How Long After an Accident Can You Sue in Denver?

Colorado’s statute of limitations gives you three years to sue for a car crash and two years for most other injury claims in Denver.

If a government agency is involved, a separate written notice is due within 182 days, and missing it ends the claim no matter how much time is left on the longer deadline.

The content on this page is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always consult a licensed attorney for advice specific to your situation.

Why does Colorado have more than one statute of limitations?

Colorado does not have a single personal injury deadline. The legislature wrote separate limitation periods into separate statutes, and which one applies depends on how you were hurt.

That surprises people, and it explains why two neighbors injured in the same week can have deadlines a full year apart. The distinction is written into the statutes themselves, not left to interpretation.

How long do you have after a car crash in Denver?

Three years from the date the claim accrues. Colorado law places all tort claims for bodily injury or property damage “arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle” on a three-year clock under C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n)(I).

That covers more than cars. Motorcycles, trucks, buses, rideshare vehicles, and scooters all involve the use or operation of a motor vehicle, and a cyclist or pedestrian struck by a driver is covered by the same three-year period because the claim arises out of the driver’s use of the vehicle.

The three-year rule applies to the injury claim and to the property damage claim.

How long do you have for everything else?

Two years. C.R.S. 13-80-102(1)(a) covers tort actions generally, “including but not limited to actions for negligence,” and sets a two-year period from accrual.

The same statute then carves motor vehicle claims out by name, sending them to the three-year rule instead. So the two-year period is what governs most injuries that do not involve a vehicle.

In practice that means:

• A slip, trip, or fall on someone else’s property
• A dog bite
• An injury from an unsafe condition in a building
• Most other negligence claims with no vehicle involved

Type of claim	Deadline	Statute
Car, motorcycle, truck, bus, or rideshare crash	3 years	C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n)(I)
Pedestrian or cyclist struck by a vehicle	3 years	C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n)(I)
Slip and fall or other premises injury	2 years	C.R.S. 13-80-102(1)(a)
Dog bite and most other negligence	2 years	C.R.S. 13-80-102(1)(a)
Claim against a public entity	182-day notice first	C.R.S. 24-10-109(1)

What does “when the claim accrues” actually mean?

Both statutes start the clock when the cause of action accrues, not automatically on the date of the accident. In a straightforward crash, the date of the accident and the date the claim accrues are usually the same.

They are not always the same day. Some injuries are not immediately apparent, and some are caused by things the injured person could not identify at the time.

Because accrual is a legal question rather than a calendar one, treating the accident date as your deadline is the safer habit. Assuming you have a longer one is the version that goes wrong.

How long do you have to notify a government agency in Colorado?

If a public entity or a public employee caused your injury, Colorado requires you to provide written notice within 182 days after you discovered the injury, under C.R.S. 24-10-109(1).

This is not a formality. The statute calls compliance “a jurisdictional prerequisite” and says that failure to comply “shall forever bar any such action.”

Read that against the three-year rule, and the trap becomes clear. You can be well inside the three-year window for a crash and still have no case at all, because the 182-day notice came and went.

It applies to situations people do not think of as government cases:

• A collision with an RTD bus or a city vehicle
• A fall on property owned or maintained by the City and County of Denver
• An injury involving a public hospital or a public employee on duty
• A road condition claim against a public agency

If any public body is involved, the 182-day clock is the one to work backwards from.

Are there exceptions to these deadlines?

Yes, and they cut both ways. Some circumstances extend a deadline, and some shorten the practical window well below the statutory one.

Colorado has a separate rule for people under a legal disability, which includes children, at C.R.S. 13-81-103. How it works depends on whether a legal representative has been appointed and when, and it does not simply pause the clock until a child turns eighteen.

That is genuinely a question for a lawyer rather than one to settle in an article. The same is true of claims involving multiple defendants, out-of-state parties, or an injury discovered long after the event.

What if more than one deadline could apply?

Some incidents produce several claims against several parties, and those claims do not all run on the same clock.

A crash involving a city-owned vehicle is the clearest example. The claim against the driver runs on the three-year motor vehicle period, while the claim against the public employer also requires the 182-day notice. One document governs both, and it is due first.

A fall in a leased commercial space can work the same way. There may be a claim against the tenant who ran the business and a separate claim against the property owner, and identifying every responsible party takes time you have to spend before the shortest applicable deadline expires.

This is the practical reason lawyers push people to call early. Figuring out how many clocks are running is part of the work, and you cannot do it the week before a deadline.

How do you protect the deadline while you are still treating?

You do not have to finish medical treatment before a claim is investigated, and waiting until you are fully recovered is one of the more common ways people lose time.

Treatment records, scene evidence, and witness accounts can be gathered while you are still under a doctor’s care. The value of the claim is assessed later, once the medical picture is clear, but the evidence that supports it has to be preserved early.

The two things run in parallel. Nothing about getting your case looked at now commits you to settling or filing before you are ready.

Why is it a bad idea to wait until the deadline, even with years left?

The filing deadline is the last possible date, not the recommended one. Cases built close to the deadline are almost always weaker, for reasons that have nothing to do with the law.

Evidence degrades. Vehicles get repaired or scrapped, surveillance footage is overwritten on a cycle measured in weeks, and skid marks and debris are gone within days.

Witnesses move and forget. A witness who gave a clear account at the scene may be unreachable two years later, and memory of a few seconds of a crash does not hold up well over time.

Insurance companies read delay as doubt. Adjusters often treat a long gap between the injury and the claim as a sign the injury was not serious, and that argument gets easier for them the longer the gap runs.

Medical records need continuity. A treatment record that starts promptly and runs consistently tells a clearer story than one with unexplained gaps in it.

What if you are already close to the deadline?

Contact a lawyer immediately rather than assuming it is too late. Which deadline applies to your situation is not always obvious, and the answer sometimes gives people more time than they expected.

Do not file something incomplete just to stop the clock. A poorly filed lawsuit creates its own problems, and you must take the necessary steps in the correct order.

Frequently asked questions

Talk to a Denver injury lawyer before the clock decides for you

Deadlines are the one part of an injury case that cannot be argued about afterwards. Everything else in a claim has room for negotiation. The timeline does not.

If you were hurt in a car crash, a motorcycle collision, a fall on someone else’s property, or an incident that took a family member’s life through a wrongful death claim, find out where you stand while you still have options.

Call CGH Injury Lawyers at (303) 209-9395 for a free consultation. Tell us what happened. There is no fee unless we win, and se habla español.