You have a limited window to file a personal injury lawsuit after an Arizona car accident. The legal term for this deadline is the statute of limitations. It’s crucial to understand how these deadlines may apply to your Arizona car accident claim.
General Statute of Limitations for Arizona Car Accident Claims
In most cases, Arizona law requires you to file a car accident lawsuit within two years of a crash. If you wait too long to file a lawsuit and miss this deadline, the courts will most likely dismiss your case regardless of its merits. That means you won’t recover compensation for your injuries, lost income, or other losses from the collision. Working with a Mesa personal injury lawyer from the outset can preserve your right to compensation.
Why Does Arizona Limit Your Time to File a Car Accident Lawsuit?
Statutes of limitations for car accident claims aim to acknowledge crash victims’ right to fair compensation while preventing frivolous lawsuits. By specifying a deadline to file a lawsuit, Arizona law encourages victims to come forward quickly after an accident to enforce their rights.
Similarly, enforcing a strict deadline on car accident lawsuits helps prevent flimsy claims by pressuring crash victims and their lawyers to gather and preserve evidence quickly after a collision. It’s unfair to potential defendants if crash victims have unlimited time to file a lawsuit, as people’s memories or other evidence can fade or deteriorate, which makes it harder to figure out what caused the accident.
Another reason Arizona has a statute of limitations for car accident lawsuits is to protect people’s rights to privacy and freedom from baseless claims. A person shouldn’t have to spend the rest of their lives worrying that someone might file a lawsuit based on their actions from many years ago, particularly given the potential problems related to outdated or unreliable evidence.
Finally, a statute of limitations for car accident lawsuits limits the number of cases for potentially overburdened courts. An unlimited window to file a lawsuit could lead to hundreds or thousands of claims, regardless of their merit, leading to substantial delays and other potential problems. Everyone has the right to a speedy trial, and limiting the time to file a lawsuit helps preserve that right for defendants.
Exceptions to Arizona’s Car Accident Statute of Limitations
While two years from the crash is the standard deadline for filing an Arizona car accident lawsuit, there are some situations where you might have more or less time to file. Some of these exceptions include:
- Cases Involving Victims Under Age 18 – For crash victims who aren’t legal adults when an accident happens, the deadline to file a lawsuit doesn’t start until they turn 18. In other words, minors injured in car accidents have until their 20th birthday to file a lawsuit.
- Cases Involving Victims with Mental Disabilities – The countdown to file a car accident lawsuit for someone with a mental disability doesn’t start until they are no longer disabled. Once the person recovers, they have two years from the end of their disability to file a lawsuit.
- Cases Involving Government Agencies or Employees – People must follow two distinct deadlines if they want to sue a government agency or employee for a car accident. First, the plaintiff (the person who files a lawsuit) must file a notice of claim with the relevant agency within 180 days. Second, they must file a lawsuit within one year of the crash or lose their right to compensation.
- Product Liability Claims – The two-year statute of limitations generally applies to car accident lawsuits involving vehicle defects. However, another Arizona law allows individuals to file a lawsuit as long as no more than 12 years have passed since they initially bought or used the defective product.
When to Contact a Mesa Car Accident Lawyer
If you sustained injuries in a collision someone else caused or that resulted from a vehicle defect, it’s critical to contact an attorney as soon as possible. First and foremost, you want to give your car accident attorney as much time as possible to build your case. Rushing to meet a deadline can lead to errors that hurt your claim and might jeopardize your right to compensation.
Second, contacting a lawyer immediately means they can collect and preserve essential evidence before anything happens to it. Skid marks, debris at the scene, and other evidence can fade within days or weeks. Similarly, people’s memories get less clear the more time has passed after a crash, and surveillance or traffic camera footage might be erased. Contacting a car accident lawyer right away means they can store this evidence for later use.
Contact Our Car Accident Attorneys in Mesa, Arizona
Let Valley Injury Team take on your legal burden and defend your rights after a car accident. Call now or complete our contact form for a free consultation.
