QC · Barreau du Québec

Injury claims in Québec

Structure reviewed May 2026

For automobile injuries there is no lawsuit at all — the province pays, and the fight is about entitlement.

Pure no-fault through the SAAQ

Québec’s public automobile insurance scheme compensates bodily injury from motor-vehicle accidents regardless of fault, and in exchange removes the right to sue the driver for that injury. Income replacement, rehabilitation and permanent-impairment indemnities are set administratively. The work is entitlement, classification, medical evidence and review — not litigation. Non-automobile injuries remain ordinary civil liability under the Civil Code.

Deadlines

Three years

The Civil Code of Québec sets a three-year prescription for most bodily-injury actions. SAAQ claims and reviews run on their own statutory deadlines, which are considerably shorter.

How limitation periods and notice rules interact

Shorter deadlines that sit in front of it

These are the ones that end otherwise strong claims, because they are measured in days or weeks rather than years.

SAAQ claims and each level of review carry firm filing deadlines; a missed review window is usually fatal to that decision.
Municipal claims under Québec law carry short prior-notice requirements.

Matching in Québec

What the match has to account for here

Québec is a civil-law jurisdiction with its own bar, its own procedure and its own vocabulary. Cross-border "national" firms are usually the wrong answer here.
Service in French is not a preference to be accommodated — for most files it is the baseline.

Start your intake →How the match is made

Claim types in Québec

Motor vehicle accidents Catastrophic and brain injury Slips, trips and falls Long-term disability denials Medical malpractice Workplace injuries Pedestrian and cyclist injuries Fatal accident and wrongful death claims Defective and dangerous products

Other provinces

Ontario British Columbia Alberta Manitoba All provinces

InjuryLawyerNearMe.ca is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice, legal opinions, or legal representation. We are an independent matching service. Nothing on this site creates a solicitor-client relationship. Deadlines and entitlements depend on facts we cannot assess from a web page — speak to a lawyer promptly. This page describes the general structure of Québec law as reviewed in May 2026. It does not account for your facts, it is not a substitute for advice, and legislation changes. Statutory figures such as caps and deductibles are indexed and deliberately not reproduced here — confirm the current amounts with counsel.