Local governments: a straightforward one-year deadline
Claims against a city, municipality, park district, school district, mass transit district, or other local governmental entity in Illinois generally run on a one-year statute of limitations under section 8-101 of the Illinois Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act — exactly half the two years available against a private defendant for the same kind of claim. Illinois courts have repeatedly and specifically upheld this shorter period, rejecting arguments that it's unconstitutional simply because it's shorter than the general rule.
An exception for patient-care claims
Claims against a local government entity arising specifically out of patient care are treated differently: they follow the standard two-year medical malpractice rule, paired with a four-year statute of repose, rather than the stricter one-year general Tort Immunity Act deadline.
The State of Illinois: a genuinely different, more forgiving structure
Claims against the State of Illinois itself work differently from claims against a city or local entity. The injured person has one year to either file a lawsuit directly or file a notice of claim with the Illinois Attorney General and the clerk of the Court of Claims. Here's the genuinely distinctive part: if that notice is filed within the one-year window, the person generally then has the full two years from the date of injury to actually file suit — meaning the notice functions to preserve, rather than shorten, the familiar two-year period.
Why this is the opposite of what people often expect
In many other states, filing a government notice is simply a prerequisite that doesn't extend the underlying deadline at all. Illinois's state-claim structure works the other way: the one-year notice step is specifically what keeps the full two-year window open. Someone who skips the notice and waits past one year to directly sue the state risks losing the claim even though the general two-year period technically hasn't run out yet.
No punitive damages, regardless of which deadline applies
Separate from timing: no government entity in Illinois, at the state or local level, can be made to pay punitive damages — a substantive limit worth understanding alongside whichever deadline governs a specific claim.