February 2013

“You snooze, you lose.” The time limit to file a lawsuit in court for personal injury or wrongful death in Georgia is two years. But the time to present a notice of claim to a city government when one is hurt or killed by a municipal government’s negligence or public nuisance — whether due to negligent operation of a city vehicle, dangerous conditions on city property, failure to replace a missing traffic sign or whatever —  is only six months.

O.C.G.A. § 36-33-5 requires that notice be provided to a municipality within 6 months of the  claim. We lawyers

If you wait for the two year statute of limitations to make a claim for serious personal injury or wrongful death against a state agency in Georgia, you will be out of luck.

The Georgia Tort Claims Act waives sovereign immunity up to  $1 million per person and $3 million per occurrence, subject to a long list of limitations that are beyond the scope of this post. Suit must be against the state agency rather than the individual state employee or official.

Where the Georgia Tort Claims Act applies, written notice of a claim must be provided within 12 months