You have three years to sue a driver who hit you. You have 120 days to sue the city whose pothole flipped your car. Nobody told you that at the ER.

You were handed a pamphlet about concussion symptoms. You were told to follow up with your primary. You were told to rest.

You were not told that a clock started ticking the moment you hit that pothole. A clock that runs four times faster than the one that applies to regular car accidents. A clock that, if you miss it, ends your case before it starts — no matter how broken your leg is, no matter how clear the dashcam footage, no matter how obvious the road defect.

This is the part of Michigan injury law that quietly destroys good cases. Let’s walk through it.

Suing a City Isn’t Like Suing a Driver

When a regular driver runs a red light and T-bones you, you have three years to file suit in Michigan. That’s the standard personal injury statute of limitations. It’s forgiving. It gives you time to heal, time to see specialists, time to figure out the full cost of what happened to you.

When a city bus runs that same red light, everything changes.

The city, the county, the road commission, the transit authority, the public university, the state itself — all of these are “governmental agencies” under Michigan law. And governmental agencies start with a default rule called governmental immunity: they cannot be sued.

That sounds absurd. It is softened by a handful of narrow exceptions written into statute — the motor vehicle exception, the highway exception, the public building exception, and a few others. If your claim fits squarely into one of those exceptions, you can sue. If it doesn’t, you can’t.

But fitting into the exception is only half the battle. The other half is the notice rule — and that’s where most claims die.

The 120-Day Highway Notice (MCL 691.1404)

If you were hurt because a road was defective — a crater of a pothole, an unrepaired sinkhole, a collapsed shoulder, a crumbling bridge deck — your claim falls under the highway exception.

The governing statute is MCL 691.1404. It says that before you can sue the government entity responsible for that road, you must serve written notice within 120 days of the injury.

The statute doesn’t just require notice. It requires specific notice. The notice must state:

It must be in writing. It must be served on the correct governmental agency — and this matters, because a road in your city might be maintained by the county road commission, the state DOT, or a local DPW. Serving the wrong entity is the same as serving no one.

Get any of these elements wrong, and Michigan courts have repeatedly held that the notice is defective. Defective notice means the claim is barred. Barred means dismissed. Dismissed means your medical bills are yours forever.

The 60-Day Notice for Municipal Motor Vehicle Claims

The highway defect rule has a cousin that catches even more people off guard.

If you were hit by a municipally owned motor vehicle — a city bus, a county snowplow, a garbage truck, a police cruiser not running a light-and-siren emergency, a public works pickup — your claim falls under the motor vehicle exception to governmental immunity.

For claims against a municipal corporation under this exception, a separate statute requires written notice within 60 days of the incident.

Sixty days.

That is faster than most people finish their first round of physical therapy. That is faster than some orthopedists can get you in for a follow-up MRI. That is faster than the average insurance company returns your first call.

The notice requirements track the highway statute: in writing, specific location, specific description of what happened, specific description of the injury, served on the right entity.

And again — wrong entity, wrong content, wrong format, late by a day? The case is gone.

A Demand Letter Isn’t a Statutory Notice

Here is the trap that catches experienced lawyers, not just injured people: a demand letter is not a statutory notice.

Demand letters are what personal injury attorneys send every day. They lay out the facts, the injuries, the medical bills, the pain and suffering, and they ask for a settlement. They are negotiation tools. They are not designed to check statutory boxes.

Michigan courts don’t care what you called the document. They care whether it contained the elements MCL 691.1404 requires, whether it was served on the correct agency, and whether it arrived within 120 days (or 60, for the municipal motor vehicle rule).

A polished demand letter that mentions “a pothole on Jefferson Avenue” and requests $75,000 will not save your case if it doesn’t pinpoint the defect with the specificity the statute demands. A letter that describes “severe injuries” in general terms will not save your case if it doesn’t name the actual injury. A letter sent to the city when the road was a county road will not save your case at all.

Courts enforce the elements. Not the spirit.

How Perfect Claims Get Tossed

Here is a composite — drawn from the pattern of real dismissals, no real names — of how this actually plays out.

A driver, call her the plaintiff, hits a three-foot-wide, eight-inch-deep pothole on a state-maintained stretch of road. Her front suspension snaps. The car rolls. She breaks her pelvis and her left wrist. There is a police report. There are photos of the pothole. There are two other drivers who had struck the same hole earlier that week and filed complaints with the road commission.

Liability is, by any normal measure, clear. The defect was known, documented, and catastrophic. Her medical bills clear $180,000.

On day 95, her attorney — a competent general practitioner, not a municipal-liability specialist — sends a detailed demand letter to the City. It describes the crash, lists the injuries, attaches the police report, and demands policy limits.

On day 140, he files suit.

The state moves to dismiss. The road was a state trunk line, not a city street. Notice was sent to the wrong entity. Even setting that aside, the demand letter described the pothole as “on the eastbound lane of M-___ near the intersection” — not the precise location the statute requires. It described “serious orthopedic injuries” — not the specific injuries. It was never framed as a statutory notice.

The court dismisses. The $180,000 in bills stays with her. The attorney’s malpractice carrier gets a letter.

None of this is unusual. This is the default outcome when the notice rule is missed or botched.

What This Means for You Right Now

If a government vehicle, bus, road defect, or public property injury is anywhere in your story — even if you are still in the hospital, even if you haven’t decided whether to “make it a thing” yet — the notice clock is running.

Not the three-year clock you’ve heard about. A much shorter one. 120 days for highway and road defect claims. 60 days for municipal motor vehicle claims. Both measured from the day you were hurt.

Documentation matters more here than in almost any other kind of injury case:

Then find a lawyer who has done municipal-liability notices before. This is not a general-practice task. This is statute-reading, agency-identifying, element-checking work. A mistake on the notice is fatal in a way a mistake in a regular PI case usually isn’t.

If You’re Not Sure Your Lawyer Knows This Rule

If you already have an attorney and the words “MCL 691.1404,” “120-day notice,” or “governmental immunity” have not come up in your conversations, ask. Ask today. Ask in writing. Keep the reply.

If the answer is vague, or if you’re told “we’ll handle it” without specifics, that is the moment to get a second opinion — not after day 120.

Fire My Lawyer is a Michigan referral service, not a litigation firm. If you were hurt by a city vehicle, a bus, a road defect, or on public property — and you’re not sure whether your case has been properly noticed — call us at 1-855-FML-2DAY (1-855-365-2329) or submit your case at FireMyLawyer.com. We’ll give you a free second opinion and, if it makes sense, match you with a Michigan attorney in our network who handles governmental-immunity cases. The clock is short. Don’t wait.