If someone in your family has a serious brain injury, the deadline problem is the one to deal with first, and it is worse than it looks.
Where a public entity is involved, a written claim has to be presented within six months. The person who would normally present it may be the person least able to. That is a real problem and the law has an answer to it. That answer runs out after a year for most people, and the year is paused while an incapacitated person has nobody appointed to act for them. Either way it is worth raising now rather than when things have settled down.
Is someone in the hospital and a deadline running?
Six months if a public entity is involved, and there is a route if it has passed. One conversation establishes where you stand.
The Deadlines, Set Out Plainly
Two years from the date of injury for an ordinary claim against a private person or company, under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1.
Paused while the injured person lacks legal capacity. Code of Civil Procedure 352 pauses the ordinary limitation period while a person lacks the legal capacity to make decisions, and equally while they are under the age of majority.
But subdivision (b) takes that pause away where it would matter most. It says the section does not apply to an ACTION against a public entity or a public employee on a cause of action for which a claim must be presented. Read that carefully, because it is wider than the presentation deadline: incapacity pauses nothing at all on this route. Not the six months to present the claim, and not the deadline to file the lawsuit afterwards. Anyone told that a brain-injured person’s deadline is automatically on hold has been told half the law.
Six months to present a written claim where a public entity is involved, under Government Code 911.2 and Chapter 1.05 of the Riverside Municipal Code. The statute runs the six months from when the cause of action accrues, which is usually the date of the incident but is not always, and that distinction matters where a brain injury is not recognized right away. The City states it as six months from the occurrence.
Separately, Government Code 945.4 bars a lawsuit for money damages until that claim has been presented and the entity has either acted on it or is treated as having rejected it. A claim the entity simply ignores is deemed rejected once the 45 days are up, which is what allows the lawsuit to proceed.
The Part That Matters Most Here: Late Claims and Incapacity
This is the section to read if six months has already gone.
Government Code 911.4 allows a written application to the entity for permission to present a late claim, within a reasonable time and no more than one year after the claim arose.
Government Code 911.6 then says the board shall grant that application on any of several grounds. Three of them arise constantly in brain injury cases:
- The injured person was physically or mentally incapacitated during the whole six months and for that reason did not present a claim.
- **The injured person was physically or mentally incapacitated during ANY part of the six months** and for that reason did not present a claim, where the application is made within six months of the incapacity ending or a year after the claim accrued, whichever comes first. **This is the ground most brain injury claimants actually fall under**, and it is the one that gets left off other pages.
- The injured person was a minor during the whole six months, or during any part of it, in which case the application must be made within six months of their eighteenth birthday or a year after the claim accrued, whichever comes first.
- The injured person died before the six months expired.
There is also a broader ground: mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect, where the public entity was not prejudiced in defending the claim by the delay.
If the entity refuses the application, or does not act on it within its own 45 days, Government Code 946.6 allows a petition to the court. That petition has to be filed within six months of the day the application was denied or deemed denied, and if the court grants relief, the lawsuit itself has to be filed within 30 days after that.
The one-year outer limit is firm for most people, and there is one exception worth knowing. Under Government Code 911.4(c), time during which the injured person is mentally incapacitated and has no guardian or conservator is not counted toward that year. Time during which they were a minor is counted. If more than a year has gone and nobody was ever appointed to act for the injured person, that is a reason to ask rather than to assume.
Nothing here is automatic. The word “shall” in 911.6 is doing real work, but somebody still has to make the application and evidence the ground.
Six months gone while someone was in no state to act?
That is a ground on which the application must be granted. It is not automatic, and the year is paused while nobody is appointed to act.
The Deadline Almost Nobody Is Told About
Presenting the claim is not the last clock. Once the entity mails or delivers a written rejection, Government Code 945.6 gives you six months from the date of that notice to file suit. That is shorter than the window you have just been through.
If the entity never sends a written rejection, the period is two years from when the cause of action accrued instead. So a claim that is ignored leaves more time than one that is formally rejected, which is the opposite of what most people expect.
Who Can Act, and What Happens to a Settlement
Where an injured adult cannot manage their own affairs, someone has to be appointed to act for them before a claim can be settled, and a settlement reached on their behalf needs court approval. For a child, Riverside Superior Court takes that petition in its Probate division rather than in the civil case itself, which is worth knowing because it is a separate step with its own timetable.
That is worth knowing early for a practical reason. It is a step with its own timetable, and an insurer’s offer is not the end of the process even once everyone agrees on the number.
Where the Claim Goes
City Clerk’s Office, City of Riverside, 3900 Main Street, Riverside, CA 92522.
The City’s own claims page sets it out: claims for death or injury to a person must be filed within six months after the cause of action accrues, under Government Code 911.2 and Chapter 1.05 of the Riverside Municipal Code, which the City states as six months from the occurrence. Claims may be filed online through the City’s portal, in person, or by US Mail. The Office of the City Attorney processes them, not the Clerk, on (951) 826-5896.
The entity then has 45 days under Government Code 912.4.
And the City is not the only public entity. A county road, a school district, a transit agency or a state facility each has its own claims process, and a claim sent to the wrong one does not stop the clock against the right one.
What These Claims Are Actually Built From
Not from a description of symptoms, which is the client’s and the doctors’ territory rather than ours. What a claim is built from is documentation, and the useful thing to know is which documents matter and how quickly they stop existing.
- The medical record from the first hours, including what was recorded at the scene and on arrival. That record is often made when nobody yet knows how serious things are.
- The collision or incident report, which for a Riverside road collision comes from the city’s own police department.
- Evidence of what the person was like before, which is routinely the hardest thing to assemble later and the most persuasive when it exists. Work records, messages, and accounts from people who knew them.
- A record of what changed, kept as it happens rather than reconstructed months on.
Getting the Collision Report
If a road collision caused the injury, the Riverside Police Department holds the report.
- $20.00 in person at the front counter, 10540 Magnolia Avenue, Suite B, Riverside, CA 92505.
- Online for an additional $10.00 through the department’s LexisNexis eCrash service.
- A report involving a fatality, or an on-duty emergency vehicle, is not available online. It comes only from the Police Department.
- Reports are available about 10 working days after the incident.
- Records Bureau: (951) 826-5700, option 2. Mail requests need a check or money order payable to the City of Riverside.
Riverside Brain Injury FAQs
Can you sue someone for brain damage?
Yes, where someone else’s negligence caused it. The claim is an ordinary personal injury claim in law, and what makes it different in practice is the scale of what has to be proved and the number of people who have to be involved in proving it. If a public entity was responsible, the six-month claim deadline applies and matters a great deal more than the two-year one.
My relative cannot make decisions. Is the deadline paused?
Partly, and the distinction is important. Code of Civil Procedure 352 pauses the ordinary limitation period while a person lacks legal capacity. Subdivision (b) says that pause does not apply to a claim that has to be presented to a public entity, so the six months keeps running. What exists instead is the late-claim route under Government Code 911.4 and 911.6, and incapacity throughout the six months is a ground on which it shall be granted.
The six months has already passed. Is it over?
Not necessarily, and this is worth asking about rather than assuming. Government Code 911.4 allows a late-claim application within a reasonable time and no more than a year after the claim arose, and 911.6 requires it to be granted where the person was incapacitated for the whole six months, was a minor, or died before it expired. It is not automatic, and the sooner it is raised the better.
What should I not tell the attorney?
Nothing. The conversation is confidential, and the facts that feel damaging, a previous head injury, a gap before seeing a doctor, a share of the responsibility, are exactly the ones that need handling properly rather than hiding. They surface anyway and are far easier to deal with early.
How hard is it to win a personal injury lawsuit?
It depends far more on evidence than on argument, and many claims never reach a trial at all. What makes a serious injury claim difficult is usually proving the extent of what was lost rather than proving who was at fault. That is why the records described above matter so much.
Does my immigration status affect the claim?
No. Under Evidence Code 351.2, evidence of a person’s immigration status is not admissible in a civil action for personal injury or wrongful death, and discovery into it is not permitted either. It cannot be raised at trial and it cannot be asked about beforehand. It is not a question we ask you, and not one the other side gets to ask.
Contact a Culver Legal Riverside Brain Injury Lawyer
If a public entity was involved there is a separate six-month deadline to present a written claim to it, alongside the ordinary two years, and incapacity does not pause it. If it has already gone there is a late-claim route, and the year it runs on is paused while nobody has been appointed to act. We speak Spanish. Call (310) 600-7881 at any hour. The review costs nothing.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Culver Legal, LLP is a California law firm. The information on this page is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
