When a Child Is Injured in Arizona: Deadlines, Settlements and Court Approval

A child’s injury claim is not a smaller version of an adult’s. The deadline works differently, the settlement requires a court, and the money does not go where most parents assume it goes.

The limitation period is paused

Arizona’s two-year personal injury limitation period under A.R.S. § 12-542 does not begin running against a minor while they are still a minor. The clock effectively starts at eighteen, which means a claim can remain viable years after the incident.

Parents sometimes take real comfort from that and then discover it did not help. Tolling preserves the legal right to file. It does nothing to preserve the evidence, and a claim brought at twenty over something that happened at nine is a claim with no witnesses, no photographs and no available surveillance footage.

The parents’ own claim is not tolled

Medical expenses for a minor are generally the parents’ claim, because the parents are the ones legally obligated to pay them. That claim belongs to adults and runs on the ordinary two-year period.

So a family can end up with the child’s pain and suffering claim still alive and the medical expense claim already expired. That split catches people who assumed the whole thing was preserved.

Government defendants are not tolled the same way

If a public entity is involved, a school district, a city vehicle, a municipal pool, the Arizona notice of claim requirement applies. That is 180 days, and it is the deadline that does real damage because it arrives while a family is still dealing with treatment.

School and sports waivers do not end it

Parents routinely sign waivers for sports, field trips and activity centres, then assume that closes the door. Arizona courts scrutinise waivers signed by a parent on behalf of a child, and they do not reliably bar a minor’s claim.

A waiver also does not cover gross negligence or a condition the operator knew about and left. It is worth having the document read rather than treating the signature as the answer.

A parent cannot simply settle it

Settlements involving a minor generally require court approval in Arizona. A judge reviews whether the amount is reasonable given the injury and the future care needed, and whether the arrangement for holding the money is appropriate.

This exists to protect the child, including from a well-meaning parent under financial pressure. It also means an insurer’s offer to write a cheque today, quietly, is not something a parent has the authority to accept in a way that binds the child later.

Where the money goes

Funds are typically placed in a restricted account, a conservatorship, or a structured settlement that pays out over time, and released to the child at eighteen. Parents are frequently surprised by this. The recovery belongs to the child, not to the household, and it cannot be spent on general family expenses.

Structures are common in larger cases because they can be shaped around predictable needs, education at eighteen, a larger payment later, rather than delivering a single sum to an eighteen-year-old.

What to do early

Photograph everything now, whatever the deadline says. Get the incident documented in writing by whoever was supervising. Keep every medical record and every receipt, including mileage and time off work, because parents’ out-of-pocket costs are recoverable and nobody reconstructs them accurately years later.

If any public entity might share responsibility, treat 180 days as the real deadline and work backwards from it.