How to File a Claim Against LA Metro After an Injury

Key Takeaways

• You have six months, not two years. California Government Code §911.2 requires a formal written tort claim against LACMTA within six months of the date of injury. Miss it, and the case is generally barred, regardless of injury severity or clarity of fault.
• The correct entity is LACMTA. Not the City of Los Angeles, not the County of Los Angeles, not Caltrans. Filing with the wrong agency does not stop the six-month clock from running against Metro.
• The claim must be filed by mail or in person only. Metro rejects and denies any claim submitted by email. The Legal Services office is at One Gateway Plaza, Mail Stop 99-PL-4, Los Angeles, CA 90012-2952.
• LACMTA has 45 days to respond under Government Code §912.4. If Metro takes no action within 45 days, the claim is deemed rejected by operation of law.
• Late-claim relief is narrow. Government Code §911.4 permits a late-claim application within one year of injury, but only for mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. Simply being unaware of the deadline is generally not enough.

Why the Six-Month Rule Ends Most LA Metro Cases

Understanding how to file a claim against LA Metro starts with one hard fact: you do not get two years to act. You get six months.

California Government Code §911.2 requires anyone injured by a public transit agency, including the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), to file a formal government tort claim within six months of the date of injury. Miss that deadline, and the right to sue is gone in the vast majority of cases, regardless of how severe the injury is or how clearly Metro was at fault.

This page walks through every step of how to file a claim against LA Metro: who to file against, what the form requires, where to send it, and what happens after Metro responds.

How to File a Claim Against LA Metro: The Deadline

Six months from the date of the injury. Not six months from when you finished medical treatment, retained an attorney, or realized the injury was serious. Six months from the date the incident occurred.

This deadline comes from California Government Code §911.2(a), which states that “a claim relating to a cause of action for death or for injury to person or to personal property … shall be presented … not later than six months after the accrual of the cause of action.” For most transit injuries, accrual means the date of the accident itself.

The standard two-year statute of limitations for personal injury in California (Code of Civil Procedure §335.1) does not apply as the primary deadline when a government entity is involved. The six-month government claim deadline under §911.2 comes first, and it is a mandatory prerequisite to filing any lawsuit. If you do not present a claim within six months, you cannot sue, even if the two-year window has not closed.

What if you miss the six-month deadline? California Government Code §911.4 allows a late claim application within one year of the date of injury. You must state the reason for the delay, and the application must include the proposed claim as an attachment. Late applications are granted only under limited circumstances, typically mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect under Government Code §911.6(b). Simply being unaware of the deadline is generally not enough. After one year, the right to file is almost always permanently lost.

Who Is the Correct Entity to Name in Your Claim?

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, known as LACMTA. Not the City of Los Angeles, not the County of Los Angeles, not Caltrans. It is LACMTA.

This distinction matters more than most claimants realize. Filing a government tort claim with the wrong entity does not pause the six-month clock. If you send your claim to the City of Los Angeles instead of LACMTA, the city has no obligation to forward it, and the six-month deadline continues to run against Metro. By the time the mistake is discovered, the window may have already closed.

LACMTA operates the entire Metro system: every Metro bus route, every rail line (A, B, C, D, E, and K Lines), every station, the Metro Busway system (G and J Lines, which are bus rapid transit, not rail), and services like Metro Micro. If the injury happened on any part of this system, LACMTA is the entity you must name.

One exception to watch for: if the injury involved a vehicle or property not operated by Metro (such as a private rideshare vehicle inside a Metro station, a third-party maintenance contractor, or a city-owned sidewalk adjacent to a station) there may be additional or different entities to name. The six-month government claims deadline still applies to any public entity defendant, but identifying the correct one is the claimant’s responsibility. Ravan Law handles this analysis on every case with a possible public-entity angle, including pedestrian, bicycle, and rideshare injuries where multiple parties can share fault.

What Information Does the Claim Require?

California Government Code §910 sets the mandatory content categories for a government tort claim: identity of the claimant, the date, location, and circumstances of the incident, a general description of the injury or loss, identification of the responsible public employee if known, and a statement of the amount claimed in the correct procedural format. Under Government Code §910.8, a claim missing any mandatory element can be returned as insufficient, with the six-month clock continuing to run against the claimant.

The dollar-amount field is a common trap. §910 requires a specific figure if damages are under 10,000 dollars, and a limited-civil (35,000 dollars or less, per California Code of Civil Procedure §85 as amended by SB 71 effective January 1, 2024) or unlimited-civil designation if damages exceed 10,000 dollars. Getting this backward is enough to invalidate the claim on procedural grounds. When learning how to file a claim against LA Metro, most people are surprised by how much of the case is defined at this stage rather than later.

Metro provides a standard Claims for Damages form in both English and Spanish, available at metro.net/claimfordamages. The form itself is straightforward. What the form does not do is protect the claimant from Metro’s incentive to return the claim as insufficient and let the six months expire.

Where and How Do You File the Claim?

By mail or in person only. LA Metro does not accept claims submitted by email. Any claim received by email will be rejected and denied.

By mail. Send to:

LACMTA Legal Services One Gateway Plaza, Mail Stop 99-PL-4 Los Angeles, CA 90012-2952

Acceptable carriers: USPS, FedEx, or UPS. Keep proof of mailing. The postmark date or shipping receipt establishes the filing date if the deadline is disputed.

In person. Deliver to:

One Gateway Plaza, Plaza Level Los Angeles, CA 90012 Tuesday through Thursday, 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM

For questions (not filing): Phone: (213) 922-7644 Email: claims@metro.net

After Metro receives the claim, allow two to three weeks for initial review and acknowledgment. This review period is separate from the 45-day statutory response window described below.

What Happens After You File?

Metro has 45 days to act on the claim. If Metro does not respond within 45 days, the claim is automatically deemed rejected by operation of law. No formal rejection letter is required.

This 45-day window comes from California Government Code §912.4. Once the claim is presented, Metro’s board can do one of three things: approve the claim, reject the claim, or take no action. If the board takes no action within 45 days, the claim is “deemed to have been rejected by the board on the last day of the period within which the board was required to act upon the claim” (Gov. Code §912.4(c)).

After rejection, the next deadline. Under California Government Code §945.6, a claimant has six months from the date Metro mails or personally delivers a written rejection notice to file a lawsuit in court. If Metro does not send a proper written rejection notice (as required by Government Code §913), the claimant has two years from the date the injury occurred to file suit.

Here is the complete post-filing timeline:

Event: Metro must act on the claim Deadline: 45 days after filing Authority: Gov. Code §912.4

Event: File lawsuit after written rejection Deadline: 6 months from rejection notice Authority: Gov. Code §945.6(a)(1)

Event: File lawsuit if no written rejection sent Deadline: 2 years from date of injury Authority: Gov. Code §945.6(a)(2)

Important: the 45-day period can be extended by written agreement between the claimant and Metro. If Metro requests additional time to investigate, agreeing to an extension is common. But get any extension in writing and understand how it affects the lawsuit-filing deadline.

Does the Type of Incident Affect Your Claim?

The claims process is the same regardless of whether the injury happened on a bus, a train, or at a station. The entity is always LACMTA, the deadline is always six months, and the form is the same. What changes is the evidence needed to document the case.

Bus Accidents

Metro operates over 170 bus routes across Los Angeles County. Common injury scenarios include sudden braking, collisions with other vehicles, falls while boarding or exiting, and driver negligence. Metro buses are equipped with onboard surveillance cameras, but footage is not retained indefinitely. Reference the bus route number, direction of travel, and approximate time in the claim so Metro can locate the correct footage before it is overwritten. For collisions involving other vehicles, additional parties beyond Metro may share fault. Ravan Law handles Los Angeles car accident cases with multi-defendant exposure regularly.

Rail Incidents

The Metro Rail system operates across six lines: A, B, C, D, E, and K. Injuries on rail vehicles often involve sudden stops, door malfunctions, or collisions at grade crossings. Rail incidents may also involve pedestrians struck at crossings where warning systems or gate arms are maintained by Metro. If the injury occurred at a grade crossing, note whether warning lights and gates were functioning. This is a maintenance issue that falls squarely on LACMTA.

Station Injuries

Slip-and-fall injuries on wet platforms, escalator malfunctions, elevator failures, and inadequate lighting or security are all station-related claims filed against LACMTA. Document the specific station, the exact location within the station (platform, escalator, elevator, parking structure), and any hazardous condition observed. Station injuries often overlap with premises liability principles even though the entity is a public one.

What If Your Claim Is Rejected?

A rejection, whether formal or deemed, is not the end of the case. It is a procedural step that opens the right to file a lawsuit.

When Metro rejects a claim, it must send a written notice of rejection that includes a warning about the six-month lawsuit filing deadline under Government Code §945.6. Once that notice is received, the claimant has exactly six months to file a personal injury lawsuit in California Superior Court.

If Metro fails to send a proper written notice (or if the claim is deemed rejected because Metro took no action within 45 days), the lawsuit filing deadline extends to two years from the date of injury under Government Code §945.6(a)(2). However, relying on this longer window is risky. Proving that Metro never sent proper notice can become a factual dispute.

The vast majority of government tort claims are rejected. This is standard. The purpose of the claims process is to give the public entity notice and an opportunity to investigate before litigation, not to resolve the claim at the administrative level.

Talk to a Los Angeles Injury Attorney Before Your Deadline Passes

The six-month deadline under Government Code §911.2 is the single most important date in any LA Metro injury case. Once it passes, no amount of evidence, no severity of injury, and no clarity of fault can revive the claim against Metro.

At Ravan Law, government tort claims are a core part of the practice, not an occasional matter. Attorney Ted Ravan handles every case personally, because the six-month deadline under §911.2 is the exact deadline other firms miss and clients pay for. If you were injured on a Metro bus, train, or at a station, call Ravan Law today at (424) 465-2500 or book a free consultation. Do not wait until month five to start this process. For more on how government entity claims work across California, including the Government Claims Act 6-month wedge, see the linked guide.