You bought a house in Charleston last week. On Tuesday morning, you walk up Virginia Street East to record the deed at the Kanawha County Courthouse. Half a block short of the door, your toe catches a slab of sidewalk that a tree root has pushed up about two inches.
You land on your right wrist, and by noon an emergency room doctor is showing you the fracture on an X-ray.
A slip and fall on government property doesn’t follow the same rules as a fall in a grocery store. Immunity, notice rules, and damage limits all depend on which government owns the ground, and a Charleston slip and fall attorney will hand that out first. Let’s take a look at who owns what, when you can sue a city, the paperwork involved, and what a city can pay.
One Block of Virginia Street, Three Different Governments
Three governments own property within a block of where you fell. The Kanawha County Courthouse is the county’s, and the Robert C. Byrd United States Courthouse a block away on the same street is federal property. If the City of Charleston maintains the sidewalk between them, the slab that caught your toe is the city’s.
The state Capitol on Kanawha Boulevard adds a fourth owner with its own rules.
The city and the county both fall under the West Virginia Governmental Tort Claims and Insurance Reform Act, which calls cities, counties, and county school boards political subdivisions.
The Act starts with immunity and lists the exceptions, so political subdivision liability depends on whether your fall fits one of them.
For the Capitol, the state constitution says West Virginia itself “shall never be made defendant in any court of law or equity.” Courts have recognized a few sovereign immunity exceptions, and the one that matters here allows a lawsuit seeking money only up to the state’s liability insurance limits.
A fall on the federal courthouse steps down the block goes through the Federal Tort Claims Act instead.
The Act Covers Broken Sidewalks, Not Winter Ice
If you’re considering suing a city for a sidewalk fall, the Act makes a city or county liable for negligently failing to keep its sidewalks, streets and public grounds in repair. It also covers employee negligence inside or on the grounds of buildings that a city or county uses. The statute names courthouses. So the Act also covers public-building injury claims, like a fall on a mopped courthouse floor with no warning sign.
The Act gives cities and counties immunity for snow, ice, and other weather conditions on a public way, unless their own negligent act caused the condition.
If you’d slipped on February ice on that same stretch of Virginia Street, the city could likely claim that immunity. But, let’s say people have been complaining to the city about that slab since spring. In that case, your lawyer will argue the city knew, or should have known, and had time to fix it.
Premises liability on public property runs on that same notice idea, and much of the evidence of that notice can be found in public files. Your lawyer can request the city’s complaint and repair records for that block.
West Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act gives a public body five days to respond, not counting weekends and holidays.
The Paperwork Depends on Who Owns the Ground
Search for notice of claim requirements in West Virginia, and you’ll find warnings about filing within a few months. Many states work that way. West Virginia once had a similar rule for cities, requiring a written claim within 30 days of the injury, until the Supreme Court of Appeals struck it down in 1977 as unconstitutional.
Today, the Act itself doesn’t require a separate notice before you sue a city or county.
You have two years to file the lawsuit. If you’d fallen at the Capitol instead, you’d need to send written notice of the claim by certified mail to the state agency’s chief officer and to the Attorney General at least 30 days before suing.
Let’s say you’d fallen on those federal courthouse steps. You’d file a claim with the federal agency responsible for the building within two years, usually on a Standard Form 95. The form asks for an exact dollar figure. The agency then gets up to six months to decide before you can sue, and a denial gives you six months to file in court.
What a West Virginia City Can Pay
If the city loses, it still pays the economic side of your broken wrist in full, from the ER bill to the paychecks you missed. The Act caps noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering, at $500,000 per person, a limit that wouldn’t apply after a fall in a private store. Punitive damages against a city or county aren’t allowed at all.
Your lawsuit names the city or county, not the public works crew assigned to that block. The complaint also can’t ask for a specific dollar amount, the opposite of what the federal form requires.
Find Out Whose Sidewalk It Was
At Forbes Law Offices PLLC, we start a government fall case by sorting out whose property it was. Our West Virginia trial lawyers then send the right notice to the right office and request the records showing what the government knew.
If you were hurt on public property, reach out to our firm for a free consultation.
Bring your photos of the spot with a street sign or building in the frame and your medical records, and write down the date you fell so we can work out which deadline applies.
