authorities of the defendant local government.
The statute does contain two safety valves. First, a court may allow a late-filed suit for good cause shown if the local government cannot affirmatively show prejudice. Second, the notice requirement does not apply if the local government already had actual or constructive notice of the claimant’s injury or of the defect or circumstances causing it within one year. Police accident reports sometimes provide that notice. Yet reliance on the safety valves is risky. The safer course is to send formal written notice to the correct official within one year, every time.
Claims Against the State of Maryland: The One-Year MTCA Notice
The State of Maryland has its own notice statute. The Maryland Tort Claims Act lives at Section 12-106 of the State Government Article. It requires the claimant to submit a written claim to the State Treasurer or a designee within one year after the injury. The Treasurer must then issue a final denial. The lawsuit itself must be filed within three years after the cause of action arises. You can read the official text here. Like the LGTCA, Section 12-106 contains a good-cause exception and an actual-or-constructive-notice exception. Like the LGTCA, those exceptions are unreliable. If the State or a state employee may be liable for your injury, treat the one-year notice deadline as hard. Common triggers include a crash with a state-owned vehicle, an injury on state property, and an injury caused by an on-duty state employee.
How DC Deadlines Differ From the Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury
Many people who live in Maryland are injured in DC. Many people who live in DC are injured in Maryland. The applicable deadlines depend on where the incident occurred and who the defendant is. DC’s rules differ from the Maryland statute of limitations for personal injury in several important ways. DC Code Section 12-301 sets the general limitations periods in the District. You can read the official statute on the DC Council site. The most relevant provisions for injury victims are:
- Three years for damage to personal property under subsection (3).
- One year for assault, battery, libel, slander, false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, mayhem, and wounding under subsection (4).
- Three years for any action where a limitation is not otherwise specially prescribed under subsection (8).
- Extended deadlines for civil claims arising from sexual abuse under subsections (11) and (12).
The typical negligence-based personal injury case in DC falls under the three-year residual period in subsection (8). That includes most car and truck crashes. Intentional-tort claims, by contrast, must be filed within one year. Some people assume “personal injury equals three years” and lose intentional-tort claims. They did not realize a different and shorter clock applied. DC’s wrongful death deadline differs from Maryland’s. DC Code Section 16-2702 requires the personal representative of the deceased to file within two years after the death. It is two years, not three. You can read the official text here. A family that assumes a Maryland-style three-year deadline because they live in Maryland can lose a DC wrongful death case by waiting.
Claims Against the District of Columbia: Six-Month Notice
The harshest deadline in DC personal injury practice is the notice requirement for claims against the District itself. DC Code Section 12-309 sets a six-month deadline. Within six months after the injury or damage occurred, the claimant or the claimant’s agent or attorney must give the Mayor written notice. That notice must state the approximate time, place, cause, and circumstances of the injury or damage. You can read the official statute on the DC Council site.
The statute treats a written Metropolitan Police Department report made in the regular course of duty as sufficient notice. Whether a particular MPD report actually satisfies the statute is fact-specific. Courts have litigated that question heavily. So relying on a police report alone is risky. The safer course is to send formal written notice to the Mayor within six months.
Common scenarios trigger Section 12-309. Examples include crashes with DC government vehicles, injuries on DC sidewalks and other public property, and injuries caused by DC employees acting within the scope of their employment. Six months is a much shorter window than most accident victims expect. By the time a person finishes medical treatment, hires a lawyer, and starts thinking about a claim, the six-month notice deadline can already have passed.
Why Notice Statutes Are So Dangerous
Government notice statutes are the single most common reason a meritorious personal injury claim against a public defendant fails before any court hears it. Several reasons explain this. First, the notice deadlines are short. One year sounds long until you account for medical treatment, an insurance investigation, and the time it takes to understand who actually caused the injury. Six months is even tighter. Many people do not know whether the negligent driver was a government employee until well after a crash.
Second, the notice rules are technical. The statute specifies the recipient. It specifies the method of delivery. And it specifies the contents of the notice. A letter sent to the wrong office, by ordinary mail rather than certified mail, or missing one of the required elements may be ineffective even if it was timely.
Third, the good-cause and actual-notice safety valves are unreliable. Courts apply them narrowly. A claimant who relies on those exceptions instead of sending proper notice is gambling with the case. For all of these reasons, anyone who suspects a government entity may be involved in their injury should treat the notice statute as a hard deadline. Either send proper notice immediately or hire a lawyer who can.
How the Clock Starts Under the Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury
Section 5-101 says a civil action must be filed within three years “from the date it accrues.” Accrual is usually the date of injury. In delayed-discovery cases, Maryland courts have allowed the clock to start later. The clock starts when a reasonable person would have known of the injury and its likely cause. That same approach informs DC law as well.
What this means in practice is that the answer to “when does my clock start?” is sometimes obvious and sometimes not. In a rear-end collision case, the clock starts on the date of the crash. For a slip and fall, the clock starts on the date of the fall. With a delayed-onset injury, however, the answer is harder. Anyone unsure should treat the date of the underlying event as the start of the clock. Then file before the three-year mark unless a lawyer has specifically advised that the discovery rule applies.
Filing Suit Versus Settling: The Deadline Applies to the Lawsuit
One common misunderstanding is that opening a claim with an insurance company stops the clock. It does not. The Maryland statute of limitations for personal injury governs when a lawsuit must be filed in court. Sending a claim letter does not satisfy the deadline. Talking with an adjuster does not satisfy the deadline. Signing medical authorizations does not satisfy the deadline. We have written more about that distinction in our post on when you can file a claim after an accident and our piece on how to deal with insurance adjusters. If a settlement is not reached well before the limitations deadline, you must file the claim in court to preserve it. After a complaint is filed, settlement negotiations can continue. The right to sue remains intact.
Common Scenarios Under the Maryland Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury
Here is how the verified rules above apply in some of the situations Maryland injury victims face most often. These are general examples only. Every case has its own facts. Shorter or different deadlines can apply.
Crashes Involving Private Defendants
Imagine a Maryland resident rear-ended by another driver in Baltimore County. When the defendant is a private individual, Section 5-101’s three-year rule applies. Generally, the clock starts on the date of the crash.
Crashes Involving Government Defendants
Now imagine a Maryland resident hit by a Montgomery County police vehicle. Because the driver is a county employee acting within the scope of employment, two deadlines apply at once. Section 5-101’s three-year rule still applies in the background. Yet the one-year LGTCA notice under Section 5-304 must reach the Montgomery County Executive within one year of the injury. Miss that, and your claim is at serious risk regardless of how strong the liability case is.
Consider a Maryland resident hit by a Maryland State Police vehicle. Section 12-106 of the State Government Article requires written notice to the State Treasurer within one year. After that, suit must follow within three years.
Picture a pedestrian hit by a DC government truck on a DC sidewalk. Section 12-309’s six-month notice applies. Written notice to the Mayor is due within six months of the injury. As to the underlying lawsuit, it must follow within three years under Section 12-301(8).
Medical Malpractice and Death Cases
Suppose a private Maryland hospital misdiagnoses a Maryland resident and learns of the missed diagnosis two years later. Here, Section 5-109 controls. Filing must occur within the earlier of five years from the negligent act or three years from discovery. A separate filing with the Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office is also required. Take a Maryland resident whose spouse dies from injuries sustained in a Maryland crash six months after the collision. Under Section 3-904, the surviving family has a wrongful death claim. They must file within three years of the death. Separately, the estate may also have a survival claim governed by the underlying personal injury limitations period.
Cases Involving Children
Finally, picture a nine-year-old child injured in a Maryland crash. Under Section 5-201, the limitations clock pauses until the child turns eighteen. From that date, the resulting filing window is measured. For medical malpractice claims involving a young child, Section 5-109 imposes its own tolling rules. Those rules tie to age eleven, or sixteen for reproductive-system injuries and foreign-object cases.
What to Do If You Are Close to the Deadline
If the date of your injury is approaching the three-year mark, act quickly. The same is true if you suspect a shorter notice deadline applies. Consult an attorney immediately. Bring whatever documentation you have, including any police reports, medical records, photographs, and correspondence with insurers. An attorney can evaluate which deadline applies under the Maryland statute of limitations for personal injury and whether immediate action is necessary to preserve the claim. Statute of limitations defenses are among the most powerful defenses available to insurers and government entities. If a a claimant files late, the merits often do not matter. Courts dismiss late claims on procedural grounds. They do so regardless of how serious the injuries are or how clear the liability picture looks.
Two Final Cautions
First, the deadlines described here are the most common ones for traditional personal injury claims. Other types of claims have their own deadlines that fall beyond the scope of this article. Examples include federal claims, claims involving certain product-liability theories, claims involving certain occupational diseases, and workers’ compensation claims. If your situation does not fit cleanly into a routine negligence case, the deadlines above may not be the right ones for your case. Second, even within the categories above, exceptions, tolling rules, and judge-made doctrines can shift the analysis. The statutes cited in this article are accurate as published on the Maryland General Assembly and DC Council official websites at the time of writing. But limitations questions in any particular case must be analyzed by a lawyer reviewing the specific facts.
How Our Firm Can Help
Gelb & Gelb, P.C. handles personal injury claims in Maryland and the District of Columbia. We are familiar with the general Maryland statute of limitations for personal injury, the LGTCA and MTCA notice rules, and the DC Section 12-309 notice rule. If you suffered an injury and are unsure whether you still have time to file, please contact our office to discuss your situation.
You can also read more about our Maryland practice on our Maryland personal injury page and our DC practice on our DC personal injury page. Related articles on this site cover Maryland’s repeal of the noneconomic damages cap, the Boulevard Rule in Maryland car accidents, DC contributory negligence, and DC Code Section 50-2204.52 for pedestrian and cyclist cases.
Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The information on this site is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statute of limitations and notice deadlines depend on the specific facts of each case. Anyone who may have a personal injury claim should consult an attorney promptly.
