Alabama Personal Injury Statute of Limitations and Fault Rules

2 years. Ala. Code 6-2-38(l) requires all actions for any injury to the person or rights of another not arising from contract to be brought within two years. A wrongful death claim also runs two years, measured from the death rather than the injury, under 6-2-38(a) and 6-5-410(d). A tort claim against a city or town is the exception and runs on six months.

Yes, completely. Alabama uses pure contributory negligence, so even 1 percent of fault on your part bars all recovery. There is no proportional reduction and no partial award, which makes the fault question the entire case.

Nothing. Contributory negligence bars the claim outright. The same claim at 30 percent fault is worth 42,000 dollars in a pure comparative state, and also 42,000 dollars in a modified comparative state where the bar only falls above 50 percent fault. Even at 1 percent fault, a pure comparative state pays 59,400 dollars while Alabama pays zero.

Not on the compensatory side. There is no statutory cap on medical bills, lost earnings or pain and suffering, in ordinary cases or in medical malpractice. The only caps in the Alabama Code apply to punitive damages under 6-11-21: generally the greater of three times compensatory damages or 500,000 dollars, and in a case for physical injury the greater of three times compensatory damages or 1.5 million dollars. Those figures are readjusted with the Consumer Price Index every three years under 6-11-21(f).

Six months, not two years. Ala. Code 11-47-23 provides that claims for damages growing out of torts must be presented within six months from the accrual thereof or be barred, while other municipal claims get two years. A pothole crash, a municipal vehicle collision or a fall on city property all sit on the six-month clock.

Only the decedent's personal representative, under Ala. Code 6-5-410(a), and only within two years of the death. The recovery is not subject to the debts or liabilities of the decedent and is distributed according to the statute of distributions, under 6-5-410(c). The measure of damages is set by Alabama case law rather than by the statute: the Supreme Court of Alabama has held that in a wrongful death action the only recoverable damages are punitive damages, so the award is not built from funeral costs or lost future earnings. The punitive cap in 6-11-21 does not apply, because 6-11-21(j) and 6-11-29 both exclude wrongful death.

No. Alabama is an at-fault (tort) state, so you claim against the at-fault driver's liability insurer rather than through mandatory personal injury protection coverage of your own.

Only in defined circumstances. Ala. Code 6-11-27(a) shields a principal, employer or master from punitive damages for an employee's intentional or malicious conduct unless the employer knew or should have known of the person's unfitness and kept them on, used their services without proper instruction with disregard for the safety of others, authorized the conduct, ratified it, or the acts were calculated to or did benefit the employer. Retail vendors of alcoholic beverages are carved out by 6-11-27(b). The claim itself still has to be filed within two years under 6-2-38(n).