Truck Accident Statute of Limitations in Louisiana (2026)

Your deadlines in Louisiana, calculated

Enter the date of your crash and the tool below will work out both clocks — the legal filing deadline and the much shorter window before the proof can be destroyed. Louisiana is already selected. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.

What makes Louisiana different

Louisiana does not use the term statute of limitations at all — it uses liberative prescription, and the rules are civil law rather than common law. More importantly, the period changed: for causes of action arising on or after 1 July 2024, delictual actions moved from one year to two. A crash before that date is almost certainly still on the old one-year clock. Getting this date wrong is the single most expensive mistake available in Louisiana.

The four Louisiana deadlines that matter

On the injury period: Louisiana calls this liberative prescription rather than a statute of limitations. Act 423 of 2024 extended delictual actions from one year to two, for causes of action arising on or after 1 July 2024. A crash BEFORE that date is almost certainly on the old one-year clock under former art. 3492.

On the wrongful death period: Same 2024 change — one year for deaths before 1 July 2024.

Claims against a government entity in Louisiana

Louisiana does not set a single fixed notice countdown. Instead it uses a separate claims procedure — No general short notice; strict service rules (La. R.S. § 13:5107). The requirement is procedural rather than a date on a calendar, which is exactly why it gets overlooked, and skipping it still ends the claim.

Louisiana does not impose a short pre-suit notice, but service on the correct state officials within 90 days of filing is mandatory. Parish and municipal defendants have their own service and venue requirements under the Governmental Claims Act.

Public fleets you could realistically be hit by in Louisiana: DOTD maintenance vehicles, parish public works fleets, RTA buses in New Orleans, levee district equipment, and parish school board buses. If you are not certain whether the vehicle that hit you was one of these, work to the shorter deadline until somebody confirms otherwise. The downside is not symmetrical.

If the injured person was a minor

Suspended during minority in Louisiana under La. Civ. Code art. 3469 — the clock generally does not start until the injured person turns 18. Prescription is suspended, not interrupted, while the claimant is a minor.

That pause applies to the court deadline. It does not apply to the evidence. A carrier is entitled to destroy a driver's logs six months after the crash whether the injured person is 8 or 38, and in many states a government notice deadline is not tolled for a child either. A tolled filing deadline and an untouched evidence deadline is the most dangerous combination on this page.

When the Louisiana clock starts

Contra non valentem. Louisiana's doctrine of contra non valentem can suspend prescription where the claimant could not have known of the claim.

Why the evidence clock in Louisiana is much shorter

Louisiana's filing deadline is 2 years. The federal retention rules that govern the trucking company are measured in weeks and months:

• Dashcam and telematics video — often 30 days or less. No federal retention requirement — vendor and carrier policy only.
• ECM / black box data — overwritten as the tractor keeps running, and routinely lost when it is repaired or resold.
• Driver logs and records of duty status — six months (49 CFR § 395.8(k)(1)).
• Maintenance and repair records — one year while the vehicle is in the carrier's control (49 CFR § 396.3(c)).
• Annual inspection report — 14 months (49 CFR § 396.21(b)(1)).

The way to stop those clocks is a preservation letter to the carrier — a written demand that specific evidence be kept. Until it arrives, destroying records at the end of a retention period is routine and lawful. Our FMCSA regulations and evidence guide explains what each of these records contains.

Truck traffic in Louisiana

The lower Mississippi is one of the densest industrial corridors on earth. Petrochemical plants between Baton Rouge and New Orleans generate constant tanker and hazmat truck traffic, and the ports put container and breakbulk drayage onto I-10.

The corridors where these crashes concentrate: I-10 (Lake Charles–Baton Rouge–New Orleans), I-20 across the north, I-12 and I-55, US-90 through the petrochemical corridor and The Port of South Louisiana terminals.

Neighbouring states have different clocks

A crash a few miles across a state line can be governed by a completely different deadline. If you are not certain which state your crash happened in — near a border, on a bridge, or on an interstate you were travelling at speed — check both.

Or use the filing deadline calculator to compare any state, and the full state index for all 50 states and D.C.

What to do next in Louisiana

1. Get a preservation letter to the carrier. This is the most time-critical step and the one almost nobody hears about.
2. Confirm whether a government entity was involved. That answer can replace your 2 years deadline with a far shorter notice window — a separate claims procedure entirely.
3. Do not give a recorded statement to the trucking company's insurer.
4. Request the Louisiana crash report, which identifies the carrier, the DOT number and the insurer.
5. Have a lawyer licensed in Louisiana confirm the dates above against the current statute.