Missouri's personal injury statute of limitations

Three things control this clock: what starts it, what pauses it, and what stops it. Get those three straight and the rest of this page is just detail.

What starts the clock

The wreck itself. Day one is the date of the crash, not the date you first felt pain, not the date a claim gets filed with an insurer.

Missouri gives an injured person five years to file suit under section 516.120, RSMo. That’s a long window compared to most states.

A death changes the math. Wrongful death claims run on a separate, shorter clock under section 537.100, RSMo: three years, counted from the date the person died.

What pauses the clock

Age can pause it. A minor hurt in a crash generally gets tolling until turning 18, so the countdown doesn’t run against a child the same way it runs against an adult.

Some other narrow situations can pause a deadline too, tied to specific facts about the injured person or the defendant. These are the exception, not the rule. Don’t assume one applies to your case without checking.

Nothing about ongoing treatment pauses the clock on its own. Healing takes as long as it takes, but the deadline keeps counting the whole time.

What stops the clock

Filing suit stops it. Once a petition is on file with the court, the deadline has been met, whatever happens with the case after that.

Letting the date pass stops it too, just in the other direction. Past the deadline, a Missouri court generally won’t hear the case at all, no matter how strong the facts are.

Evidence runs on its own, faster clock. Camera footage gets erased. Witnesses move away. Vehicles get repaired or sold. None of that waits for year five, so building the file early still matters even with a long window ahead. The what-to-do guide reframes those early steps for exactly that reason.

If a wreck turned fatal, the family’s own timeline runs differently than an ordinary injury claim. The wrongful death page scores the deadline and who may file against the shorter three-year window.