How do I bring an injury claim against a city, county, or the State of Arizona?

180 days, not two years

The ordinary Arizona injury deadline is two years. Against the government, the first deadline arrives at 180 days: a formal notice of claim describing the facts and the basis for liability. This is not a lawsuit and not a letter of complaint; it is a statutory document with required contents, and the clock runs while people are still in treatment, still assuming they have plenty of time.

The specific-amount trap

Here is the requirement that quietly kills these cases: the notice must state a specific dollar amount for which the claim can be settled. Not a range, not "to be determined," not "policy limits." A number. Courts have thrown out claims for omitting it. And naming a responsible number 180 days after a serious injury requires real early work: records gathered, future care projected, a valuation done on a compressed schedule. It is one of the strongest reasons government cases cannot wait in a drawer.

Serve it on the right official

The notice has to reach the person authorized to receive it for that specific entity, the right clerk, board, or official, not just any employee, not just the department that hurt you. Serving the wrong office can be as fatal as serving nothing. Identifying the correct recipient for a city, a county, a school district, a state agency, or a public hospital is a research task with a deadline attached.

Then one year to sue

Surviving the notice stage buys a shortened lawsuit window: one year, not two. If the entity denies the claim or lets it die by silence, suit must follow inside that year. The combination, 180 days plus one year, makes government cases the fastest-moving matters in Arizona injury law.

Who counts as the government, and who gets more time

The rules reach cities, towns, counties, the state, school districts, public universities and hospitals, transit agencies, and public employees acting within their jobs. City buses, police pursuits, public pools, school injuries, falls on government property, crashes with government vehicles: all of it. Children and legally incapacitated people are treated differently on timing, but the only safe move is the same for everyone: treat every case that might involve a public entity as a 180-day emergency until a lawyer confirms otherwise.

Related: Arizona Claim Deadlines · Arizona Slip and Fall Cases · Arizona Pedestrian Claims · All Common Questions

Injured in Texas? Texas applies different rules to many of the topics on this page. See Suing the Government in Texas or all Texas answers.

This page is general information about Arizona law, not legal advice about your specific situation. Deadlines and outcomes depend on facts; talk to a lawyer about yours.