§ 208-a.In custody at time of cause of action.

People held in state prisons, local jails, or similar correctional facilities face real obstacles to pursuing a civil claim while still in custody — limited access to counsel, restricted communication, and the practical difficulty of gathering evidence or meeting notice deadlines from inside an institution. CPLR 208-a addresses those obstacles directly: anyone injured while under the jurisdiction, care, custody, or supervision of the state prison system, a related hospital, or a state or local correctional facility gets the full benefit of whatever limitations period would otherwise apply, plus two more years measured from the date of release from that custody.

The section also removes a separate barrier for claims that would otherwise be time-barred: it waives the usual requirement of filing a notice of claim or notice of intention to file a claim as a precondition to suing. That waiver applies only where the claim would have been untimely without this section's extension — a claim that was already timely under the ordinary rules doesn't get the benefit of this exemption, since the state's normal notice requirements would already have applied to it in the ordinary course.

The section excludes people under community supervision, a parole-type release, from its custody-based extension, since the practical barriers to litigating from inside a facility don't carry over once someone is no longer confined. Effective December 2025, this section joins CPLR 208's infancy and insanity tolls as another disability-based exception to the general rule in CPLR 201 that limitations periods run without extension.