§ 217-a.Actions to be commenced within one year and ninety days

CPLR 217-a reaches a broad set of government defendants: political subdivisions of the state, instrumentalities and agencies of the state or a political subdivision, and any public authority or public benefit corporation entitled to receive a notice of claim as a condition of suit. Before commencing an action against any of them, a claimant must serve a notice of claim that complies with General Municipal Law section 50-e, and the action itself must comply with section 50-e and subdivision 1 of section 50-i.

Once that notice requirement is satisfied, the deadline itself is one year and ninety days from accrual for damage to real or personal property, or for personal injury — or whatever longer period a special provision of law separately allows, whichever is longer. That period sits between the shorter deadlines Article 2 sets for intentional torts and the longer three-year period CPLR 214 sets for ordinary personal injury claims, reflecting the extra layer of protection the notice-of-claim system gives government defendants.

Wrongful death claims against these entities are carved out of the one-year-and-ninety-day cap entirely; a notice of claim can still be required, but the limitations period for the wrongful death claim itself comes from elsewhere. The section also makes clear it doesn't amend the Court of Claims Act, so a suit against New York State itself follows that separate framework rather than CPLR 217-a.

Because CPLR 217-a can't be applied without reference to General Municipal Law sections 50-e and 50-i, it functions as a companion to those provisions, and it displaces CPLR 214 and 215's ordinary tort deadlines whenever the defendant is one of the covered government entities.