Claiming Against A Public Entity After An E-Bike Road Crash

Attorney Answer

Both halves of this — your injuries and the bike — go into one claim, and if the road belongs to a public entity you have six months to present it, not two years and not three. That deadline is the part of your situation that can go wrong on its own.

Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2(a) requires a claim for death or for injury to a person or to personal property against a public entity to be presented not later than six months after the cause of action accrues. Read that phrase carefully: injury to person or to personal property. Your bike is personal property, so the roughly $300 of damage rides on the same six-month clock as the injuries. Against a private defendant it would be different — Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338(c)(1) gives three years for injuring goods or chattels, and Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 gives two years for personal injury. Against a public entity, six months covers both.

The first practical problem is identifying the entity. A city street, a county road and a state highway are each maintained by a different body, and presenting a claim to the wrong one does not preserve anything. If you are unsure, that is a question for a local attorney before the clock runs, not after.

The second is what the "bumps" actually were. A claim against a public entity for an injury caused by the condition of its property has its own statutory elements, including that the entity knew or should have known about the danger with time to fix it. If the feature was a failure in the pavement, that is one case. If it was something installed on purpose, a public entity has statutory defenses about approved designs that do not exist for private defendants. Neither of those is something to work out from the saddle — photographs and records decide it.

On what you can recover, Cal. Civ. Code § 3333 sets the measure: "For the breach of an obligation not arising from contract, the measure of damages, except where otherwise expressly provided by this Code, is the amount which will compensate for all the detriment proximately caused thereby, whether it could have been anticipated or not." That covers the repair or replacement of the bike as well as the harm to you.

And expect to be told you were riding too fast or should have seen them. That argument reduces a claim in California rather than ending it: applying Cal. Civ. Code § 1714(a), the Supreme Court in Daly v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal. 3d 725 (1978), described a pure comparative system in which a plaintiff's recovery is reduced only to the extent his own lack of reasonable care contributed to his injury.

What you can do

1. Go back and photograph the road feature now, from several angles, with something in frame for scale, plus any markings, signs or paint near it. Note the date and the nearest cross streets.

2. Photograph the bike's damage before repairing it, and keep the repair estimate or receipt.

3. Get checked by a doctor and say you came off an electric bike, so the cause is in the record. Keep every bill.

4. Ask the city or county for its claim form and present a written claim covering both the injuries and the bike. Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2(a) gives six months from accrual, and there is no fee to present it.

5. Request, in writing, any prior complaints, work orders, inspection records or repair history for that section of roadway.

6. Ask a local attorney which entity maintains that road and whether the feature was a defect or an installed device.

Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2(a) is the deadline that matters: six months from accrual to present the claim to the public entity, covering the injuries and the bike together. If a private party turns out to be responsible instead, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1's two years and § 338(c)(1)'s three years apply. Which is which depends on your facts, so have a local attorney check the dates now.