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Municipal or governmental negligence

Domain guide, Property subrogation, theory 3.5

The theory

A governmental entity's negligence caused the loss: a failed municipal drainage system, a city tree, a water main under the city's control.

Who must be on the roster

  • government_entity.

Facts that establish it

  • cause_attribution_to_party (required): the cause must be tied to the public body.
  • At least one of prior_notice_described (the entity was told) and condition_duration_stated (the hazard existed long enough for constructive notice). Notice is the usual battleground.

What defeats it

  • A missed notice-of-claim deadline, which is fatal and short: 90 days under New York GML 50-e, six months for personal property under California Gov. Code 911.2, and under the Texas Tort Claims Act as short as the entity's charter allows. The engine does not compute it today; every municipal referral carries a material condition to establish it.
  • Sovereign immunity for the function involved: the state's tort claims act decides which functions are immune and the damages cap. An adjuster verification until the immunity section is wired.

Recovery channel

  • A governmental claim, filed on the entity's form within the statutory window, before any demand or suit.

What the carrier does

  • File the notice of claim immediately.
  • Obtain the entity's maintenance and complaint records.
  • Document the duration of the condition.

A claim that fits

A storm drain maintained by the City of Plano backed up and flooded the insured's ground-floor units. The property manager's emails show three complaints to the city's public works department about the drain over the preceding eight months, the last two weeks before the loss. Weather that day was ordinary rainfall.

How the engine reads itGovernment entity on the roster; cause attributed to the city, which is required; prior_notice_described stated by the property manager's emails. Municipal negligence confirmed, channel governmental claim, and a material condition: the notice-of-claim deadline is not computed and must be established before any demand or suit.

Records behind it

Theory record PROP-SUBRO-THEORY-005 Defenses PROP-SUBRO-DEF-002, PROP-SUBRO-DEF-003

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