Usually, you have three years from the injury date to file a slip-and-fall lawsuit in New Mexico.

If your spouse was hurt at a hotel near the Plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico, or in an apartment parking lot off Grand Avenue, that three-year deadline usually applies because a slip and fall is a personal injury claim under New Mexico law.

The big exception is when the property is owned or run by a government agency.

If the fall happened on property controlled by the City of Las Vegas, San Miguel County, a public school, or another New Mexico public entity, the rules are much tighter under the New Mexico Tort Claims Act. In many cases, you must give written notice within 90 days of the accident, and the lawsuit deadline is often two years.

That shorter government deadline catches a lot of families off guard.

The clock usually starts on the day of the fall, not when treatment ends. Waiting for surgery, rehab, or an insurance decision does not stop the deadline.

New Mexico also uses pure comparative negligence. That means the property owner may still be liable even if they claim your spouse was partly at fault for not seeing water, ice, broken stairs, poor lighting, or another hazard. But any share of fault can reduce the amount recovered.

Try to gather and keep:

• Photos or video of the hazard
• Incident reports from the store, hotel, or apartment complex
• Medical records
• Names of witnesses
• Any request to preserve security footage
• Proof of who owned or managed the property

That matters because ownership is not always obvious, especially with apartment complexes, chain hotels, and parking lots shared by multiple businesses. If the fall involved a public sidewalk or government building, identifying the right agency fast is especially important because of that 90-day notice rule.