The Six-Month Government Claim Deadline in California

A public bus changed lanes into you, or a city truck ran the light, or your front wheel dropped into a trench nobody had barricaded. You have heard you get two years to bring an injury claim in California, and for most crashes that is right. When the party that hurt you is a government agency, the number you actually need is six months, and almost nothing about the ordinary process applies.

The short version: before you can sue a public entity, you have to hand it a written claim, and for injury claims that document is generally due within six months of the injury. Miss it and a strong case can end before it starts.

The claim comes before the lawsuit

Under Government Code § 945.4, no suit for money or damages may be brought against a public entity until a written claim has been presented to that entity and acted upon by its board, or deemed rejected.

So there is a step in front of the courthouse that does not exist in a private case. If someone in a Honda rear-ends you, you can negotiate for a year and file suit at month twenty-three. If a county vehicle rear-ends you, both the negotiating and the filing sit behind an administrative form with its own deadline and its own consequences for getting it wrong.

Six months, and one narrow escape hatch

Government Code § 911.2 sets two deadlines. A claim for death or injury to a person or to personal property must be presented not later than six months after the cause of action accrues. Claims for anything else, such as damage to real property, get one year.

For an injury, the clock generally starts the day you were hurt. It does not pause while you finish physical therapy or wait for a police report. The Oakland City Attorney's Office says the same thing plainly: a claim relating to death or injury to a person or to personal property should be filed within six months of the occurrence, and it accepts claims by email, mail, or in person.

If the six months has already gone, one route is left. Section 911.4 lets you apply for leave to present a late claim within a reasonable time not exceeding one year after the cause of action accrued. The application must state the reason for the delay and attach the claim you want to file. Certain periods do not count against that year, including time when the claimant was a minor or was mentally incapacitated without a guardian. Treat this as a backstop, not a plan: the agency can deny it, and not knowing about the deadline rarely moves anyone.

Filing with the wrong agency is a real risk

A single Bay Area intersection can involve a city, a county, a transit district, and the state. The pole belongs to one, the pavement to another, the bus to a third. Presenting your claim to the wrong one does not stop the six months running against the right one.

• Cities and counties take claims through their own clerk or city attorney's office, each with its own form.
• Transit districts, school districts, and other special districts are separate public entities with their own claim processes, even though they operate inside a city.
• State agencies, including Caltrans, generally go through the Government Claims Program administered by the Department of General Services. Section 905.2 requires a $25 filing fee, waivable for claimants on public assistance or at or below 125 percent of the poverty line.

When ownership is genuinely unclear, present a claim to every entity that could plausibly be responsible, inside the six months. Who actually controlled the property is a fight to have after your deadlines are protected.

What the claim actually has to say

Section 910 lists what a claim must contain: your name and mailing address, the address where you want notices sent, the date, place and other circumstances of the occurrence, a general description of the injury or loss, the names of the public employees who caused it if you know them, and the amount claimed. If the claim exceeds $10,000 you do not state a dollar figure, but must indicate whether it would be a limited civil case.

Two habits matter. Describe the location precisely: a claim that says "a sidewalk in Oakland" invites a denial that a claim naming the block and the direction you were walking does not. And do not lock yourself into a number or a description of your injuries while you are still being treated, for the same reason saying "I'm fine" at the scene causes problems months later.

The denial letter starts a second, shorter clock

Once you present the claim, § 912.4 gives the board 45 days to act on it. If it does nothing, the claim is deemed rejected on the last day of that period.

Then § 945.6 does something most people never see coming. If the entity gives you proper written notice of its action, you have six months from the date that notice was personally delivered or mailed to file suit. Not two years from the crash. Six months from the letter.

If the entity never gives that written notice, you fall back to two years from accrual. That difference is why a denial letter should never sit unopened in a pile of mail. It can be the shortest and most easily missed deadline in the case, and one more reason waiting is expensive.

When the road itself is the problem

If nobody hit you and the hazard was the property, the theory is a dangerous condition of public property under § 835. You have to establish four things: the property was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury, the injury was proximately caused by that condition, the condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury you suffered, and either a public employee negligently created the condition or the entity had notice of it. Section 830 defines a dangerous condition as one creating a substantial risk of injury when the property is used with due care in a reasonably foreseeable way.

Notice is usually the battleground. Section 835.2 allows actual notice, meaning the entity knew of the condition and knew or should have known it was dangerous, or constructive notice, meaning it existed long enough and was obvious enough that the entity should have discovered it. The statute also makes the adequacy of the agency's inspection system admissible, weighing its cost and practicability against the likelihood and magnitude of the danger. So the evidence you want is dated photographs, prior 311 or service requests about the same hazard, and witnesses who can say how long it had been that way. All of it gets harder to collect every week.

What this means in California

Three deadlines can run in one case, and they are not interchangeable.

• Six months to present the government claim under § 911.2, running from the date of injury.
• Six months from a written notice of rejection to file suit under § 945.6, or two years from accrual if no notice is given.
• Two years under CCP § 335.1 for the ordinary personal injury claim, the deadline that applies to a private party in the same crash and the one people assume covers everything.

California's pure comparative negligence rule applies here too, so being partly at fault reduces your recovery rather than ending it. And an agency's adjuster is still an adjuster. Expect the same questions about prior injuries and the same early number a private carrier would offer, and be as careful with a recorded statement as you would be with any insurer.

Practical next steps

Write down the date of the injury and count six months forward today. Photograph the hazard or the vehicle now, including any agency markings, fleet number, or plate, and note the exact location. Request the police or incident report. Get treated and keep treating, because gaps in your records will be used against you here too. And if you cannot tell which agency owns the thing that hurt you, do not spend the six months figuring it out alone. A free consultation costs nothing and there is no fee unless there is a recovery.