Can I Sue a Public Entity for a Personal Injury?

In New York, you can in fact sue a public entity like a school or a municipality, perhaps a state or a county or a town. And they can be sued for different types of personal interactions just like a private person or a private company. So different types of cases that we see involving public entities include injuries on property. These could be slip or trip and falls on dangerous conditions. They could be negligent supervision or security cases or they could be car accident cases.

Perhaps there’s a school bus that is owned and operated by a local school that rear ends somebody or a US postal truck that rear ends somebody. There’s a lot of different situations where a public entity could be the defendant in a personal injury case. And look, it’s really important to identify that as quickly as possible because there’s much shorter time limits under which these entities need to be sued if that has to happen.

Really, it’s important just to understand that public entities—just like people, just like private companies—owe a duty of care to others. And if they’re negligent and somebody is injured, they can be held responsible.