Notice of Claim Against a Municipality in New York

What is a notice of claim?

It is a short sworn document you must serve on a public entity, usually within 90 days, before you are allowed to sue it. General Municipal Law 50-e sets the deadline and the contents. Section 50-i makes serving it a condition precedent to the lawsuit.

That phrase is the whole point. It is not a formality and it is not a courtesy. A claim worth a great deal of money, against a defendant who was plainly at fault, is dismissed if the notice was never served. The merits never get reached.

The 90 days runs from when the claim accrues, which is ordinarily the date of the accident. It does not run from when you discovered how badly you were hurt, and it does not run from the day you hired a lawyer.

Who do you have to serve one on?

Only public defendants. A claim against a private driver, a private store, or a private property owner requires nothing like this.

Defendant	Notice deadline	Deadline to sue
Nassau County	90 days	1 year and 90 days
Towns of Hempstead, North Hempstead, Oyster Bay	90 days	1 year and 90 days
Long Island school districts	90 days	1 year and 90 days
The MTA itself	90 days	1 year and 90 days
The Long Island Rail Road	None for ordinary injury claims	1 year and 90 days
Nassau University Medical Center	90 days	1 year and 90 days
The State of New York	90 days, in the Court of Claims	Court of Claims Act applies
Any private person or business	None	Generally 3 years

Two rows in that table cause most of the trouble, and both are covered below.

Does the Long Island Rail Road require a notice of claim?

For an ordinary injury claim, no, and a great many Long Island law firm pages state the opposite.

Public Authorities Law 1276(6) exempts MTA subsidiaries from the notice of claim requirement, and the Long Island Rail Road is a subsidiary. The Second Department confirmed this in Matter of Almeida v. City of New York, 227 A.D.3d 890 (2d Dep’t 2024), applying the Court of Appeals decision in Andersen v. Long Island Rail Road.

Three cautions before anyone relaxes:

• The MTA itself is not exempt. If MTA entities are named together, the MTA still needs a notice within 90 days.
• Section 1276(1) still requires a demand presented to the railroad at least 30 days before suit is commenced, and the complaint must allege that the demand was made and that adjustment was neglected or refused.
• Wrongful death is different. Public Authorities Law 2980 requires a notice of claim for a wrongful death action against any public authority, and 2981 sets a two-year period. The subsidiary exemption does not rescue a death case.

What must the notice actually contain?

Under 50-e(2) it must be in writing, sworn to by the claimant, and state:

1. The name and post office address of each claimant and of the attorney
2. The nature of the claim
3. The time when, the place where, and the manner in which the claim arose
4. The items of damage or injuries claimed, so far as then practicable

Outside New York City the notice must not state a dollar amount. The public entity can serve a demand for that figure separately.

“The manner in which the claim arose” is where notices fail. A description vague enough to cover any accident anywhere gives the municipality nothing to investigate, and that becomes the argument against you later.

How must it be served?

Under 50-e(3), by personal delivery or by registered or certified mail, to the person authorized to receive a summons for that entity. Mail service is complete on deposit.

• Nassau County: served on the County Attorney. CPLR 311(a)(4) permits the chair or clerk of the board of supervisors, the clerk, the attorney, or the treasurer.
• A town: the supervisor or the town clerk, under CPLR 311(a)(5).
• A school district: a school officer, ordinarily the district clerk, under CPLR 311(a)(7).

Electronic service is available only in a city with a population over one million. It is not available for Nassau County, its towns, or Long Island school districts. Emailing a notice here does not serve it.

Why is the deadline to sue also shorter?

Because the notice of claim and the statute of limitations are two separate requirements, and both must be met. This is the single most common misunderstanding on this topic.

	Private defendant	Public entity
Notice of claim	None	90 days from accrual
Time to file suit	3 years	1 year and 90 days
Waiting period before suing	None	30 days after the notice is served

A timely notice does not save a case filed after one year and 90 days, and a suit filed inside that period does not cure a notice that was never served. Wrongful death against a municipality carries its own two-year period under 50-i(1)(c).

What is a 50-h hearing?

After the notice is served, the public entity may demand an examination of the claimant under oath under General Municipal Law 50-h. The demand must be served within 90 days of the notice and must give reasonable notice of the examination.

Attending is not optional. Section 50-h(5) says no action shall be commenced unless the claimant has complied with the demand, and the Court of Appeals held in Colon v. Martin, 35 N.Y.3d 75 (2020), that failure to comply generally warrants dismissal.

It functions like an early deposition, before you have seen the municipality’s records, and the transcript follows the case to trial.

What happens if you missed the 90 days?

Not necessarily over. Section 50-e(5) lets a court grant leave to serve a late notice. It is discretionary, and denials are common.

The factors the court weighs:

• Whether the public entity, its attorney, or its insurer acquired actual knowledge of the essential facts constituting the claim within 90 days or a reasonable time after
• Infancy, incapacity, or death
• A reasonable excuse for the delay
• Whether the delay substantially prejudiced the entity’s ability to defend

On prejudice, Matter of Newcomb v. Middle Country Central School District, 28 N.Y.3d 455 (2016), set the allocation: the claimant makes an initial showing of no substantial prejudice, and the burden then shifts to the public corporation to make a particularized evidentiary showing. Speculation is not enough. In Matter of Jaime v. City of New York, 41 N.Y.3d 531 (2024), the Court of Appeals reaffirmed Newcomb and made clear the showing must rest on admissible evidence, not an attorney’s assertions.

There is an outer limit. The extension cannot exceed the time to commence the action, so once one year and 90 days has run, leave can no longer be granted unless something tolled it.

What counts as actual knowledge?

Far less than people assume. Knowing an accident happened is not knowing the essential facts of the claim.

The entity must have known the facts underlying the theory of liability, not merely that someone was hurt. In Williams v. Nassau County Medical Center, 6 N.Y.3d 531 (2006), the Court of Appeals held that medical records alone do not supply actual knowledge unless they show that the staff inflicted the injury. Jaime confirmed that an entity’s mere possession or creation of records, or the involvement of its employees, does not establish it either.

Ignorance of the notice requirement itself is not a reasonable excuse.

Does being a child extend the deadline?

Partly, and the distinction matters. Infancy does not excuse the 90-day notice. What CPLR 208 tolls is the statute of limitations, which in turn extends the window in which an application for leave to serve a late notice can still be made.

Courts generally look for a connection between the infancy and the delay. A parent’s failure to act is not automatically excused because the injured person was young.

Which claims are exempt entirely?

Section 50-e(8) removes several categories from the requirement, including workers’ compensation claims, volunteer firefighter and ambulance worker benefit claims, and claims arising from child sexual offenses. Claims against the State of New York are not exempt but run on a separate track in the Court of Claims under its own statute, not under 50-e.

What to do in the first weeks

• Identify the owner before assuming it is private. A sidewalk, a parking field, a bus, a school gym, a county road and a hospital can all be public. The 90 days is running while that gets sorted out.
• Photograph the condition immediately. Municipalities repair defects, and a repaired defect is very hard to prove later.
• Keep proof of service. The registered or certified mail receipt is what establishes timely service if it is ever disputed.
• Do not wait for treatment to finish. The notice describes the claim, not the final medical picture, and the statute expressly says injuries are stated so far as then practicable.
• Get advice quickly. Ninety days is not long, and every remedy for missing it is discretionary.

Where these cases are heard in Nassau County

Claims against Nassau County, its towns, Long Island school districts, Nassau University Medical Center and the Long Island Rail Road are brought in Supreme Court, Nassau County, which sits in the Tenth Judicial District and appeals to the Appellate Division, Second Department. Claims against the State of New York go to the Court of Claims instead.

Related: how long you have to sue in New York and personal injury representation on Long Island.