For injuries, the employee has one year from the date of injury to recover benefits from the employer. The claim form must be filed within one year of the date of industrial injury (L.C. Sections 5404 and 5411). The exceptions are if the claim is a cumulative trauma claim or estoppel.

For cumulative trauma claims (defined by L.C. Section 5412) , the injured worker can report the injury when he knew or should have known the disability was industrially caused. This means when the employee should have reasonably known that his/her injury was caused by work. This could be one year after they stopped working or even one year after the initial pains began, as long as the employee did not know they were disabled at the time.

For estoppel, if the employer failed to give the employee proper notices or they had notice of the injury and so lack of filing within one year did not harm them, they are estopped, or prevented, from denying your claim due to the fact it was filed more than a year after the injury occurred. (L.C. Sections 5409 and 5403).