If a city, county, transit agency, or school district may be at fault for your injury in California, you generally must file a written government claim within six months of the incident — long before the two-year lawsuit deadline. Missing that six-month step can end the case entirely.
My name is Ronald B. Laba, and I have handled injury claims from my Vista office since 1991. Of all the deadlines in California injury law, the one that quietly destroys the most valid claims is the government claim requirement. It applies to ordinary situations: a pothole or unmarked road defect, a fall on public property, a collision with a government vehicle, or a crash caused by a dangerous intersection design.
Who counts as a public entity
The Government Claims Act covers state agencies, counties, cities, special districts, and public schools. In San Diego County that includes the County of San Diego, the City of San Diego, Vista, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Escondido, Chula Vista, San Marcos and Encinitas, along with transit agencies, water districts, community college districts and public hospitals.
It also reaches public employees acting within the scope of their work, and in some circumstances contractors performing work for a public entity. Identifying the correct entity matters, because a claim served on the wrong agency does not preserve the deadline against the right one.
The six-month rule
California Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim for death or personal injury to be presented to the public entity within six months of the date the cause of action accrues. Claims for damage to real or personal property carry a one-year period. Six months is not a courtesy period — it is a condition of ever filing suit.
Once the claim is presented, the entity has 45 days to act. If it rejects the claim in writing, you generally have six months from the date the rejection notice was mailed to file a lawsuit. If the entity simply never responds, a different and longer period applies. Those follow-on deadlines are easy to misread, and reading them wrong is fatal to the claim.
What the claim has to contain
- The claimant's name and mailing address.
- The date, place and circumstances of the incident.
- A general description of the injury, damage or loss.
- The names of the public employees who caused it, if known.
- The amount claimed, or an indication of whether it exceeds the limited civil jurisdiction threshold.
Most agencies publish their own claim form, and using it is the safest route. A claim that omits required information can be returned as insufficient, and the clock does not stop while that is sorted out.
Dangerous condition of public property
Many claims against public entities in San Diego County are brought under Government Code section 835, which allows recovery when public property was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury, the condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk, and the entity either created the condition or had notice of it with enough time to fix it.
Notice is where these cases are won or lost. Prior complaints, work orders, repair records and earlier collisions at the same location are the kind of evidence that shows an agency knew. Public entities also assert design immunity under section 830.6 for features built to an approved design, which is a defense that must be met with engineering evidence rather than argument.
What to do in the first weeks
Photograph the condition before it is repaired, because repairs happen quickly once an agency learns of a hazard. Note the exact location with cross streets or a mile marker. Get the incident or traffic collision report. Identify witnesses. Then get the claim evaluated promptly, since six months disappears faster than it sounds while you are treating.
Related reading on my site: what to do after a San Diego car accident, my slip and fall practice page for falls on public property, and how insurance claims are handled. If the injury happened in North County, my Vista personal injury page describes the office and the area I serve.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What happens if I miss the six-month deadline? A: You can apply to the entity for leave to present a late claim within one year of the incident under Government Code section 911.4, but relief is limited to specific grounds such as mistake, incapacity or minority, and it is never guaranteed.
Q: Does filing a government claim mean I am suing the city? A: No. The claim is an administrative prerequisite. A lawsuit is a separate step that is only available after the claim is presented and rejected, or deemed rejected.
Q: Do the same rules apply to claims against a school district? A: Yes. Public school districts are public entities under the Government Claims Act, so the six-month presentation requirement applies to student and visitor injury claims.
Q: What if a private contractor was doing the work? A: A private contractor may be sued under ordinary negligence rules with the standard two-year deadline, but if a public entity may share responsibility, the six-month claim should still be presented to preserve that avenue.
If a public entity may be responsible for your injury in San Diego County, contact my office at (760) 940-6231 before the six-month window closes.
This is general information, not legal advice. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
