The first half of this question usually has a short answer. Where someone else’s carelessness caused the injury, a claim exists, and who can be sued depends on how it happened rather than on anything about the injury itself.
The second half is where brain injury claims differ from the rest, and where the standard answer is incomplete. Nevada’s two-year period is the one everybody cites. Nevada also has a provision under which, in defined circumstances, that period does not run at all.
It is narrower than it first appears, and the condition attached to it defeats most of the assumptions people make about it.
Key Takeaways
- Who can be sued turns on how the injury happened. Those categories are not specific to brain injuries and are covered on the firm’s Nevada brain injury page.
- The ordinary period for a personal injury action in Nevada is two years under NRS 11.190(4)(e).
- NRS 11.250 provides that where a person entitled to bring an action was under a stated disability when the cause of action accrued, “the time of such disability shall not be a part of the time limited for the commencement of the action.”
- Under NRS 11.360 no one may rely on a disability “unless it existed when his or her right of action accrued.”
- That condition is the whole of the difficulty: a person who becomes incapacitated after the event does not come within the section.
- Whether any particular condition falls within the statutory language is a legal question on the facts, and nothing on this page answers it.
Who Can Be Sued
This half is not brain-injury-specific. Responsibility follows the mechanism: a driver, a commercial operator where the vehicle and its schedule or maintenance contributed, a property owner where a fall arose from a condition on the premises, a public entity where a public vehicle or a road it maintained was involved. Each category, and what it requires, is dealt with on our Nevada brain injury page.
What is worth adding is why identifying all of them early matters more in Nevada than elsewhere. Because Nevada measures a claimant’s share of fault against the combined negligence of the parties actually sued, the composition of the defendants affects whether the claim survives at all, not merely how the recovery is divided.
The Two-Year Period, and What It Assumes
Under NRS 11.190(4)(e) an action for injuries to a person must be brought within two years. That is the figure every page on this subject quotes, and for most claims it is the whole answer.
It carries an assumption worth making explicit. A limitation period of this kind assumes a person able to know they have been injured, to understand that someone may be answerable for it, and to take steps within the period. Most injuries leave all three capacities intact. This one does not always.
A Circumstance in Which the Clock Does Not Run
Nevada addresses that directly, in a section most general guidance on this topic does not mention.
NRS 11.250 is headed “Disabilities preventing running of statute.” It provides that if a person entitled to bring an action other than for the recovery of real property was, at the time the cause of action accrued, either “within the age of 18 years,” or “insane,” or in the custodial care of the State in the circumstances the section describes, then “the time of such disability shall not be a part of the time limited for the commencement of the action.”
Two points about the language. The word “insane” is the statute’s own term, retained from older drafting; it is not clinical language and it is not used here as a description of anyone. And the effect of the section is exclusion rather than extension — the period of disability is not counted, rather than a fixed additional allowance being granted.
The Condition That Defeats Most Assumptions
The section has a requirement that disposes of the way it is usually imagined to work.
NRS 11.360 provides that “no person shall avail himself or herself of a disability, unless it existed when his or her right of action accrued.” The disability has to have been present at the moment the claim arose. A person who was able to act at that point and whose condition worsened afterwards is outside the section, however severe the later incapacity.
For a brain injury this is the crux, because the natural assumption runs the other way. People assume that someone who cannot manage their affairs must have more time, whenever that state began. The statute does not say that. It asks about a single moment, and that moment is when the cause of action accrued.
A related provision deals with the opposite situation. Under NRS 11.370, where two or more disabilities coexist when the right of action accrues, “the limitation shall not attach until they all be removed.”
What This Page Does Not Settle
The important limit is on what any of the above establishes about a particular claim.
Nothing here says that a brain injury is a disability within NRS 11.250. That is a question of how the statutory language applies to a specific person’s condition at a specific moment, it turns on evidence, and it is decided by a court rather than assumed by anyone. The section’s existence does not make it available.
The practical consequence follows from that uncertainty rather than from the statute. A limitation argument that depends on tolling is an argument nobody wants to be making. Where capacity is genuinely in question, the approach that does not depend on winning it is to preserve the claim within the ordinary period — by someone acting on the injured person’s behalf where that is appropriate — and to treat the tolling provision as a protection that may exist rather than a timetable to plan around.
For how the ordinary period runs across the various claim types, see our Nevada personal injury page. The question of when to act is separate from the question of whether a claim exists, and it is usually the more urgent of the two.
Talk to a Nevada Brain Injury Lawyer
Vaksman Khalfin, PC acts for injured people across Nevada from the firm’s Las Vegas office at 10161 Park Run Drive, Suite 150. The first consultation is free, and injury claims are handled on a contingency-fee basis: there is no upfront cost, attorney’s fees are owed only out of a recovery, and fees and case costs are separate items set out in the written agreement. Wider material sits in the Nevada personal injury guides.
Reviewed by Robert B. Vaksman, Partner, Vaksman Khalfin, PC (admitted in Nevada). Last reviewed: 10/26/2026
Frequently Asked Questions
Where the injury was caused by another party's negligence, yes. Who can be sued depends on how it happened rather than on the nature of the injury, and more than one party can be responsible for the same event.
Two years under NRS 11.190(4)(e) is the ordinary period for an action for injuries to a person. NRS 11.250 provides for circumstances in which the time of a stated disability is not counted within it.
NRS 11.250 provides that where a person entitled to bring an action was under one of the stated disabilities when the cause of action accrued, the time of that disability is not part of the time limited for commencing the action.
Not automatically, and nothing on this page says it does. Whether a particular condition comes within the statutory language is a legal question decided on the evidence, and it cannot be assumed.
NRS 11.360 requires that the disability existed when the right of action accrued. A condition that developed afterwards falls outside the section regardless of how serious it became.
Under NRS 11.370, where two or more coexist at the time the right of action accrues, the limitation does not attach until all of them are removed.
It is not a basis on which to plan. The provision may protect a claim, but establishing that it applies is contested work done after the ordinary period has passed, and the claim depends on winning it.
Preserve the claim within the ordinary two-year period, with someone acting on the injured person's behalf where that is appropriate, so that nothing turns on whether the tolling provision would have applied.
