If you’re hurt because of a private business’s negligence, you generally have two years to sue. But if you’re hurt because of a government entity — a dangerous public road, a fall in a municipal building, a NJ Transit bus, a county-owned property — a completely different and far less forgiving set of rules applies. It’s called the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, and the single most important thing to know about it is the clock.
The 90-day notice requirement
Under the Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 et seq., before you can ever file a lawsuit against a public entity, you must first serve a formal notice of claim within 90 days of the incident. That deadline comes from N.J.S.A. 59:8-8, and it is brutal: miss it without a valid excuse, and your right to sue the government can be permanently barred — even though the ordinary two-year statute of limitations hasn’t come close to running.
This is the trap that costs people legitimate cases. They assume they have two years (the normal injury filing deadline), wait a few months to deal with their injuries, and discover the government defendant has a defense that has nothing to do with the merits.
A higher bar to recover
The Act doesn’t just shorten the clock — it also raises the bar for what you can recover. Public entities enjoy broad immunities, and for pain-and-suffering damages, N.J.S.A. 59:9-2(d) imposes a permanent-injury threshold: you generally must show a permanent loss of a bodily function, permanent disfigurement, or dismemberment, plus medical-expense thresholds, before non-economic damages are available. This is conceptually similar to the verbal threshold that limits some auto cases, but it comes from a different statute and applies specifically to government defendants.
Common public-entity claims
- Dangerous condition of public property — a defective sidewalk, a pothole, an unsafe stairwell in a public building (governed by N.J.S.A. 59:4-2).
- NJ Transit and public bus or rail injuries.
- Public-school and public-hospital incidents.
- County and municipal vehicle collisions.
Each of these layers the Act’s immunities on top of ordinary premises-liability principles — for a “dangerous condition” claim, you have to show the entity had actual or constructive notice of the hazard and that its conduct was “palpably unreasonable,” a tougher standard than ordinary negligence.
Why early action is everything here
Because the notice window is 90 days and the proof standards are demanding, government cases are the ones you cannot afford to sit on. The notice has to be properly drafted and served on the right entity, the dangerous condition has to be documented before it’s repaired, and the permanent-injury question has to be built into the medical record from the start. New Jersey’s comparative-negligence rules still apply, so the investigation also has to account for the defense’s fault arguments.
If a government entity caused your injury, don’t wait
The 90-day notice clock starts the day you’re hurt, not the day you decide to do something about it. If a public road, a government vehicle, or public property injured you, the smartest move is to have it reviewed immediately — well before that window closes. The consultation is free.
Part of our complete guide: For every related New Jersey offense, claim, and defense in one place, see our NJ Personal Injury Guide.