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You twisted your knee in a 2022 slip-and-fall but didn’t think much of it until an MRI last month revealed torn cartilage requiring surgery. A construction site beam struck your shoulder three years ago; the pain seemed minor then, but now you can’t lift your arm above chest height. You were rear-ended in early 2023, declined the ambulance, and only recently learned that your chronic headaches stem from a neck injury.
In each of these scenarios, the same question surfaces: can you still file a lawsuit, or has too much time passed?
Illinois imposes strict deadlines on personal injury claims through statutes of limitations—laws that bar lawsuits filed after a set period. The standard window is two years from the injury date, but exceptions may exist for latent injuries, fraudulent concealment, minors, government defendants, medical malpractice, and childhood sexual abuse.
A Chicago injury lawyer evaluates which statute applies to your case, whether tolling or discovery rules extend your deadline, and what evidence remains viable years after the incident. Contact Walner Law at (312) 410-8496 for a free consultation to review your timeline and legal options.
Key Takeaways for Old Injury Claims in Illinois
- Illinois gives you two years from the injury date to file most personal injury lawsuits, but the discovery rule may start that clock later if you didn’t know you were injured.
- Fraudulent concealment tolls the statute for up to five years after you discover the defendant hid critical facts
- Minors and people with legal disabilities get tolling, pausing the limitations period until the disability ends
- Medical malpractice follows a two-year discovery rule but carries a four-year statute of repose
- Claims against government entities face one-year notice deadlines, far shorter than the standard two-year period
Illinois’s Two-Year Personal Injury Statute of Limitations
735 ILCS 5/13-202 establishes a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury actions in Illinois. The clock starts on the date of the injury. If you don’t file a lawsuit within two years, Illinois courts dismiss your case with prejudice, meaning you lose the right to compensation.
This rule applies broadly to include auto accidents, truck collisions, motorcycle crashes, pedestrian incidents, bicycle accidents, slip-and-fall cases, dog bites, and most other personal injury matters. The two-year window does not pause while you negotiate with insurance, finish medical treatment, or gather evidence.
The Discovery Rule: When the Clock Starts Later
Illinois recognizes a discovery rule that delays the start of the limitations period when you couldn’t reasonably know you were injured or couldn’t identify the cause. Some harms don’t manifest immediately and aren’t discoverable through reasonable diligence at the time of the incident.
Common scenarios where the discovery rule applies include:
- Toxic exposures: Asbestos inhalation at a construction site in 2020, which doesn’t cause mesothelioma symptoms until 2024, when imaging confirms the diagnosis.
- Latent nerve damage: A 2022 surgical error that severs a nerve, but numbness and weakness don’t develop until scar tissue forms months later.
- Gradual degenerative changes: A 2023 slip-and-fall that starts a disc herniation that remains asymptomatic until the disc fully ruptures in 2025.
- Delayed cancer diagnoses: A radiologist’s failure to identify a tumor on a 2021 scan, but you don’t discover the missed diagnosis until the cancer advances and a new doctor reviews the old films in 2024.
- Product defects with delayed harm: A defective hip implant installed in 2020 that doesn’t fail or cause pain until metal-on-metal wear creates toxic debris years later.
Under the discovery rule, the clock begins when you knew or reasonably should have known that (1) you were injured, and (2) the injury was caused by another party’s negligence.
“Should have known” is an objective standard: Illinois courts ask whether a reasonable person in your position, exercising ordinary diligence, would have discovered the injury and its cause.
The discovery rule doesn’t grant unlimited time. Once you have reason to suspect an injury and its cause, even if you lack complete medical documentation, the clock starts. A lawyer strengthens discovery rule claims by documenting when you first learned of the injury, what medical opinions triggered that knowledge, and why earlier discovery wasn’t possible.
Fraudulent Concealment Tolling: When Defendants Hide the Truth
735 ILCS 5/13-215 tolls the statute of limitations when a defendant fraudulently conceals facts that prevent you from discovering your claim. Concealment includes affirmative acts, like lying about what happened, destroying evidence, and bribing witnesses, and breaches of a duty to disclose when the defendant had a fiduciary relationship with you.
Examples of fraudulent concealment include:
- Destroying physical evidence: A trucking company deletes electronic logging device data and driver logs after a crash to hide hours-of-service violations.
- Lying to investigators: A property owner tells police that a stairway handrail was intact when it had actually been broken and unreported for months.
- Bribing or intimidating witnesses: A construction company pays off coworkers to stay silent about safety violations that caused your fall.
- Concealing medical errors: A surgeon alters operative notes to hide a mistake or fails to disclose that a surgical instrument was left inside you.
- Corporate cover-ups: A manufacturer knows its product is defective and causing injuries, but suppresses internal testing data and deceives regulators.
You must prove the defendant knew facts material to your claim, intentionally concealed those facts, and the concealment prevented you from discovering the injury despite reasonable diligence.
The statute of limitations is paused during the period of concealment and begins running when you discover the concealed facts. Illinois caps the total tolling period at five years from the date you discovered the concealment.
Fraudulent-concealment tolling rarely applies in straightforward negligence cases where the facts are apparent. It’s most relevant in cases involving cover-ups or deliberate destruction of evidence.
Tolling for Minors and Legal Disabilities
735 ILCS 5/13-211 pauses the statute of limitations for plaintiffs who are minors (under 18) or under a legal disability at the time the cause of action accrues. The limitations period does not begin running until the disability ends, that is, when the minor turns 18 or when a court lifts the disability.
Let’s say a 10-year-old child is injured in a 2023 bicycle-versus-car collision, the two-year statute of limitations does not start until the child’s 18th birthday in 2031, giving the child until 2033 to file suit. This tolling protects minors who lack legal capacity to bring claims.
Legal disabilities include mental incapacity adjudicated by a court, not mere lack of education, language barriers, or physical injuries.
Parents or guardians may file suit on behalf of a minor before the child turns 18.
Medical Malpractice: Two-Year Discovery, Four-Year Repose
Medical malpractice claims follow special timing rules under 735 ILCS 5/13-212. The statute of limitations is two years from when you knew or should have known that the injury existed and was caused by medical negligence. However, Illinois imposes a four-year statute of repose that bars any medical malpractice claim filed more than four years after the negligent act, regardless of when you discovered the injury.
This means that if a surgeon leaves a sponge in your abdomen during a 2020 procedure and you don’t discover it until a 2025 CT scan, the four-year repose period expired in 2024, and you’re barred from suing even though you had no way to discover the injury within the repose window.
Illinois carves out narrow exceptions for minors under age eight and cases involving fraudulent concealment. A Chicago medical malpractice attorney evaluating an old medical malpractice claim must calculate both the discovery-based limitations period and the repose deadline before advising whether suit is viable.
Shorter Deadlines for Claims Against Government Entities
Claims against the City of Chicago, Cook County, the Chicago Transit Authority, and other local government entities face dramatically shorter deadlines. 745 ILCS 10/8-101 requires written notice of your claim within one year of the injury date.
That one-year notice requirement is a condition precedent to filing suit. The notice must describe the incident, the injury, the time and place it occurred, and the relief you’re seeking.
After providing timely notice, you have an additional period, usually about one year from the notice date, to file the actual lawsuit.
Product Liability and Statutes of Repose
Product liability claims follow both the standard two-year statute of limitations and longer statutes of repose under 735 ILCS 5/13-213. The statute of limitations begins when you’re injured. The statute of repose imposes an absolute cutoff based on when the product was first sold: 10 years for most products and 12 years for certain types of construction machinery.
For example, if a power tool sold in 2011 injures you in 2024, your two-year statute of limitations gives you until 2026 to file suit, but the 12-year repose period expired in 2023, barring your claim.
Statutes of repose protect manufacturers from perpetual liability but create harsh results when latent defects don’t manifest until years after the sale.
Workers’ Compensation: Different Deadlines, Different Rules
Illinois workers’ compensation operates outside the personal injury tort system and follows its own set of timing rules. You generally have three years from the accident date to file a workers’ comp claim for injuries from a specific incident.
Workers’ comp provides no-fault medical benefits and wage-loss replacement regardless of who caused your injury, but you surrender the right to sue your employer in tort.
However, if a third party contributed to your injury, you may file a separate personal injury lawsuit against that third party. That third-party claim follows the standard two-year statute of limitations for personal injury.
What to Do If You Think Your Deadline Has Passed
If you believe your statute of limitations has expired, you should not lose hope without consulting a lawyer. Illinois courts strictly enforce limitation periods, but exceptions, tolling doctrines, and discovery rule arguments sometimes revive claims that appear time-barred.
A Walner Law attorney reviews your timeline to determine:
- The exact date your cause of action accrued under Illinois law
- Whether the discovery rule delays the start of the limitations period based on when you knew or should have known about the injury
- Whether fraudulent concealment, minority, or legal disability tolled the statute
- Whether special statutes apply (medical malpractice repose, government entity notice deadlines, product liability repose)
Even if your claim is time-barred, there may be other avenues to secure compensation.
FAQ for Old Injury Claims in Illinois
Insurance adjusters aren’t your lawyers and sometimes provide incorrect deadline information, whether through mistake or to run out your clock. If an adjuster misled you about deadlines while you negotiated in good faith, a lawyer may argue fraudulent concealment or equitable estoppel to preserve your claim, but these arguments face strict scrutiny and require immediate action.
Insurance adjusters aren’t your lawyers and sometimes provide incorrect deadline information, whether through mistake or to run out your clock. If an adjuster misled you about deadlines while you negotiated in good faith, a lawyer may argue fraudulent concealment or equitable estoppel to preserve your claim, but these arguments face strict scrutiny and require immediate action.
Walner Law works on contingency, meaning you pay nothing upfront and no attorney fees unless we recover compensation for you. We advance all litigation costs and deduct those from your settlement or verdict at the end.
Illinois allows reopening of workers’ compensation cases within certain timeframes if your condition deteriorates after settlement, but the rules are strict and depend on the type of settlement you signed. Lump-sum settlements with full releases typically cannot be reopened, while some structured agreements preserve your right to seek additional benefits if your injury worsens.
The statute of limitations runs regardless of whether the defendant still exists, but if the company dissolved, merged, or was acquired, successor liability rules may allow you to sue the new entity that assumed the original company’s obligations. You may also have claims against insurance carriers that covered the defunct company at the time of your injury.
Talk to Walner Law About Your Old Injury Claim
Years-old injuries raise complicated timing questions that require immediate legal analysis. Illinois statutes of limitations, discovery rules, and tolling doctrines create a web of deadlines that vary by claim type and defendant identity.
At Walner Law, our Chicago injury lawyers evaluate your timeline immediately. We calculate limitation periods, identify applicable exceptions, preserve relevant evidence, and file suit before the deadline expires. You can trust our attorney to tell you honestly whether you have a viable claim.
Don’t let time run out. Call (312) 410-8496 now for a free consultation.
