A child in the back seat on the 405, or in a stroller on a San Vicente sidewalk, can be hurt in a wreck that the adults at the scene are still trying to sort out. The medical questions come first. The legal file has its own traps, because California pauses some lawsuit clocks for a minor and does not pause others, and because a settlement involving a child is not a handshake that a parent can finish alone.
The two-year clock, and the pause for a minor
CCP 335.1 is still the basic two-year period for an injury lawsuit, and for a lawsuit over a death brought about by another person’s wrongful act or neglectful conduct. CCP 352 then says that if the person who may bring an action under that chapter was, at the time the claim accrued, under the age of majority or lacking the legal capacity to make decisions, the time of that disability does not count against the period for starting the action.
For a typical child hurt in a Brentwood crash, that means the two-year period on the child’s own injury claim does not run while the child is a minor. They ordinarily start to run at age 18. Waiting is still a poor plan. Witnesses move, cameras are overwritten and injuries that needed early treatment are harder to prove later. It is a reason not to assume that a teenager’s claim has already expired on the second anniversary of the wreck.
A parent’s own claim, for example a claim for medical bills the parent paid, may run on the ordinary adult clock. That distinction is one of the first questions to take to a lawyer, because the official text does not always match what a family assumes after a long course of treatment.
Government claims do not get that pause
CCP 352 says, in subdivision (b), that the section does not apply to an action against a public entity or public employee on a cause of action for which a claim had to be presented under the Government Claims Act. A wreck that involves a city vehicle, a county vehicle or a dangerous condition on a public street is therefore on a much tighter calendar for a child than an ordinary private-driver case.
GOV 911.2 still requires a six-month claim for death, injury or personal-property harm. If that six-month claim was missed, GOV 911.4 allows a written application for leave to present it, within a reasonable time not more than one year after accrual, with the proposed claim attached and the reason for the delay stated. In computing that one-year period, the time the injured person is a minor shall be counted. Time of mental incapacity without a guardian or conservator is not counted, and the statute has additional rules for some juvenile-court dependents. In plain terms, minority does not give a family a year of slack on a late government claim the way it can on an ordinary lawsuit.
The government-claims guide names the City Clerk desk at 200 North Spring Street, Room 395, and the County claims desk at 500 W. Temple Street, Room 383. Those are the official addresses to use, not a school office or a police front counter.
Settlements and court approval
A minor cannot simply sign a release. California requires court involvement for a compromise of a minor’s claim, so that the settlement is reviewed and the funds are protected. The exact petition practice is technical and should be handled with current local forms and a lawyer or a clerk who works in that department. What a parent needs to know early is simpler. Do not cash a first offer on a child’s injury, and do not sign a broad release, on the assumption that a parent’s signature finishes the file.
How the settlement money is held, whether a later petition is needed to use it for medical care, and how attorney fees are reviewed are all part of that court process. A rushed signature can leave a child with a closed claim and an unpaid later surgery.
Insurance and fault
A child’s claim can still run into uninsured or underinsured issues, and into CIV 3333.4 if an adult owner or operator in the family is in one of the uninsured or DUI-conviction categories the statute names. Fault is still compared under official instruction CACI 405. A child darting into Wilshire, or a driver rolling through a crosswalk, will be argued about in ordinary language, and then reduced to percentages. There is no half-fault cutoff in that instruction.
Keep the medical file complete. Pediatric visits, school notes about missed days and photographs of a car seat or booster after the impact all belong with the crash report. The medical-bills guide explains why health-plan letters should sit in the same folder.
What to do in the first weeks
Get medical care. Request the crash report. If a public entity may be involved, treat the six-month date as the one that matters first. Talk with an attorney earlier than you would in a routine adult fender-bender, because the court-approval step and the government-claim rules are easy to miss and hard to undo. Bring the report number, the treatment notes and the declarations page. Confirm the person’s California license, and ask what work with children’s claims that office has actually handled.
- Age of majority
- Eighteen in California, which is when the two-year period for a typical child’s own injury claim ordinarily begins to run under CCP 352.
- Late-claim application
- The GOV 911.4 request for leave to present a late six-month government claim, with a one-year outer limit that counts the time a person is a minor.
- Compromise of a minor’s claim
- The court-reviewed settlement of a child’s case, which a parent cannot finish with a handshake and a release alone.