A personal injury accident in Knoxville, TN, can happen in an everyday setting, such as slipping and falling while visiting Market Square, or in a serious car accident on a busy roadway such as Interstate 40. These situations can leave you dealing with medical bills, lost income, and uncertainty about what comes next.
Tennessee gives injured victims one year to file a personal injury lawsuit, but knowing exactly when that one-year clock starts is just as important as knowing the deadline itself.
For Knoxville accident victims, understanding when a personal injury claim “accrues” can make all the difference. A car accident on Alcoa Highway, a slip and fall at a bar in the Old City, or another injury may seem straightforward, but the filing deadline can depend on the specific facts of your case.
If you were hurt in Knoxville and are not sure when your year started, an attorney can look at the dates with you before anything expires.
The clock starts when the cause of action accrues, not when you finish treatment, not when the insurance company closes its file, and not when you decide you want to make a claim. For most Knoxville collisions the accrual date and the crash date are the same day. That matters because people routinely spend ten months negotiating with an adjuster and then discover the remaining two months are all they have.
Settlement talks do not pause the deadline. An adjuster can be responsive, apologetic and still be the reason a claim was filed too late, because nothing an insurer says extends a statutory period. Outside of narrow tolling rules set by statute, filing suit is what stops the clock.
Property damage from the same collision carries a different period. Under Tenn. Code Ann. 28-3-105, claims for injury to property are subject to a three-year period. That is why a body shop, an adjuster and a friend can each give you a confidently different answer about the same crash.
The distinction is simple once you see it. The claim for your vehicle and the claim for your spine are separate claims with separate deadlines, and the one with twelve months on it is the one for your injuries. Anyone quoting three years is almost certainly talking about the car.
Tenn. Code 28-3-104(a)(2) allows two years in a defined set of circumstances. The statute states that the subsection is to be strictly construed, and all of the following must line up:
Every element must be met, and the extension reaches only the party prosecuted. In Younger v. Okbahhanes, the Tennessee Court of Appeals held that a traffic citation for violating Tennessee Code Annotated § 55-8-136 was sufficient to trigger the two-year limitations period under Tennessee Code Annotated § 28-3-104(a)(2).
The court later distinguished Younger in Glover v. Duckhorn, holding that a citation issued solely for violating a municipal ordinance was civil rather than criminal and therefore did not extend the limitations period.
The Court of Appeals reaffirmed that distinction in Peterson v. Carey and Sandridge v. Henderson: a municipal ordinance citation does not trigger the two-year period, even when the ordinance mirrors or resembles a state traffic statute.
Knox County recorded 10,031 crashes in 2025, including 50 fatal crashes and 2,696 injury crashes, according to Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security crash data. The figures show how frequently serious crashes occur across Knox County while injured people face medical treatment, vehicle repairs and insurance claims.
Twelve months can disappear quickly inside that process. Surgery may be scheduled months out, a specialist referral can take weeks, and the point at which a doctor can finally say what the long-term picture looks like often arrives well past the halfway mark of the filing period.
Evidence has its own shorter timetable, and it is usually gone long before the year is. Vehicles are repaired or sold, business camera footage overwrites itself in days, and tire marks and debris on Kingston Pike or Chapman Highway are cleared the same afternoon.
Witness memory fades on a similar schedule. Someone who saw a left turn at a Bearden intersection may be certain about it in week one and genuinely unsure by month six.
This is why, if the claim involves a collision, a car accident lawyer in Knoxville approaches these cases with all those hindrances and challenges in mind, to help you preserve evidence and build a solid case.
Accident victims in Knoxville often assume that putting a claim in writing preserves it. A demand letter, a recorded statement, a medical authorization and an open claim number are all steps in an insurance process, and none of them is a filing.
The statutory period is satisfied by commencing an action in the appropriate court. Until that happens, the period continues to run regardless of how active the claim looks from the outside.
This is why a file can look busy and still expire. The month before the deadline is a bad time to discover that everything done so far happened outside the court system entirely.
| Claim from one crash | Period | Authority |
| Injury to the person | One year from accrual | Tenn. Code Ann. 28-3-104(a)(1) |
| Damage to your vehicle or property | Three years | Tenn. Code Ann. 28-3-105 |
| Injury where the at-fault party is prosecuted | Two years, narrow conditions, strictly construed | Tenn. Code Ann. 28-3-104(a)(2) |
One year from the date the cause of action accrued, under Tenn. Code Ann. 28-3-104(a)(1). In most crash cases that is the date of the collision.
No. Negotiation, recorded statements and open claim files have no effect on the statutory period.
No. Property damage and bodily injury are separate claims with separate periods, and settling one does not resolve or extend the other.
If your crash or your slip-and-fall accident in Knoxville was more than a few months ago, the most useful thing you can do is have the dates checked by a lawyer so that you don't risk losing your right to compensation. Fox & Farmer is a family firm serving East Tennessee since 1986. We offer free initial consultations, and there is no fee unless you win.
You can reach us at (865) 531-9400 or through our firm's contact page.
Last reviewed: August 2026
This post was reviewed by Steve E. Fox, licensed in Tennessee since 1992.
Content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed Tennessee attorney for guidance specific to your situation.
There are several mistakes that people involved in an accident that result in personal injury...
Protecting Victims in Knoxville and Surrounding Areas Last December, a motorcyclist died after swerving into...
How safe is your vehicle? You should always ask yourself this question when buying an...
