Missouri's personal injury statute of limitations

Missouri statute 516.120 sets the deadline for most car accident injury claims. Count five years off the crash date; that marks the filing boundary for most injury suits here. Few states leave a window that wide. A few situations shift the count, and the sections below take each one in turn.

Five years, for most Florissant crash claims

An ordinary injury claim from a car wreck runs on the five-year clock. The count opens on the crash date. Finishing treatment later, or waiting out an insurer’s final offer, moves nothing. Treatment, work, and daily life refill the calendar quickly, and the boundary ends up closer than it looks.

Three years, not five, if the crash proves fatal

A death changes the math. Fatal-crash claims run on their own clock: Missouri statute 537.100 allows a family three years. That’s a shorter window running on a separate track from an ordinary injury claim, and the two should never be treated as the same deadline. The wrongful death page categorizes who the statute lets file and what the claim can reach.

Government defendants bring an extra hoop

Wrecks with city or county vehicles can carry notice requirements that sit outside the standard filing statute. Public entities in Missouri sometimes require an early notice of claim, separate from the lawsuit deadline itself, before a case against them can move forward. If a government vehicle was involved in your crash, treat that fact as a reason to move early.

A few situations pause or shorten the clock

Some circumstances change how the standard count runs, depending on who’s involved and what kind of defendant is named. Those situations are fact-specific enough that a general guide can’t sort them out for you. If anything about your crash feels unusual, get that question answered early instead of assuming the standard five years applies without exception.

Don’t wait on the deadline to start building your claim

A long filing window doesn’t mean the practical work can wait. The what-to-do guide summarizes the steps that protect a claim early, and the case-worth guide categorizes what actually goes into a number worth pursuing before that clock runs out.