Alabama’s Statute of Limitations: How Long Do You Have to File an Injury Claim?
In Alabama, you generally have two years from the date of your accident to file a personal injury lawsuit. That deadline comes from Alabama’s statute of limitations, Ala. Code § 6-2-38, and courts enforce it strictly. If the deadline passes, you almost always lose the right to recover, no matter how strong your case is.
After a wreck, the filing deadline is one of the first things to slip your mind. There are doctor’s appointments, car repairs, and missed work to deal with, and the legal clock rarely feels urgent until it’s nearly out. In Alabama, that clock is the statute of limitations, and for most injury cases it runs two years from the date of the accident. David Greene, founding attorney at Greene & Phillips – Personal Injury Lawyers in Mobile, recently joined Studio 10 to explain why that deadline matters more than most people expect.
What Is the Statute of Limitations?
It’s the legal deadline for filing a lawsuit after an accident or injury. In Alabama, most personal injury cases carry a two-year limit, counted from the date the injury happened. That covers car wrecks, slip and falls, and most other injury claims. Once the two years pass, the court won’t hear the case, no matter how strong it is.
What Happens If You Miss the Deadline?
The claim is barred for good. You lose the right to recover anything, even if the other driver was clearly at fault and your injuries are serious. There’s no filing late and explaining why afterward. As Greene puts it, miss the statute of limitations and the case is forever barred, which means you can’t bring it at all.
Why Does Alabama Have a Two-Year Deadline?
Fairness, mostly. Deadlines keep cases from hanging over both sides for years and push everyone to deal with a claim while the facts are still reachable. Memories fade, witnesses move away, and records get harder to track down. The law treats two years as enough time to put a case together, and for most people it is, as long as they don’t sit on it.
What’s the Risk of Waiting Until the Last Minute?
Evidence doesn’t wait for you. Skid marks wash away, and with the amount of rain Mobile gets, they can be gone after a storm or two. Surveillance video that might have shown what happened gets recorded over or deleted, often within weeks. Vehicles get repaired or scrapped. Witnesses forget details, or move and become hard to find.
Then there’s the problem of time itself. If you wait until the back half of year two to call a lawyer, there may not be enough of it left to investigate the crash, gather medical records, and file before the deadline. Greene has serious-injury cases where clients have been treating for close to two years, so the suit gets filed and the work begins while treatment continues. Reaching out early keeps that option open.
Does the Deadline Change From State to State?
A lot. Alabama’s two years sits on the shorter end, and other states run longer or shorter than that. Florida recently moved its deadline from four years down to two. Some claims follow their own rules entirely: medical malpractice, cases against a government entity, and injuries involving minors can carry different timelines and notice requirements. If your accident happened in another state, or falls into one of those categories, don’t assume the Alabama rule applies. Talk to a lawyer who knows the deadlines where the injury actually occurred.
What If You’re Still Getting Treatment or Aren’t Sure You Have a Case?
Call anyway. You don’t need your mind made up, and you don’t need to be finished with treatment. An early conversation lets someone look at the facts, tell you whether there’s a claim worth pursuing, and make sure the deadline doesn’t slip past while you’re focused on recovering. Asking costs nothing, and it keeps a missed deadline from making the decision for you.
You don’t have to call Greene & Phillips for that. Greene’s advice is simpler: call someone. Just don’t wait until the clock has almost run out.
About the Author
David Greene is a founding attorney of Greene & Phillips – Personal Injury Lawyers, a personal injury firm with offices in Mobile and Birmingham, Alabama. He has practiced personal injury, wrongful death, and product liability law in Alabama for nearly 30 years.
Call or text (251) 300-2000, stop by the office at 51 North Florida Street in Midtown Mobile, or reach us through our contact page. If you can’t come to us, we’ll come to you.
