How to Sue RTD: CGIA Notice Checklist

People who search suing RTD for an accident usually have two clocks in mind and only one of them is the one that can end the claim. Colorado's ordinary motor-vehicle lawsuit deadline is three years under C.R.S. § 13-80-101. An injury claimed against the Regional Transportation District is a claim against a public entity. Under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, C.R.S. § 24-10-109(1), a written notice of claim must be filed within 182 days after the date of discovery of the injury, whether or not the claimant then knew every element of the claim. The statute calls that filing a jurisdictional prerequisite. Miss it, and the action against RTD is forever barred — even when the crash facts are clean and the medical bills are documented. This page is the checklist. It is general information, not legal advice. The deeper teardowns live on Colorado's 182-day government claim notice and RTD bus accident claims in Colorado. Transit injury representation is on the Denver bus accident lawyer page.

1. Confirm CGIA applies. RTD is a public entity. A written notice is required when the injury is claimed against that entity or a public employee in the course of employment. A private shuttle or charter usually is not the same case.
2. Calendar 182 days from discovery of the injury. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(1). Practitioners often treat it as a 180-day emergency so a calendar error does not become a jurisdictional bar.
3. Write the five statutory fields. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(2): claimant (and attorney) name and address; date, time, place, and circumstances; public employee if known; nature and extent of injury; monetary damages requested.
4. Send it to the right desk. For a non-state public entity, file with the governing body or the attorney representing the entity. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(3)(a).
5. Use certified or registered mail, return receipt requested — or personal service. Keep the receipt, the green card, and a complete copy of what was sent. An email, a 911 call, or a conversation with the driver is not the statutory method.
6. Preserve the evidence that overwrites. Bus or car number, route, stop, time, onboard and platform video, telematics, and witness names. Reporting the crash is not the same as locking the footage.
7. Wait for denial or 90 days, then sue inside the ordinary Title 13 deadline. C.R.S. § 24-10-109(6) and (5). The notice is not the lawsuit. The three-year motor-vehicle clock still has to be met.

“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)

Step 1 — Confirm the CGIA notice applies to this RTD crash

The notice requirement in C.R.S. § 24-10-109(1) applies when the injury is claimed against a public entity or a public employee acting in the course of employment. C.R.S. § 24-10-103(5) defines a public entity broadly: the state, counties, municipalities, school districts, special districts, and other political subdivisions. The Regional Transportation District is that kind of entity. Immunity is still the default. The waiver that most often opens an RTD crash file is C.R.S. § 24-10-106(1)(a) — operation of a motor vehicle owned or leased by the public entity, by a public employee in the course of employment. 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 injury and an RTD rail-car injury can both be CGIA notice cases. Platform falls, boarding-gap injuries, and grade-crossing collisions bring their own proof problems, covered in the Denver light rail accident guide. A dangerous condition of a public highway, road, street, or sidewalk can be a separate waiver under § 24-10-106(1)(d). If the vehicle is RTD, set the 182-day calendar before treatment is finished.

Private shuttles and mixed crashes

A privately owned shuttle, charter, hotel van, or airport contractor usually does not create the same CGIA notice issue. Those files often run on the ordinary three-year motor-vehicle deadline under C.R.S. § 13-80-101. The gray area is mixed control: an RTD bus hit by a private driver, or a public vehicle serviced by a private vendor. Treat those as two analyses — government notice for the public entity, ordinary auto or commercial rules for everyone else. The private driver’s insurer does not absorb the public-entity deadline. Under Colorado’s modified comparative negligence rule, C.R.S. § 13-21-111, recovery is reduced by the claimant’s share of fault and is barred at 50 percent. That is a damages rule, not a notice rule. Hypothetical only, not a Conduit result: a passenger with documented injuries and a clear hard-stop on video still has no claim against RTD if the written notice never arrived inside 182 days.

Step 2 — Calendar the 182-day clock

C.R.S. § 24-10-109(1) starts the written-notice period on the date of discovery of the injury, whether or not the claimant then knew every element of the claim. That is a different legal object from the lawsuit deadline. Colorado motor-vehicle injury suits generally run 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 an RTD crash like a private-driver claim, can lose the public-entity case while they still think they have years left. The 2026 Colorado Supreme Court decision in Mostellar v. City of Colorado Springs held that the 182 days run from discovery of the injury, not from later learning which public entity was responsible. Waiting to finish treatment, or to “find out what the claim is worth,” is not a statutory exception.

Discovery of the injury, not the entity

In Mostellar, a claimant timely notified one municipality and later learned, after 182 days, that a second city was the responsible maintainer under an intergovernmental agreement. The Supreme Court still required dismissal of the untimely entity. If more than one public entity may be in the file — RTD, a city street, a county road, a school-district vehicle — calendar a notice to each plausible entity inside the window. Mesa County Valley School District No. 51 v. Kelsey, 8 P.3d 1200 (Colo. 2000), and City & County of Denver v. Crandall, 161 P.3d 627 (Colo. 2007), treat § 24-10-109(1) as a non-claim statute. Equitable arguments that sometimes save an ordinary limitations problem generally do not restart the 182 days.

Step 3 — Put the five statutory fields in the letter

C.R.S. § 24-10-109(2) is a checklist, not a suggestion. Courts have been more flexible about the completeness of those contents than about the 182-day deadline itself. 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. If a field is unknown, say so in the notice rather than leaving a blank that later looks like concealment. Date, time, place, route, vehicle number, and a plain description of what happened are the parts that let RTD pull video and logs while they still exist. The five statutory fields are in the table.

Substantial compliance vs. a late letter

Kelsey held that failure to comply with § 24-10-109(1) requires dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Contents defects can sometimes be cured by substantial compliance if the entity received enough information to investigate. A late notice cannot. If the claim is for death, 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.

Step 4 — Send it to the right desk, the statutory way

C.R.S. § 24-10-109(3)(a) splits the addressee by defendant. If the claim is against the state or a state employee, file with the Attorney General. If the claim is against any other public entity or its employee — and RTD is in that second group — file with the governing body or the attorney representing the public entity. The notice is effective upon mailing by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, or upon personal service. Ordinary first-class mail, an email, a customer-service ticket, 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 under C.R.S. § 24-32-116 is deemed to satisfy the section.

Certified mail, return receipt requested

Keep the certified-mail receipt, the return card, and a complete copy of what was sent. The statute does not treat a police report number, an RTD incident-card number, or a recorded statement as a substitute. If a claims representative asks for a recorded statement — “Were you holding the rail?” is a common one — you can keep communication in writing until counsel has reviewed the file. A recorded answer can later be used to argue comparative fault under C.R.S. § 13-21-111. That conversation still does not satisfy § 24-10-109.

Step 5 — Preserve the evidence that overwrites

Onboard and platform video can overwrite on a short cycle. Passenger names may never make it into a police report. The vehicle number, route, stop, direction, and exact time may be the difference between the right footage and a “no record” letter. The RTD bus accident claims guide walks through the evidence map; the list below is the minimum to lock down inside the same window as the notice.

1. Identify the vehicle. Bus or car number, route number, stop or station, direction of travel, date, and exact time.
2. Ask for the video. Onboard cameras, exterior cameras, platform or stop cameras, and nearby business cameras.
3. Ask for the operator file. Identity, training, prior complaints, route assignment, dispatch traffic, and the incident report.
4. Ask for the telematics. Hard-braking, GPS, speed, event-recorder, and schedule-adherence data.
5. Ask for maintenance. Inspection sheets, defect reports, brake/tire/door records, and contractor work orders if a vendor serviced the vehicle.
6. Keep the scene proof. 911 audio, police reports, bodycam, witness names, passenger contacts, photos, and ticket or app receipts.
7. Tie the medicine to the event. Records that connect the crash to concussion symptoms, spine injuries, fractures, or other claimed harm.

Passengers get off the bus and disappear. If you can safely collect names, numbers, and a photo of the vehicle, do it. Reporting the incident to RTD customer service can help prove the event happened. It is not the statutory notice, and it is not a preservation letter.

Step 6 — Wait 90 days (or a denial), then file inside ordinary limits

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 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. File the notice early, wait out denial or 90 days, then still file inside the three-year or two-year window. The notice preserves the right to sue RTD. It does not file the case.

Statutory judgment caps are not case results

Judgment amounts against public entities are 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 Conduit results. A private driver in the same crash is not automatically inside those caps.

What does not count as notice

The steps people take in the first week after an RTD crash are useful. Almost none of them are the notice. A police report, a 911 call, an incident card, a customer-service ticket, a claim-file number, or a conversation with an adjuster may help prove the event happened. C.R.S. § 24-10-109 still requires a written notice with specific contents, served on the governing body, the entity’s attorney, or a listed agent, by registered or certified mail with return receipt requested or by personal service. Talking to the people who already know about the crash does not restart a missed 182-day clock. File the notice, wait, then sue. Those are three different acts.

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

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 RTD or another public entity may be involved, talk to a lawyer licensed in Colorado before the 182-day window closes.

If an RTD bus, rail car, or other public transit vehicle may be in your Colorado injury claim, time is the first issue. Conduit Law offers a free consultation. Start on the Denver bus accident lawyer page or the contact page.