Excessive Force During a DUI Stop and the Six-Month Claim Deadline

Attorney Answer

You may have a claim, but the state-law half of it carries a six-month clock that is already running, and it is the piece most people lose without ever knowing it existed.

There are two different tracks, with two different deadlines.

The federal track is 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the civil-rights vehicle for an excessive-force claim against the officers who stopped you. The question is whether the force used was objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, judged on the circumstances the officers faced. A lawful stop and a lawful arrest do not license unreasonable force — those are separate questions. In California, a § 1983 personal-injury claim carries the two-year period in Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1.

The state track is much shorter and has a step before suit. Any state-law claims — battery, negligence, the Bane Act — against the officers or their agency require presenting a written claim to the public entity within six months of accrual under Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2, and awaiting action on that claim under § 945.4 before filing suit. Section 950.6 applies the same prerequisite to a suit against the individual employee, and § 945.6 requires suit within six months after written notice that the claim was rejected. That claim-presentation requirement does not apply to the federal § 1983 claim — but if you skip it, the state claims are gone even though the federal one survives.

What you can do

1. Write down now, before memory fades: date, time, exact location, agency, officer names and badge numbers, patrol car numbers, and every witness's name and phone number. 2. Send the agency a written evidence-preservation demand for body-worn camera, dash-cam, station and jail booking video. These are erased on retention schedules measured in months. 3. Get your medical records and photograph every injury, even if it has healed — dated photos and treatment records are the case. 4. File the government claim form with the correct public entity within six months of the incident under § 911.2. You can do this yourself; the form is on the agency's website. Keep proof of delivery. 5. Request the police report and any use-of-force report through the agency's records process. 6. Keep contacting firms. The § 1983 claim runs on a longer clock than the state claim, so one rejection is not the end of it. 7. Do not discuss the force claim with the prosecutor's office, or post about it, while the criminal case is open.

⏱ Time limits apply. The government claim under Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2 must be presented within six months of accrual — that is the deadline nearest to expiring. If the claim is rejected, § 945.6 gives you six months from the written rejection notice to sue. The federal § 1983 claim carries California's two-year personal-injury period under Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1. Separately, if the officer handed you a notice of suspension for your driver's licence, that starts its own DMV clock measured in days, not months, and it runs independently of both the criminal case and this civil claim. Which dates apply to you depends on your specific facts.