Colorado Government Vehicle Accidents- The 182-Day Rule.

You're stopped at a red light on Broadway when an RTD bus takes the corner wide and runs into your car. You got hit by a government vehicle in Colorado. The driver's professional about it. A supervisor shows up. Reports get filed. Everything about it feels official and orderly, so you handle it the way you'd handle any other crash. You start medical treatment. You figure the claim can wait until you know exactly what your injuries and damages actually are. After all, Colorado gives you three years to file a car accident lawsuit. We've covered that in our other videos, and it's usually true. Except it's not the full truth in cases where you got hit by a government vehicle. And by the time most people find that out, their claim is already dead. When the vehicle that hits you belongs to the government, a completely different set of rules takes over. The Colorado Governmental Immunity Act. And buried inside that act is the shortest, most unforgiving deadline in Colorado injury law. 182 days. Miss that deadline, and it doesn't matter how badly you were hurt or how clearly the bus driver was at fault. The courthouse door is closed. Start with the basics. Governments in Colorado are generally immune from injury lawsuits. That's the default. The Governmental Immunity Act, CRS 24-10-101, and the sections that follow, carves out specific exceptions where that immunity is waived. And one of the biggest is the operation of a motor vehicle by a public employee on the job. So, yes, you can bring a claim when an RTD bus hits you, or a city utility truck, or a CDOT snowplow, or a school district van, or a county fleet vehicle. The waiver exists, but it comes with conditions an ordinary claim never has. One caution before we get to the deadline. Emergency vehicles are in their own category. A police car or ambulance responding to an emergency gets additional protection under the law. Those cases can still be brought in some circumstances, but the analysis is way harder. That will be its own video. Let's get back to the deadline track. Under CRS 24-10-109, you must serve written notice of a claim within 182 days after you discover the injury. You don't have to file a lawsuit in that time. You just need to serve a formal written notice that contains specific information. Who you are, what happened, when and where, the nature of the injury, and the damages you're claiming. It has to go to the right recipient, which depends on the entity. For claims against the state, it goes to the Attorney General. Colorado courts treat this deadline as jurisdictional. That's the legal word for no mercy. Delay is not forgiven because you were in the hospital, because you didn't know the rule, or because the entity's own adjuster was talking to you the whole time. On day 183, the claim is gone. Think about what 182 days actually means. Six months. That's often before treatment is finished. Before you know if you need surgery. Before most ordinary claims would even be ready to fully evaluate. But the notice has to go out anyway. You have to preserve the claim first, and then the case develops after. That's exactly what has to be done in these cases. After the notice goes out, the entity gets time to respond. You generally cannot file the lawsuit until the claim is denied or 90 days pass, whichever comes first. The system is built with waiting periods on both ends, which is one more reason the six months window disappears faster than people expect. There's a second difference in these cases. Caps. Under Colorado law, recovery against a public entity is capped by statute. For claims arising on or after January 1st, 2026, the cap is $505,000 for an injury to one person and $1.421 million total per occurrence, no matter how many people were hurt. Those numbers adjust every four years, and public entities do not pay punitive damages in Colorado, period. Those caps are real money, but in catastrophic injury cases, they change the strategy. Part of the job in a government vehicle case is looking hard at whether anyone else shares liability. A private contractor driving for the government is not always covered by immunity, and that distinction can be everything. Here's a real world example. You get sideswiped by a city utility truck on Federal Boulevard in February. You have shoulder surgery in April. You spend the spring doing exactly what you were told to do, treating, keeping records, waiting for the full picture before making a claim. Then you call our office in month five because the city's adjuster has stopped returning calls. We do everything we can, and we get your notice out on day 180, just two days before the deadline. If you had waited until treatment ended the way you reasonably would in any other case, you would have had a good case, but no way to bring it. Here's the checklist for a government vehicle craft. Identify the vehicle owner at the scene. Photograph logos, unit numbers, and plates. If there's any government connection at all, even maybe, assume the 182-day clock is running. Get legal advice early, not after treatment, and do not assume the entity's claims adjuster will warn you about the deadline. They're under no obligation to, and the deadline works entirely in their favor. If you were hit by an RTD bus, a snowplow, or any government vehicle in Denver or anywhere in Colorado, call CGH at 3035 million or visit cghlawfirm.com. Do it this week, not after physical therapy, and drop a comment. Have you ever dealt with a claim against a government entity? Tell us how it went.