Navigating the Complexities of Suing Government Facilities
Recently, I’ve had some calls on civil rights cases where people want to sue a jail or some other government entity for a mishap. What happens is they are told, generally speaking, by attorneys or people that have some legal contact, that, well, that’s a negligence case, duty, breach of duty, causation of damages, so the statute of limitations is two years.
Well, that’s generally, most of the time, very accurate. Unfortunately, I’ve received a number of phone calls recently where it wasn’t accurate because what happened was the legal entity that should be brought to bear and held accountable for the misconduct or the negligence is some kind of government entity. The rules are different when you sue Big Brother.
The One-Year Rule
The rules are one year. Within one year, you must serve a notice on the government entity and essentially put them on notice that, hey, I intend to sue you for negligence in this or a violation of my civil rights in that. Then they get to sit on that for a period of time and decide, we’ll investigate it. Are we going to do that? Are we going to hold ourselves accountable? Are we going to say no? Nah, I think I’m going to say no, but they don’t tell you.
So after three months passes, now it’s time to go ahead and file your lawsuit immediately. So if you’re going to sue a government entity, don’t trust that two years. You’ve got one year. The clock ticks awfully fast and many lawyers will not handle those cases because they are the exception to the rule. There’s more procedures. On a rare case, we will handle governmental tort claims cases.
Get a Free Consultation Today
If you believe you have a case against a jail or government facility for negligence or a violation of your civil rights, don’t hesitate to take action. Contact us at TulsaPersonalInjuryLawyer.pro for a free consultation. Our experienced team will guide you through the process and fight for your rights. Call us at 918-924-5528 now.
