The date that matters after a wreck in Canyon Crest is not only the day the tow truck left. California gives a short, official window to start an ordinary injury or death lawsuit. Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 says that a suit for a person’s injury or death that another person’s wrongful act or want of care brought about shall be brought within two years. That sentence is the usual clock for a crash claim in Riverside, in San Bernardino, and in the Orange County cities that turn up in this market.
Property damage is not on that same two-year sentence. Section 338 gives three years for a suit involving the taking, withholding, or injury of goods or chattels, among other things named in that section. A smashed bumper and a broken arm can therefore sit on two different calendars. Put both dates on the list rather than assuming one letter to an insurer covers every kind of harm.
Section 352 pauses some filing periods while the person who could sue is a minor, or while that person lacks legal capacity to make decisions, if that condition existed when the claim accrued. The time of that disability is kept out of the period for starting the action. The same section says that rule does not apply to a public-entity or public-employee action for which a claim has to be presented as the Government Claims Act requires. Parents should not treat a child’s public-entity notice as something that can wait until adulthood. The official section is the text to follow on that split.
A death case is started under its own standing rules. Section 377.60 names who may assert a cause of action for a person’s death that another person’s wrongful act or want of care brought about, including the decedent’s surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, and issue of deceased children, and, if there is no surviving issue, the persons who would take by intestate succession. Dependent family members described in the section, and a dependent minor who resided in the household for the previous 180 days, may also have standing. The personal representative may assert the action on their behalf. The two-year injury-and-death clock in section 335.1 is still the usual filing window for that case. The wrongful-death guide walks through the official list in more detail.
Public-vehicle and street-defect files add an earlier written-claim step. Government Code section 911.2 requires a claim for a death, harm to a person, or harm to personal property must reach the entity within six months after accrual. If the public entity later gives a written rejection notice as section 913 describes, section 945.6 generally requires the lawsuit to be started no later than six months after that notice has been handed over in person or placed in the mail. If no such written notice arrives, the lawsuit window is generally two years from accrual. A late-claim application under section 911.4 uses its own one-year outer mark. The city-and-county claims guide covers those official steps. None of them pauses the ordinary two-year clock on a private driver.
The courts’ self-help page on deadlines to sue is a plain-language companion to these sections, not a substitute for them. A phone call, a claim number, or a stack of bills does not start the case. The case is started by filing in the right court. In the City of Riverside that often means the Historic Courthouse at 4050 Main Street, with the current civil-filing assignment confirmed on the official locations page. Clerk public hours there run 7:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. each weekday, and clerk phone hours run 7:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m., except court holidays, as the official Historic Courthouse page states. If the wreck was in Rancho Cucamonga, the official San Bernardino court locations page includes a civil division at 247 West Third Street and a Rancho Cucamonga civil location at 8303 Haven Avenue. If the wreck was in Santa Ana or Irvine, the official Orange County locations page includes the Central Justice Center at 700 Civic Center Drive West in Santa Ana. Confirm hours and the correct branch on those official pages before you go.
Two other early tasks sit beside the lawsuit clock, and neither one is a substitute for filing. Vehicle Code section 16000 requires a driver in a reportable wreck, with property damage to any one person in excess of $1,000, or with injury or death, to report the accident within 10 days to the department at Sacramento on an approved form, unless a government-vehicle exception in that section applies. The official DMV accident-reporting page has the current SR-1 instructions. If the California Highway Patrol handled the wreck, a crash-report request starts with the official CHP crash-report page and a CHP 190 form. Contact the Area office for the current fee, which that page does not fix as a single statewide dollar figure.
Keep a dated checklist with the wreck date, the date the crash report was requested, the date any SR-1 was sent, and the date any government claim was presented. Shared fault can reduce a recovery under comparative-fault principles, but it does not stop this clock. Uninsured-motorist issues and Proposition 213 limits can change what a recovery looks like, and they also do not pause the two years. Treat this as a local briefing only. Write those wreck dates down early, and get advice on your own facts rather than relying on this briefing alone.