Most people assume the three-year clock on a Massachusetts injury claim starts the day of the crash. Usually it does. But the law measures from the day your claim accrues, which is the day it treats the claim as having started. c. 260, § 2A sets three years as the general deadline here, and it opens with the words “except as otherwise provided.” Several of the claims below run on much shorter clocks. Have your date checked early, before a shorter deadline passes underneath you.
What Actually Starts Your Clock?
Your three years starts the day your claim accrues, and in most injury cases that is the day of the crash, because the harm and its cause are obvious right away.
Sometimes they are not. Where the connection between an injury and what caused it only emerged later, the accrual date is decided on the specific facts rather than by a fixed formula, and your three years runs from there. Lawyers call this the discovery rule.
Two things follow, and they cut both ways. A claim that looks long expired may not be, if the link between harm and cause only became clear recently. And one that feels recent may already be running short.
Does the Clock Ever Pause?
It does, for two groups of people, and only on the general three-year clock. c. 260, § 7 pauses chapter 260’s deadlines for someone who was a minor, or who was incapacitated by mental illness, when the claim accrued. Their three years does not begin until that disability is removed, so an injured child can still have years to bring a claim after that changes.
The pause has limits. It does not reach the shorter deadlines below: the two-year presentment against a public employer and the thirty-day road defect notice run on their own schedule regardless of age. It also does not carry over to a child’s medical malpractice claim, which runs on its own shorter schedule instead.
When Does the Clock Start After a Death?
A wrongful death claim runs three years from the date of death, under c. 229, § 2. It can also run three years from when the executor or administrator knew, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known, the factual basis for the claim. In limited situations chapter 260 allows further time beyond that.
So where someone is hurt in one year and dies in a later one, the death starts the clock, not the crash. And where the cause of death was not apparent at the time, the estate gets three years from the point it became apparent.
The claim is also not the family’s to bring directly. It belongs to the executor or administrator of the estate, so an estate has to be opened first, and family members recover as beneficiaries rather than as plaintiffs. The same statute allows punitive damages where the conduct that caused the death was malicious, wilful, wanton, reckless, or grossly negligent. We handle wrongful death claims across Massachusetts, and opening the estate is almost always the first step.
What If My Claim Is Against a City or Town?
Then you have a shorter deadline and an extra step before it. Under c. 258, § 4, before you can sue a city, town or other public employer, you must first present the claim in writing to that body’s executive officer, within two years after the date your cause of action arose. Suit then waits until that officer finally denies the claim in writing, or until six months pass, which the statute treats as a denial.
Miss the two-year presentment and the claim is barred before you get near a courtroom. One category is exempt: a claim relating to the sexual abuse of a minor does not require presentment at all.
Present it on time, and a separate three-year deadline to file suit is still running alongside it. That second deadline is the one people lose claims to: they present on time, let the three-year mark pass, and the claim fails even though the paperwork was correct. If a public body is involved in what happened to you, keep both dates in front of you.
How Long Do I Have on a Road Defect Claim?
Thirty days, far less time than most people expect. Under c. 84, § 18, written notice of an injury from a defect in a public road must go out within thirty days of the injury, addressed to the county, city, town, or other party legally obliged to keep that way in repair.
The statute is forgiving on one point: your notice is not invalid for an inaccuracy in the name, residence, time, place or cause, where there was no intention to mislead and nobody was in fact misled.
Snow and ice are treated differently. Where snow or ice caused the injury, missing the thirty days is not automatically fatal: the claim can still proceed unless the defendant proves the late notice actually prejudiced them. c. 84, § 19 also allows two further routes to timely notice, within thirty days after a physical or mental incapacity is removed, or by an executor or administrator within thirty days of appointment.
Thirty days passes fast while you are still dealing with the injury. If a road defect caused your fall or your crash, treat that window as the real deadline.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do fault or the pain-and-suffering threshold change my filing deadline?
Neither of them touches your deadline. c. 231, § 85 reduces what you recover by your share of the fault, and bars recovery only where that share exceeds the combined fault of the parties you are claiming against. c. 231, § 6D gates pain and suffering in motor vehicle claims. Both govern what a claim is worth, not when it has to be filed.
Does filing a PIP claim buy me more time on my three-year deadline?
No. This one applies to motor vehicle claims only: Massachusetts is a no-fault state for a motor vehicle crash, and c. 90, § 34M requires your PIP claim to be presented separately, as soon as practicable and always within two years. That window covers PIP and nothing else. Your three-year deadline to file a lawsuit runs on its own separate track.
Is the deadline different for a medical malpractice claim?
Yes. Medical malpractice claims against a physician or hospital run under c. 260, § 4, not the general rule above. Three years still runs from accrual, but no claim may be brought more than seven years after the act or omission, except where a foreign object was left in the body. A child’s claim runs on a different and shorter schedule again.
Does a Massachusetts road defect claim cap how much I can recover?
It depends on who you are suing. Under c. 84, § 15, recovery against a county, city, town, or local water or sewer commission for a road defect is capped at $5,000 at most. That cap does not reach a private party who was legally obliged to repair the way. Either way, the cap limits the amount, not the thirty-day notice deadline covered above.
Get Your Deadline Checked
Which clock applies depends on when the harm and its cause became apparent, whether a public body is involved, and whether your claim is one of the shorter categories above. R. Jason Resmini is a partner in our civil litigation practice, and our published case results set out what we have recovered for injured clients and their families.
A free consultation with Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, Accident & Injury Lawyers, Ltd. is the place to start, and we will give you a straight answer about which deadline is running. We promise to call back within the hour if we are busy, and we personally take your calls, not a call center. Contact us or call (401) 444-4444.