Suing the District of Columbia: The § 12-309 Six-Month Notice Trap That Kills Good Cases
Trip on a broken piece of public sidewalk. Get hit by a District-owned vehicle. Have your child injured at a DC public school. In each of these situations, the wrongdoer is the District of Columbia government itself — and a special rule applies that has quietly destroyed more good injury cases than almost any other law on the books.
It is D.C. Code § 12-309, and it gives you six months. Not the three years you may have heard applies to injury claims in the District. Six months — for one specific, mandatory step.
What the statute requires
Section 12-309 says that no lawsuit for unliquidated damages (which includes essentially every injury claim) may be maintained against the District of Columbia unless, within six months after the injury, the injured person, an agent, or an attorney gives written notice to the Mayor stating the approximate time, place, cause, and circumstances of the injury or damage.
This is not a statute of limitations. It is a condition on the District's willingness to be sued at all — a partial waiver of sovereign immunity. And because it is tied to sovereign immunity, DC courts construe it strictly, in the District's favor. Courts have enforced it against sympathetic plaintiffs, against people who did not know the rule existed, and — harshest of all — against children. The exceptions and tolling doctrines that soften ordinary deadlines generally do not apply here.
The one built-in safety valve: the police report
The statute itself provides one alternative: "A report in writing by the Metropolitan Police Department, in regular course of duty, is a sufficient notice." So if MPD wrote a report about your incident in the ordinary course — a crash report, for example — that report may satisfy § 12-309. But relying on a police report is a gamble: the report must actually contain enough detail about time, place, cause, and circumstances to give the District the same information a formal notice would. Many reports do not. The safe course is always to send the written notice yourself.
When § 12-309 applies — and when it doesn't
| Who injured you | Notice rule |
|---|---|
| The District government (DDOT, DCPS, MPD, DC agencies, District employees on the job) | § 12-309 written notice within 6 months, then 3-year statute of limitations |
| WMATA (Metro bus or rail) | § 12-309 does not apply — WMATA is an interstate compact agency with its own rules |
| The federal government | Federal Tort Claims Act — a different administrative claim process |
| A private person or business | No pre-suit notice requirement — ordinary limitations periods |
Note the trap inside the trap: § 12-309 notice is in addition to, not instead of, the statute of limitations. Sending notice does not start your lawsuit. And filing a lawsuit within three years does not save you if the six-month notice was never sent.
What good notice looks like
There is no magic form, but effective § 12-309 notice should:
- Be in writing and directed to the Mayor (in practice, delivered to the District's Office of Risk Management);
- State when and where the incident happened, as precisely as possible;
- Describe the cause and circumstances — what was dangerous, what the District did or failed to do;
- Identify the injuries suffered;
- Be sent by a method that proves delivery, well before the six-month deadline.
Vague notice can be as fatal as no notice. Courts have rejected letters that failed to identify the cause of the injury or described the wrong location.
Where § 12-309 hides
Part of what makes this statute so dangerous is that people do not realize their case involves the District at all. The rule reaches far beyond the obvious pothole claim: injuries at DC public schools and recreation centers, falls on property the District maintains, harm caused by District employees driving on the job, claims arising from conditions in District facilities. If a case has any governmental thread in it, the safest assumption is that § 12-309 applies — and the cost of a protective notice is a stamp, while the cost of skipping it can be the entire case. Sending notice also does not commit you to suing; it simply keeps the door open while the injuries, the facts, and the responsible parties get sorted out.
What this means for injured people in the District
If there is any chance a DC government agency bears responsibility for your injury — a road defect, a school injury, a police incident, a hazard on District property — the six-month clock is running right now, whether you know it or not. This is one of the very few situations in injury law where waiting even a few months to talk to a lawyer can, by itself, end the case. The notice costs nothing to send and preserves every option.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.