Texas Filing Deadlines for Rider Claims in Houston, TX Two Years, Tolling and Notice Rules

The two-year periods

Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.003(a) provides that a person must bring suit for personal injury not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues. Subsection (b) provides that a person must bring suit not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues in an action for injury resulting in death, and that the cause of action accrues on the death of the injured person. Those are two separate accrual events, which is why a family dealing with a rider who survived a crash for a period before dying is looking at a different date than a rider bringing a personal-injury claim.

Legal disability

Section 16.001(a) defines a person as under a legal disability if the person is younger than 18 years of age, regardless of whether the person is married, or is of unsound mind. Subsection (b) provides that if a person entitled to bring a personal action is under a legal disability when the cause of action accrues, the time of the disability is not included in a limitations period. Subsection (c) states that a person may not tack one legal disability to another to extend a limitations period, and subsection (d) provides that a disability that arises after a limitations period starts does not suspend the running of the period. Whether any of that applies to a particular person is a legal determination, not a self-assessment.

Provisions that suspend or extend

Section 16.062(a) provides that the death of a person against whom or in whose favor there may be a cause of action suspends the running of an applicable statute of limitations for 12 months after the death, and subsection (b) provides that if an executor or administrator of a decedent's estate qualifies before the expiration of that period, the statute of limitations begins to run at the time of qualification. Section 16.063 provides that the absence from this state of a person against whom a cause of action may be maintained suspends the running of the applicable limitations period. Section 16.064 addresses refiling after a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction, tolling the period where the action is commenced in a proper court not later than the 60th day after the dismissal becomes final.

The six-month government notice provision

Where a governmental unit is involved, Civil Practice and Remedies Code §101.101(a) entitles the unit to notice of a claim not later than six months after the day that the incident giving rise to the claim occurred, and requires that the notice reasonably describe the damage or injury claimed, the time and place of the incident, and the incident itself. Subsection (c) provides that the notice requirements do not apply if the governmental unit has actual notice. Section 101.023 caps liability for a municipality at $250,000 for each person and $500,000 for each single occurrence for bodily injury or death, and for other local governments at $100,000 and $300,000.

The three-month provision in a death case

Civil Practice and Remedies Code §71.004(a) makes a wrongful death action one brought for the exclusive benefit of three categories of survivor: the spouse, the children, and the parents of the deceased person. Subsection (b) allows one or more of those individuals to bring the action for the benefit of all. Subsection (c) provides that if none of the individuals entitled to bring the action has begun the action within three calendar months after the death of the injured individual, the executor or administrator of the estate shall bring and prosecute the action unless requested not to by all those individuals. That is a shorter interval than most families expect to be tracking.

Why the practical calendar is shorter than the statutory one

Evidence has its own timetable. Camera footage from a Houston business is frequently overwritten within weeks, roadway markings on an arterial are resurfaced, a motorcycle in a storage yard accrues fees and eventually gets released or sold, and witnesses become unreachable. Shepherd accounts for 10 of the 906 half-mile segments on the City of Houston High Injury Network mapped from 2014 through 2018 data, and Harris County recorded 115,173 total crashes in 2024 across all road users. Harris County operates five county civil courts at law numbered 1 through 5, plus a county civil court associate judge. Nothing here identifies which period applies to any claim; that is legal advice, and it should come from the attorney advertising on this site or another attorney the reader chooses.