The insurer will tell you the claim is too old, the camera footage is gone, and if you did not fill out their forms right away, they owe nothing.

At a gas station on U.S. 90 near the Biloxi Lighthouse, that is not automatically true.

What is actually true is that most Mississippi slip-and-fall injury claims are governed by a 3-year statute of limitations under Miss. Code § 15-1-49. In many Biloxi gas station cases, that clock usually starts on the date of the fall. So if you slipped on water, fuel, or a broken entrance mat less than 3 years ago, you may still be within the filing deadline even if the adjuster has been stalling.

A denied insurance claim is not the same as the legal deadline to sue.

If the property was owned by a city, county, or state agency instead of a private gas station, the timeline is much shorter. Claims against a government entity in Mississippi usually fall under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act, which generally requires action within 1 year and a 90-day notice of claim before suit. That issue matters if the fall happened on public property or a government-run facility.

Mississippi is also a pure comparative fault state. So even if the insurer says you were looking at your phone, wearing wet shoes from a spring storm, or missed a warning cone, that does not automatically bar recovery. Your compensation can be reduced by your share of fault, but not erased just because they blame you partly.

If tax season debt is pushing this issue to the front now, gather these fast:

• the fall date and location
• ER or clinic records
• photos of the floor, shoes, and clothing
• witness names
• any incident report
• letters from health insurers or medical lien notices

If paperwork is coming in English that you do not fully understand, the deadline still runs. The key date is usually the injury date, not when you finally read the adjuster's letter.