Tennessee gives you one year from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit. That's the number, full stop. No 2-year cushion like some neighboring states, no grace period while you're still in physical therapy. Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104 sets the one-year deadline for "actions for injuries to the person," and Tennessee courts apply it to car accident claims regardless of how serious the injury turned out to be.1 Miss it, and the court dismisses the case no matter how strong the evidence is.
That single number drives almost everything else on this page. But Tennessee law layers a handful of exceptions and parallel deadlines on top of it, and picking the wrong one can be just as costly as missing the main one.
When the one-year clock actually starts
For most car accidents, the clock starts on the day of the crash, not the day you finish treatment or settle with the adjuster. Tennessee's "discovery rule" is the narrow exception: the limitations period doesn't begin until the injured person discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, both the injury and its cause.2 Courts built that rule for harm that isn't obvious right away, like a slow-developing herniated disc or a brain injury that doesn't show clear symptoms for weeks. If you walked away from the wreck feeling fine and a real injury surfaced months later, the discovery rule can preserve your claim. If you knew you were hurt at the scene, the clock ran from that day even if you didn't yet know how serious it was.
The two-year exception tied to a criminal case
Tennessee carves out one specific extension: if the driver who hit you is criminally charged, and that prosecution starts within one year of the crash, you get two years instead of one to sue that same person for your injuries.1 This comes up most often in DUI crashes and cases involving vehicular assault charges. It only extends your deadline against the person being prosecuted. It doesn't touch the one-year deadline for any other defendant, like a second at-fault driver or a trucking company, so don't assume a pending criminal case buys you time against everyone involved.
Property damage gets three years, not one
The deadline for suing over vehicle damage, as opposed to bodily injury, is separate and longer: three years from the date of the accident, under Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-105.3 That covers repair costs and diminished value claims against the at-fault driver. If your car lost resale value even after a solid repair job, see our diminished value guide for Tennessee for how that claim works. Just don't let the longer property deadline lull you into waiting on the personal injury side. Both clocks start the same day, but only one of them gives you three years.
Fatal crashes still run on the one-year clock
Wrongful death claims in Tennessee don't get extra time. The right to sue passes to the surviving spouse, then children or next of kin, then a personal representative acting for the estate, under Tenn. Code Ann. § 20-5-106,4 but the underlying claim is still the deceased person's personal injury action, so it still runs on the one-year timeline in § 28-3-104. Families are often dealing with a court appointment for the personal representative and their own grief in the months after a fatal crash, and a year moves fast when the paperwork to even file suit takes time to sort out.
Minors and legally incompetent claimants
Tennessee freezes the clock for injured children. Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-1-106, the one-year period doesn't start running until the minor turns 18, so a child hurt in a crash effectively has until their 19th birthday to sue in their own name, no matter how many years pass between the crash and their 18th birthday.5 That tolling covers the child's own injury claim only. A parent's separate claim for the child's medical bills still runs on the standard one-year clock from the date of the crash, so families shouldn't assume the entire case can wait until the child is grown.
The same statute tolls the deadline for a person adjudicated incompetent, for as long as the incompetency lasts. Lawmakers narrowed this provision in 2011, replacing the old "unsound mind" standard with "adjudicated incompetent," a formal court finding rather than a medical impression.5 That change matters in practice: a claimant with a serious brain injury from the same crash doesn't get automatic tolling just because they're impaired. Someone has to go to court and get them formally adjudicated incompetent for the freeze to apply.
Suing a government driver or vehicle
If the at-fault vehicle belonged to a city, county, or state agency, a school bus or a police cruiser, different rules take over. The Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act requires the lawsuit to be filed within twelve months of the crash, under Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-305, in circuit court (or general sessions court in counties over 850,000 people).6 Twelve months sounds close enough to the standard one-year rule that people miss the real difference: government defendants come with their own notice and immunity rules, so a claim that would be routine against a private driver needs to be flagged as a government-vehicle case early, not sorted out later.
Suing your own insurer for uninsured or underinsured motorist benefits
Here's a genuine curveball. A lawsuit against the at-fault driver still has to be filed within one year. But a claim against your own insurer for uninsured or underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) benefits is treated as a contract claim, not a personal injury claim, and Tennessee courts have applied the six-year contract statute of limitations to it since 1966.7 The Tennessee Court of Appeals reaffirmed that rule in 2017, holding that a driver who sued the at-fault motorist on time could bring her own UM carrier into the case more than a year after the crash, since nothing in the uninsured motorist statute requires serving the carrier within the one-year window.8 Don't read that as license to sit on a UM claim. Insurers still expect prompt notice under the policy itself. But if you're past a year and just found out the other driver had no insurance or too little, the door to a UM claim against your own carrier usually isn't closed.
Why the deadline still matters even with these exceptions
Tennessee's fault rule doesn't reward procrastination either. The state uses modified comparative fault with a 50% bar: if you're found 50% or more at fault, you recover nothing, no matter how strong your injury claim is.9 Fault fights get won or lost on evidence, and evidence degrades fast. A police crash report is typically available online through the state's PurchaseTNCrash system within about a week of the crash,10 and our Tennessee crash report guide covers the details, but witness memories fade, dashcam footage gets overwritten, and skid marks disappear long before any deadline does. Waiting until month eleven to start building a case, even one that technically still has time on the clock, routinely costs people the evidence they need to win it.
None of this replaces a lawyer reviewing your specific dates. Which deadline applies, one year, two years, three years, or six, depends on exactly who you're suing and what happened after the crash, and Tennessee courts don't grant extensions for picking the wrong one. If you haven't retained counsel yet, our legal directory can help you find a Tennessee attorney who handles car accident claims before your clock runs out.
This article is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104: https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-28/chapter-3/part-1/section-28-3-104/
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Potts v. Celotex Corp., 796 S.W.2d 678 (Tenn. 1990): https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/supreme-court/1990/796-s-w-2d-678-2.html
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Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-105: https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-28/chapter-3/part-1/section-28-3-105/
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Tenn. Code Ann. § 20-5-106: https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-20/chapter-5/section-20-5-106/
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Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-1-106: https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-28/chapter-1/section-28-1-106/
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Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-305: https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-29/chapter-20/part-3/section-29-20-305/
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Schleif v. Hardware Dealer's Mutual Fire Ins. Co., 404 S.W.2d 490 (Tenn. 1966): https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/supreme-court/1966/404-s-w-2d-490-2.html
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Bates v. Greene, 544 S.W.3d 345 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2017): https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/court-of-appeals/2017/w2016-01868-coa-r3-cv.html
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McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn. 1992): https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/supreme-court/1992/833-s-w-2d-52-2.html
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Tennessee Dept. of Safety & Homeland Security, PurchaseTNCrash: https://www.tn.gov/safety/news/2019/8/19/purchase-tn-crash-website-available-for-crash-reports.html