Nearly 200 years, then a single legislative session
Louisiana plaintiffs had just one year from the date of loss to file a tort lawsuit, a rule that had stood essentially unchanged since 1825. In 2024, Act 423 — formerly House Bill 315, signed by Governor Jeff Landry on June 3, 2024 — doubled that period to two years, moving Louisiana out of the very small group of states with a one-year deadline.
Prospective only: why the date of injury genuinely matters
Act 423 was written to apply prospectively only, governing injuries occurring on or after its effective date of July 1, 2024. An injury from before that date remains subject to the old one-year rule, regardless of when the lawsuit is eventually filed. A car accident on June 30, 2024 still had to be filed within one year, by June 30, 2025 — while the exact same accident happening just one day later, on July 1, 2024, gets the full two years, running until July 1, 2026.
Wrongful death and survival actions: a separate, more recent update
Wrongful death and survival actions follow their own rule, updated again in 2025. Under the current version of Civil Code art. 2315.2, a wrongful death claim prescribes one year from the date of death, or two years from the date the injury was sustained, whichever is longer — a genuinely claimant-friendly structure that effectively gives families more time when a death occurs well after the underlying injury.
The medical malpractice exception
That more generous "whichever is longer" rule has one specific carve-out: a wrongful death claim arising from medical malpractice still prescribes strictly one year from the date of death, with no alternative two-years-from-injury option available.
Louisiana's own version of a discovery rule
Rather than the discovery rule used in most common-law states, Louisiana's civil law tradition applies a narrower doctrine called contra non valentem, which can suspend the running of prescription in specific circumstances where a claimant was genuinely prevented from pursuing their claim. It isn't a simple substitute for a broad discovery rule, and Louisiana courts apply it carefully rather than as a routine extension.