Filing Deadlines and Government Claims in Fresno County in Fresno, CA Six Months, Two Years and Local Filing Offices

The general period

When a death is traced to another party's wrongful conduct or carelessness, two years is the ordinary limitation period. That is the default for a private defendant and the number most families are told. It is not the applicable deadline against a public entity, and it is not the applicable deadline against a health care provider for professional negligence, where a three-year and one-year structure with limited tolling applies instead.

Sources: the two-year death provision, as FindLaw publishes it and the professional negligence provision

Six months, when a public entity is involved

Government Code section 911.2 gives a family six months from accrual to present a claim where the cause of action involves a death, bodily injury, personal property damage, or damage to growing crops, and one year for anything else. That presentation requirement comes before any lawsuit. A public entity here can mean a city, the county, a school or hospital district, a transit agency, an irrigation or water district, or the state, and a family often cannot tell from the facts of an incident that an agency is involved at all.

Source: Gov. Code § 911.2

What happens after a claim is acted on

Section 945.6 governs the suit deadline once a claim has been presented. Where written notice of rejection is given and served as the statute requires, the action must be commenced not later than six months after the notice is personally delivered or deposited in the mail. Where no such notice is given, the period is two years from accrual of the cause of action. Because that six-month period runs from a mailing date, the envelope and the date stamp on an agency letter are worth keeping as carefully as the letter itself.

Source: Gov. Code § 945.6

If the six months has already passed

Two provisions address late claims. Section 911.4 allows an application to the public entity for leave to present a late claim, which must be presented within a reasonable time not to exceed one year after the cause of action accrued. Section 946.6 allows a petition to the court for relief from the claim requirement where the application was denied or deemed denied, and it requires that the petition be filed within six months after the application is denied or deemed denied. These are relief mechanisms with their own deadlines, not extensions of the original one.

Sources: Gov. Code § 911.4 · § 946.6

Where a Fresno County claim is filed

The County of Fresno states that claims against the county must be filed with the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors, and it restates the statutory periods: six months for bodily injury or death, damage to personal property, or damage to growing crops, and one year for all other claims. The county's Claim for Damages form is available from that office, bills and estimates are to be attached, and claims must be submitted by mail or in person to the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors, Hall of Records, 2281 Tulare Street, Room 301, Fresno, CA 93721. The county states that claims are not accepted by email or fax.

Source: County of Fresno, Claims for Damages

Where a City of Fresno claim is filed

The City of Fresno directs claims to its Risk Management Division and states that a Claim for Damages form must be filed in duplicate, either in person or by mail, at 2600 Fresno Street, Room 1030, Fresno, CA 93721-3612. The city reproduces the same six-month statutory period covering death, personal injury, personal property, and growing-crop claims. Two agencies operating in the same city, with different offices and different filing requirements, is the ordinary situation rather than an unusual one.

Source: City of Fresno Risk Management

Claims involving the courts themselves

A claim against a judicial branch entity uses its own form, which Fresno County Superior Court publishes. It is a reminder that the correct procedure depends on the identity of the entity, and that identifying the right one is the first substantive task rather than a formality.

Source: Claim against judicial branch entity form

A workable calendar

Treat six months as the operative planning horizon whenever a road, a public building, a public vehicle, a district facility, or a public employee might be involved, and treat the two-year figure as the outer limit rather than the target. Keep a written list of every entity that could conceivably be responsible, with the date of the incident at the top. Where the estate's own claim is involved, the authority to bring it takes time to establish, and that time comes out of the same period.