Minors: a fresh two years from 18
Under 735 ILCS 5/13-211, a person who was under 18 when their cause of action accrued may bring a personal injury action within two years after turning 18 — a fresh two-year window from that birthday, regardless of how much of the original period had already run before they reached adulthood.
A defendant who leaves the state
Under 735 ILCS 5/13-208, if a defendant leaves Illinois at some point after the injury but before a lawsuit can be filed, the two-year countdown is paused until they return to the state. This prevents someone from running out the clock simply by staying out of Illinois's jurisdiction.
A genuinely rare, specific provision: coerced confessions
Buried inside the same statute that sets Illinois's general two-year deadline is a provision almost no one encounters, but which matters enormously to the people it protects. If a confession or information is compelled through imminent bodily harm or the threat of imminent bodily harm, and that compelled statement results, in whole or in part, in a criminal prosecution of the plaintiff, the two-year period is tolled during the time the plaintiff is incarcerated, or until that criminal prosecution has been finally resolved in the plaintiff's favor, whichever is later.
Why this provision exists
This rule is directly tied to situations involving coerced false confessions — someone wrongfully compelled, through threatened or actual violence, into a statement that leads to their own wrongful prosecution and incarceration. Without this tolling, the two-year clock to sue over that coercion could run out entirely while the person was still imprisoned for a crime connected to the coerced statement itself, making it practically impossible to pursue a civil claim in time. One notable limit: this specific provision does not apply to units of local government covered by the Tort Immunity Act.
What doesn't pause the clock
A genuinely common and costly misunderstanding: actively negotiating a settlement with an insurance company does not toll or pause Illinois's filing deadline. The clock keeps running the entire time talks are ongoing, regardless of how close the parties seem to a resolution.