Colorado 182-Day Government Claim Notice

Colorado's ordinary car-crash lawsuit deadline is three years under C.R.S. § 13-80-101. The deadline that kills claims against a city, county, or state agency is shorter. Under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, C.R.S. § 24-10-109(1), anyone claiming injury by a public entity or public employee must file a written notice of claim within 182 days after discovering the injury, whether or not they then knew every element of the claim. The statute calls that filing a jurisdictional prerequisite. Miss it, and the action is forever barred — even when the crash facts are strong and the medical bills are documented. A city plow, county road defect, RTD bus, or municipal sidewalk can look like a normal injury file for months. By the time someone searches colorado notice of claim government entity, the 182-day window may already be closed. This guide teardowns the notice itself: what must be in it, who it goes to, and what a late notice costs.

Existing video on Colorado's 182-day government claim notice

This topic is also covered in an existing short video on Conduit Law's video page. The video is not new for this article. It walks through the same 182-day written-notice rule for injuries involving a city, county, or state agency.

Prefer the standalone watch page? Watch Colorado's 182-Day Government Claim Dead Video

Watch the existing video at conduit.law/videos/colorado-notice-of-claim-government-entity. General information only, not legal advice.

The 182-day notice is not the lawsuit deadline

The colorado 182 day claim notice is a written precondition, not the complaint you later file in district court. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(1) says any person claiming injury by a public entity or by an employee in the course of employment shall file the written notice within one hundred eighty-two days after the date of the discovery of the injury. The same subsection says compliance is a jurisdictional prerequisite to any action under Article 10, and failure forever bars the action. That is a different legal object from the statute of limitations that governs when the lawsuit itself may be filed. Colorado's motor-vehicle injury filing window is generally three years under C.R.S. § 13-80-101. Many other injury claims run two years under C.R.S. § 13-80-102. People who only calendar the lawsuit date, and treat a city or county crash like a private-driver claim, can lose a valid case while they still think they have years left. The notice clock and the lawsuit clock run on different statutes, and the shorter one is the one that silently ends the file.

Our Colorado personal injury statute of limitations post mentions the 182-day government notice in passing. This article owns the notice job: the contents, the addressee, the service method, and the consequence of a late or empty letter. For crash claims that do not involve a public entity, start with the Denver car accident lawyer page. For the broader injury framework, see Denver personal injury lawyer.

What the notice must contain

C.R.S. § 24-10-109(2) is a checklist, not a suggestion. The notice shall contain five items: the name and address of the claimant and of the attorney, if any; a concise statement of the factual basis of the claim, including the date, time, place, and circumstances of the act, omission, or event; the name and address of any public employee involved, if known; a concise statement of the nature and the extent of the injury claimed to have been suffered; and a statement of the amount of monetary damages that is being requested. Courts have been more flexible about the completeness of those contents than about the 182-day deadline itself. That split matters. A thin letter that still identifies the event and the injury may survive a contents challenge. A perfect letter mailed on day 183 does not. The teardown below is the actual statutory list, not a marketing template. If a field is unknown, say so in the notice rather than leaving a blank that later looks like concealment. Date, time, place, and a plain description of what happened are the parts that let the entity investigate while evidence still exists.

The five statutory fields

C.R.S. § 24-10-109(2)	What the notice must say	Why it is there
(2)(a)	Claimant name and address; attorney name and address if any	Tells the entity who is claiming and where to send a response
(2)(b)	Concise factual basis: date, time, place, and circumstances	Lets the entity pull video, logs, and the right vehicle or location
(2)(c)	Name and address of any public employee involved, if known	Required only if known; do not guess a name you cannot support
(2)(d)	Concise statement of the nature and extent of the injury	Separates a property scrape from a surgery or a death claim
(2)(e)	Statement of the monetary damages requested	A number or a stated range; this is a notice, not a settlement demand

If the claim is for death by wrongful act or omission, C.R.S. § 24-10-109(4) lets the personal representative, surviving spouse, or next of kin present the notice. That is a standing rule for the notice, not a substitute for Colorado's separate wrongful-death filing rules.

Substantial compliance vs. the deadline

Colorado case law has long treated the 182-day filing requirement in subsection (1) more strictly than the contents list in subsection (2). In Mesa County Valley School District No. 51 v. Kelsey, 8 P.3d 1200 (Colo. 2000), the Colorado Supreme Court held that failure to comply with § 24-10-109(1) requires dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, and that the provision is a non-claim statute not subject to equitable defenses such as waiver, tolling, or estoppel. City & County of Denver v. Crandall, 161 P.3d 627 (Colo. 2007), follows the same line. Contents defects can sometimes be cured by substantial compliance if the entity received enough information to investigate. A late notice cannot. That is the contrarian point for anyone who thinks strong crash facts will carry a late government claim: the facts never get reached if the court lacks jurisdiction.

“Compliance with the provisions of this section shall be a jurisdictional prerequisite to any action brought under the provisions of this article, and failure of compliance shall forever bar any such action.” — C.R.S. § 24-10-109(1)

Who the notice goes to

A notice sent to the wrong desk can be as fatal as a notice sent late. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(3)(a) splits the addressee by defendant. If the claim is against the state or a state employee, the notice shall be filed with the Attorney General. If the claim is against any other public entity or an employee of that entity, the notice shall be filed with the governing body of the public entity or the attorney representing the public entity. The same subsection says the notice is effective upon mailing by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, or upon personal service. Ordinary first-class mail, an email to a generic inbox, or a message left with a driver is not the statutory method. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(3)(b) adds a safe harbor: a notice properly filed with a public entity's agent listed in the inventory of local governmental entities under C.R.S. § 24-32-116 is deemed to satisfy the section. Identifying the correct entity is part of the notice job, not a later discovery problem.

State claims vs. city and county claims

C.R.S. § 24-10-103(5) defines a public entity broadly: the state, counties, municipalities, school districts, special districts, and other political subdivisions, plus certain separate entities created by intergovernmental contract. That is why a crash that “looks private” can still be a government claim. An RTD bus, a city snowplow, a county road crew, a school-district van, or a sidewalk maintained by a municipality can all put a public entity in the case. Filing with the wrong city because two towns share a corridor does not automatically save the claim against the entity that actually owned the risk. The 2026 Colorado Supreme Court decision in Mostellar v. City of Colorado Springs held that the 182-day period runs from discovery of the injury, not from later learning which public entity was responsible, and that strict compliance with § 24-10-109(1) is still required.

How the notice is served

Keep the certified-mail receipt, the return card, and a complete copy of what was sent. Personal service should be documented the same way any other legal service is documented. The statute does not treat a police report number, a claim-file number, or a recorded statement as a substitute for that mailing or service. If more than one public entity may be involved — a city street, a county road, a state highway, a transit district — calendar a notice to each plausible entity inside the 182-day window rather than waiting for someone else to name the right defendant.

What happens if the notice is late

A late notice does not become a smaller claim. It becomes no claim against that public entity. Because § 24-10-109(1) is jurisdictional, the defense does not have to win on fault, causation, or damages. The court never reaches those issues if the notice is late. In Mostellar, the claimant timely notified one municipality and later learned, after the 182 days had run, that a second city was the responsible maintainer under an intergovernmental agreement. The Supreme Court still required dismissal of the untimely entity. That is the harsh reading of “discovery of the injury,” and it is the current published rule. The cost of a late notice is not a filing fee. Hypothetical only, not a Conduit result: if a timely government claim would have been the only recovery path on a serious injury file, missing the letter can zero out that path even when the crash facts are undisputed. There is no Conduit settlement figure attached to that example.

The jurisdictional bar

Kelsey and Crandall are the cases lawyers actually cite when a notice is late. They describe a non-claim statute. Equitable arguments that sometimes save an ordinary limitations problem — the entity knew about the crash, an adjuster kept talking, someone was misled about which department to call — generally do not restart the 182 days. The statute itself also says the claimant need not have known all elements of the claim when the injury was discovered. Waiting to “finish treatment” or “find out what the claim is worth” is not a statutory exception.

The 90-day wait before suit

A timely notice still does not authorize an immediate lawsuit. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(6) says no action shall be commenced until the claimant has received notice that the public entity denied the claim, or until 90 days have passed after the notice of claim was filed, whichever occurs first. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(5) then sends the lawsuit itself back to the ordinary Title 13 limitations periods, with a narrow extension if the 90-day wait would otherwise cause the suit deadline to expire. In other words: file the notice early, wait out denial or 90 days, then still file the case inside the three-year or two-year window that applies to that injury type.

Which injuries actually trigger the CGIA notice

The notice requirement applies when the injury is claimed against a public entity or a public employee in the course of employment. It is not limited to car crashes, and it is not limited to cases that look “governmental” on day one. C.R.S. § 24-10-106(1) is the waiver list — the categories where sovereign immunity is waived at all. The most common crash and street injuries on that list are the operation of a motor vehicle owned or leased by the public entity, by a public employee in the course of employment, under § 24-10-106(1)(a), and a dangerous condition of a public highway, road, street, or sidewalk under § 24-10-106(1)(d). A dangerous condition of a public building is waived under § 24-10-106(1)(c). Immunity is the default. The waiver is the exception. Even when a waiver exists, the 182-day notice is still required except for the narrow sexual-misconduct-against-a-minor waiver carved out by § 24-10-109(7) and § 24-10-106(1)(j).

Motor vehicles and road defects

C.R.S. § 24-10-103(2.7) defines motor vehicle to include a motor vehicle under C.R.S. § 42-1-102 and a light-rail car or engine owned or leased by a public entity. That is why an RTD bus or light-rail injury can be a CGIA notice case. Operation of an emergency vehicle inside the privileges of C.R.S. § 42-4-108(2) and (3) is carved out of the motor-vehicle waiver. Road-defect claims are also narrower than people expect: “physically interferes with the movement of traffic” does not include traffic signs, signals, or markings, or the lack of them, except for the specific stop-sign and conflicting-signal failures listed in § 24-10-106(1)(d)(II). Snow, ice, sand, or gravel on a roadway can be a dangerous condition only when the entity failed to use existing means after actual notice and a reasonable time to act.

Public buildings, sidewalks, and transit

A fall on a municipal sidewalk, a defect at a public building, or a passenger thrown on a public bus can all be government claims even when no private driver is involved. RTD-specific transit facts are covered in RTD bus accident claims in Colorado and on the Denver bus accident lawyer page. Those pages do not replace this notice teardown. If the at-fault vehicle may be public, say so in the first call so the 182-day calendar is set before medical treatment is finished. Judgment amounts against public entities are also separately limited by C.R.S. § 24-10-114, which starts at $350,000 for one person in a single occurrence and $990,000 for two or more persons, then requires a Consumer Price Index adjustment certified by the Secretary of State every four years. Those are statutory caps, not case results.

Elliot Singer, Esq.
Conduit Law, LLC
About Elliot · Denver car accident lawyer · Contact the firm

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Colorado government-claim deadlines are strict, jurisdictional, and fact-specific. Every case is unique, and past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Reading this does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you think a city, county, school district, transit agency, or other public entity may be involved, talk to a lawyer licensed in Colorado before the 182-day window closes.

If a government vehicle, public road, or public property may be in your Colorado injury claim, time is the first issue. Conduit Law offers a free consultation. Call (720) 432-7032 or start on the Denver car accident lawyer page.