Tripped on a Broken Sidewalk? Suing a City or County in California

You caught your foot on a slab of sidewalk that a tree root had lifted two inches, and you went down hard on a wrist or a hip. A neighbor tells you the city has known about that stretch for years. You assume you have the usual two years to sort it out.

You do not. When the property belongs to a city, a county, the state, or a school or transit district, an entirely separate set of deadlines applies, and the first one expires six months after you fall. It ends more of these cases than any defense argument ever will, and most people learn about it after it has already run.

Quick answer: Government Code section 911.2 requires you to present a written claim to the public entity within six months of the injury, before any lawsuit. The entity then has 45 days to act on it under Government Code section 912.4, and if it mails you a written rejection, Government Code section 945.6 gives you only six months from that notice to file suit. The underlying claim is governed by Government Code section 835, which makes a public entity liable for a dangerous condition of its property when the entity created the condition or had notice of it long enough to have fixed it.

The Government Claim Timeline, Start to Finish

Read this table before anything else on this page. Every deadline below is independent, and blowing any one of them can end a claim worth pursuing.

• Present a written claim to the public entity. Deadline: Six months from the date of injury. Authority: Government Code section 911.2. If you miss it: Suit is barred unless a late claim application is granted.
• The entity acts on your claim. Deadline: 45 days from presentation, extendable only by written agreement. Authority: Government Code section 912.4. If you miss it: If the entity does nothing, the claim is deemed rejected by operation of law on the 45th day.
• File suit after a written rejection is delivered or mailed to you. Deadline: Six months from the date of that notice. Authority: Government Code section 945.6. If you miss it: Suit is barred. The ordinary two year deadline does not extend it.
• File suit when the entity never sent a written rejection. Deadline: Two years from the date the cause of action accrued. Authority: Government Code section 945.6. If you miss it: Suit is barred.
• Apply for leave to present a late claim. Deadline: Within a reasonable time, and no later than one year from accrual. Authority: Government Code section 911.4. If you miss it: After one year there is no relief available at all.

Why Six Months Is So Easy to Miss

Nothing about a sidewalk fall announces that a government is involved. You are treating an injury, dealing with work, and waiting to see whether the wrist heals. Six months disappears without anyone telling you a clock is running.

The claim itself is not a lawsuit. It is a form, and most cities publish theirs online. It has to identify you, the date and place, the circumstances, the injuries, and the amount claimed, and it goes to the clerk or the designated officer of the correct entity. Presenting it does not commit you to litigation.

Present it early even if you are undecided. The general deadline for filing a personal injury claim in California is two years against a private defendant, and that is the number people carry in their heads. Against a public entity it is the wrong number.

What Counts as a Dangerous Condition of Public Property

Government Code section 835 does not make a city an insurer of everyone who trips. It requires that the property was in a dangerous condition when you were hurt, that the condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury you suffered, and that it actually caused your fall.

Then one more element has to be satisfied. Either an employee acting within the scope of employment created the condition through a negligent or wrongful act, or the entity had notice of it far enough in advance to have done something about it.

Expect a trivial defect defense. Entities routinely argue that a small height difference is a minor defect no reasonable property owner would have to repair. Courts weigh the size of the displacement along with the circumstances: lighting, debris covering the edge, jagged breaks, and whether anything obstructed your view. Photographs taken the same week, with a measurement in the frame, are what answer that argument later.

Notice: What the Entity Had to Know, and When

Notice is where these cases are won and lost. Actual notice means the entity knew about the condition and knew, or should have known, that it was dangerous. Constructive notice means the condition was obvious enough and had existed long enough that a reasonable inspection system would have caught it.

The evidence is documentary and it sits in the entity's files. Prior complaints and service requests, work orders, sidewalk survey and repair program records, tree maintenance history, prior claims from the same block, and internal inspection schedules.

A public records request early in the case often produces this before a lawsuit is even filed. Weathering also speaks for itself: a displacement with worn, dirt filled edges and grass established in the gap did not appear last week.

Suing the Right Entity, and What Happens if You Guess

Sidewalk ownership is less obvious than it looks. A city usually owns the sidewalk within its limits, a county owns it in unincorporated areas, the state may own the shoulder along a state route, and a transit agency, school district, or housing authority may own the walkway you actually fell on.

Presenting your claim to the wrong entity does not stop the six month clock as to the right one. When ownership is genuinely unclear, the safe course is to present a timely claim to every entity that plausibly controls the location and let them sort out responsibility.

Be careful with private lookalikes too. Walkways inside shopping centers, apartment complexes, and hospital campuses are usually private property, which puts the case under ordinary premises liability rules and the two year deadline instead.

The Abutting Property Owner Question

People assume the homeowner or business in front of the broken slab is automatically responsible. That is not how California treats it.

Streets and Highways Code section 5610 does require the owner of property fronting a public street to maintain the abutting sidewalk so that it does not endanger people or property. But that duty has generally been understood to run to the public entity rather than to create automatic liability to an injured pedestrian. The city can require repairs and recover its costs, which is different from the owner owing you money because you fell.

The abutting owner does become a defendant in two situations. First, when the owner created the hazard or made an alteration for their own benefit, such as a driveway cut, a planted tree whose roots lifted the slab, or a repair done badly. Second, when a local ordinance expressly shifts liability for sidewalk injuries onto the fronting owner, as some California cities have enacted.

That distinction matters practically. A claim against a private owner runs on Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 and reaches a homeowners or commercial policy rather than a public treasury.

If You Are Already Past Six Months

This is not automatically over. Government Code section 911.4 allows you to apply to the entity for leave to present a late claim, and the application must be presented within a reasonable time and no later than one year after the cause of action accrued. The proposed claim goes with the application.

The grounds are specific. Mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect, provided the entity was not prejudiced by the delay. There are also separate grounds for a claimant who was a minor during the six months, or who was physically or mentally incapacitated, or who died during that period.

If the entity denies the application, you can petition the superior court for relief from the claim presentation requirement, and that petition carries its own short deadline. This is the one part of the process where waiting a few weeks genuinely can cost you the entire case, so treat a missed deadline as urgent rather than fatal.

What the Entity Will Argue Even When Notice Is Clear

Expect comparative fault. The defense will say you were looking at your phone, wearing unsuitable shoes, walking in the dark, or stepping around something you could plainly see. California reduces your recovery by your own percentage of fault rather than barring it, so these arguments shrink a case instead of ending it, as our discussion of comparative negligence explains.

Expect an immunity argument as well. Public entities have statutory protection for injuries caused by a feature of a design that was approved in advance by a body with discretionary authority, where substantial evidence supported its reasonableness. That defense fits roadway design far better than a slab lifted by a root, but it gets raised anyway.

When You Probably Do Not Need a Lawyer

Presenting the claim form is free, it is short, and you can do it yourself. If you scraped a knee, saw urgent care once, and lost no work, filing the claim on your own and taking a modest settlement is a reasonable outcome, and a contingency fee on that claim may leave you with less than you would have had.

What is not do it yourself work is a case with a fracture, surgery, a head injury, or a permanent limitation, or one where the entity denies notice, ownership is contested between two agencies, or you are already past six months. Those turn on records you have to know how to demand. The same is true of any serious injury claim against a government defendant.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I really only have six months to file against a city?

You have six months to present a written claim under Government Code section 911.2. The lawsuit comes later, but the claim is the gate, and you cannot get through it after the six months without a granted late claim application.

What if the city never responds to my claim?

Under Government Code section 912.4, if the entity takes no action within 45 days, the claim is deemed rejected by operation of law. Silence is not consent, and your deadline to sue starts running from that point.

How high does the sidewalk lift have to be?

There is no fixed number in the statute. The entity will call any small displacement a trivial defect, and the answer depends on the height together with lighting, debris, and jagged edges.

Can I sue the homeowner whose tree lifted the sidewalk?

Sometimes. Streets and Highways Code section 5610 puts a maintenance duty on the fronting owner, but liability to an injured pedestrian generally requires that the owner created the hazard, such as by planting the tree, or that a local ordinance shifts liability.

I fell eight months ago. Is it too late?

Not necessarily. Government Code section 911.4 allows an application for leave to present a late claim within one year of accrual on grounds such as excusable neglect, minority, or incapacity. After one year nothing can be done.

Does the two year deadline ever apply to a government claim?

Yes, in one situation. Under Government Code section 945.6, if the entity never sent you a written rejection, you have two years from accrual to file. You still had to present the claim within six months first.

Injured on a Public Sidewalk or Government Property? Geller Legal Can Help.

These cases are not usually lost on the merits. They are lost on a calendar nobody handed the injured person, and on notice evidence that sits in a city file until somebody requests it. The difference between a claim presented in month five and one presented in month seven is the entire case.

Geller Legal | Personal Injury Attorneys handles these cases with the detail they demand. We identify the correct entity before the clock runs, present the claim within the statutory window, and pull the complaint logs, work orders, and repair histories that show the city knew about the defect long before you found it.

We serve injured clients throughout California, with offices in Walnut Creek, Oakland, and Los Angeles. If you fell on a public sidewalk, a transit platform, a school walkway, or any government owned property, the date of your fall matters more right now than anything else about your case.

Contact Geller Legal for a free, confidential consultation with Attorney Michael Geller.