Yes, if someone else’s negligence caused the injury — but “can you sue” is really four different questions in California, because how the injury happened determines which route applies, who can be sued, and how long you have. A brain injury from a car crash, from a medical error, from a workplace incident, and from something a public entity did are four separate legal tracks with four different deadlines, and the shortest of them is far shorter than most people assume.
This page sets out those tracks, what has to be proven in each, and — the part firms tend to skip — the situations where a lawsuit is not available or not worth bringing.
Key Points
- The general deadline for injury lawsuits in California is two years, but three of the four tracks below are governed by something else.
- Medical negligence runs on its own clock: three years from the injury or one year from discovery, whichever comes first.
- If the injury happened at work, workers’ compensation is generally your only remedy against the employer — but a third party can still be sued.
- Claims involving a public entity require a written claim first, on a much shorter timeline.
- A right to sue and a recovery worth pursuing are different things. Available insurance often decides which you have.
- Deadlines circulating online for this question are frequently from other states.
What You Have to Prove
Whatever the route, a negligence claim rests on four elements: that the defendant owed a duty of care, that they breached it, that the breach caused the injury, and that there are damages. In brain injury claims the contested element is almost always causation — whether the incident caused the specific cognitive or physical effects being claimed — rather than duty or breach.
That is why these claims turn on medical documentation built early rather than on the account of the incident. Our page on car accident head injuries covers the evidence problem in more detail.
Four Tracks, Four Deadlines
| How the injury happened | Who is sued | Deadline
|
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle collision, fall on someone’s property, defective product, assault | The person or business responsible | Generally two years from the injury (Code Civ. Proc., § 335.1) |
| Medical error — surgical, anaesthetic, missed or delayed diagnosis, birth injury | The health care provider | Three years from the injury or one year from discovery, whichever comes first (Code Civ. Proc., § 340.5) |
| Injury at work | Workers’ compensation against the employer; a civil claim only against a third party | Workers’ compensation has its own timeline; a third-party claim generally follows the two-year rule |
| A public entity may share responsibility — a city vehicle, a transit agency, a dangerous roadway condition | The entity, after a written claim is presented | A written claim must be presented first, on a timeline substantially shorter than two years |
Two warnings about the figures that circulate for this question. First, they are often from other states — searching this from California returns firm pages quoting deadlines from jurisdictions with entirely different rules. Second, general summaries frequently give a vague “two to three years,” which is not the rule anywhere and is dangerous in the medical negligence track where the effective deadline can be one year.
Injuries at Work: The Rule That Surprises People
This is the track most often misunderstood, and it cuts both ways.
Under Labor Code section 3602, where the conditions for workers’ compensation are met, the right to recover compensation is the sole and exclusive remedy of the employee against the employer. You generally cannot sue your employer in civil court for a work injury, even where the employer was careless. The trade-off is that workers’ compensation pays without you having to prove fault — but it does not pay for pain and suffering, and for a serious brain injury that gap is very large.
The part people miss is the other half. Labor Code section 3852 provides that an employee’s claim for workers’ compensation does not affect their right of action for all damages proximately resulting from the injury against any person other than the employer. So where someone else contributed — another driver, a contractor on site, an equipment manufacturer, a property owner who is not your employer — a civil claim against that third party runs alongside the workers’ compensation claim.
Two practical consequences:
- Being on workers’ compensation is not an answer to “can I sue.” It is an answer only as to your employer.
- The same section allows an employer who has paid compensation to make its own claim against the third party, so a third-party recovery interacts with what the employer has paid. That is worth understanding before a case resolves rather than after.
Medical Negligence: A Different Clock and a Different Ceiling
Where a brain injury resulted from medical care — a surgical or anaesthetic error, a missed or delayed diagnosis, oxygen deprivation during birth — the claim is professional negligence and the rules change.
Under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5, an action for injury against a health care provider based on professional negligence must be commenced within three years of the date of injury, or one year after the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered the injury, whichever occurs first. Narrow tolling exists for fraud, intentional concealment, and a foreign body left in the patient, and different rules apply to minors.
The “whichever occurs first” is the trap. Someone who learns in year two that an injury was caused by a medical error has one year from that point, not the remainder of a longer period.
California also caps non-economic damages in medical negligence claims, on a schedule that was restructured by 2022 legislation and increases over a period of years — so the applicable figure depends on when the claim arose. That cap does not apply to ordinary negligence claims.
When Suing Is Not the Answer
Firms answering this question have an obvious interest in saying yes. The honest version includes the situations where the answer is no, or where it is yes and still not worth doing.
- No one else was at fault. A single-vehicle crash with no defect and no roadway condition has no defendant.
- The only responsible party is your employer and no exception to exclusivity applies.
- Causation cannot be established. Where the medical record does not connect the incident to the effects being claimed — often because too much time passed before anyone was seen — the claim may not survive contact with a defence expert.
- The deadline has passed. This is worth checking rather than assuming either way; the tracks above have different answers.
- There is nothing to recover from. A judgment against an uninsured person with no assets is difficult to collect. This is why the coverage question usually comes before the liability question, and why your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is often the more important one.
A brain injury can also make the decision itself harder. Litigation is long and demanding, and for someone managing cognitive symptoms that cost is real. A good conversation with a lawyer should cover whether a claim is worth bringing, not only whether it can be.
If the Injured Person Cannot Decide for Themselves
Where an injury leaves someone unable to manage a legal matter, California courts can appoint a representative to bring and manage a claim on their behalf, with settlements subject to court oversight rather than agreed privately. California also stops the limitations clock in some circumstances where a person lacked the legal capacity to make decisions when the claim arose — though the bar is high, capacity is presumed, and that tolling does not extend the deadline for a claim against a public entity. Our head injury page covers this in more detail.
What a Claim Is Worth
No page can tell you, and figures published for brain injury claims disagree with each other by an order of magnitude. What determines an outcome is the documented injury and its effect on work and daily life, the apportionment of fault under pure comparative fault, and the coverage available to pay — which in many claims is the binding constraint. Our page on mild traumatic brain injury settlements explains why the published ranges are not useful, and our economic damages and pain and suffering pages cover the two damages categories.
Brain Injury Claims on the Peninsula
Our office at 15 North Ellsworth Avenue, Suite 105, San Mateo, CA 94401 handles injury claims across San Mateo County, and civil matters for this area are generally heard in the San Mateo County Superior Court. These injuries arise in collisions involving cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians, in falls, and from defective products. Where a brain injury is fatal, a wrongful death claim follows its own rules about who may sue. More about the office is on our San Mateo page.
How Vaksman Khalfin Can Help
The first questions are which track a claim falls into, which deadline is actually running, who can be sued, and what coverage exists — and those need answering early, because the shortest of the deadlines can expire while someone is still recovering. From there the work is documentation, valuation, and negotiation, with litigation where a claim cannot be resolved.
Our brain injury practice is led by Alan D. Khalfin, admitted in California. We handle injury matters on a contingency-fee basis: there is no upfront attorney’s fee, and attorney’s fees are owed only if we recover compensation for you. Case costs are a separate category from attorney’s fees, and how both are handled is set out in the written fee agreement we go through with you before anything is signed. Initial consultations are free.
To speak with a California personal injury attorney, call 650-250-0705 or schedule a free consultation. Related reading: our California personal injury guides.
Reviewed by Alan D. Khalfin, Partner and Managing Attorney, Vaksman Khalfin, PC (admitted in California). Last reviewed: 09/08/2026
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, where someone else's negligence, recklessness, or intentional act caused it. Which route applies depends on how the injury happened — a collision, a medical error, a workplace incident, and something involving a public entity are four separate tracks with different defendants and different deadlines.
Duty, breach, causation, and damages. In practice causation is where these cases are fought — connecting the incident to the specific effects claimed — which is why contemporaneous medical documentation matters more here than the account of the incident itself.
It depends on the track. Most injury claims must be filed within two years under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Medical negligence claims run under section 340.5: three years from the injury or one year from discovery, whichever comes first. Claims involving a public entity require a written claim on a much shorter timeline. Deadlines quoted online for this question are frequently from other states.
Generally not your employer. Under Labor Code section 3602, workers' compensation is the exclusive remedy against the employer where the statutory conditions are met. But Labor Code section 3852 preserves your right of action against anyone other than the employer, so if a third party contributed — another driver, a contractor, an equipment manufacturer — a civil claim can run alongside the workers' compensation claim.
The same rules apply regardless of how the injury is labelled. The practical difficulty is evidentiary rather than legal: milder brain injuries frequently do not appear on standard imaging, so the claim rests on clinical assessment, neuropsychological evaluation, and documented change in function.
There is no reliable average. Published figures for these claims disagree with each other by an order of magnitude because they pool cases with different injuries, different evidence, different fault apportionment, and different insurance limits. What decides an outcome is the documentation, the fault picture, and the coverage available.
That is a medical question, not a legal one, and it belongs with treating clinicians and sources like the CDC and the major medical centres rather than with a law firm. What matters legally is what the medical record documents, and that a claim settled before the picture is clear cannot be reopened later.
California courts can appoint a representative to bring and manage a claim on behalf of someone unable to do so, with settlements subject to court oversight. Limitations tolling may also apply where a person lacked the legal capacity to make decisions when the claim arose, but the standard is demanding and it does not extend the deadline for a public entity claim.
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