If you were hurt on a California road, in a public intersection, or at a government-maintained property, you may assume that a missing or confusing warning sign automatically gives you a claim against the city, county, or state. A new appellate decision issued on September 24, 2026 shows why that assumption can be dangerous. In the remand of Tansavatdi v. City of Rancho Palos Verdes, the California Court of Appeal held that when a public entity provides warnings as part of an approved and reasonable design, an attack on the adequacy of those warnings may fall within design immunity under Government Code section 830.6. The court affirmed summary judgment for the city and upheld an award of expert fees tied to the city’s Code of Civil Procedure section 998 offer.
That last part matters as much as the liability ruling. A public-entity injury case that looks strong on the surface can end not only in dismissal but in a bill for the government’s expert costs. Before you file a government claim, reject a settlement offer, or write off a case because a sign was missing, you need a careful look at the design records, the maintenance history, and the exact theory of liability. Here is how we approach these cases, and what you should be checking now.
What Tansavatdi Actually Decided
The Tansavatdi litigation began after a cyclist was killed at a Rancho Palos Verdes intersection where the bike lane ended. The case has moved through the trial court, the Court of Appeal, and the California Supreme Court over several years, focused on whether the city could invoke design immunity and whether a failure-to-warn theory could survive when warnings were part of the approved plan.
In the September 24, 2026 remand decision, the Court of Appeal reached two conclusions that will affect public-entity injury claims across California. First, when a public entity includes warnings, or the absence of a specific warning, as part of a reasonable, discretionarily approved design, a plaintiff generally cannot get around design immunity by relabeling the claim as an inadequate-warning claim. If the warning decision was baked into the approved plan, it rides along with the design.
Second, the court affirmed the award of expert witness fees to the city under Code of Civil Procedure section 998. When a public entity makes a valid statutory settlement offer, and the plaintiff rejects it and later fails to obtain a more favorable judgment, the plaintiff can be ordered to pay expert costs the entity incurred after the offer date. In a summary-judgment loss, that number can be substantial.
The takeaway is not that public entities are untouchable. It is that the type of claim, the timing of the condition, and the paper trail behind the design decision determine whether a case is viable and whether a 998 offer should be taken seriously.
Design Immunity in Plain English
Government Code section 830.6 gives a public entity immunity from dangerous-condition liability when three elements are met. There must be a causal relationship between the design and the injury. The design must have been approved in advance by a public employee or body exercising discretionary authority. And there must be substantial evidence supporting the reasonableness of the design.
Historically, plaintiffs have tried to route around design immunity by arguing that even if the road layout itself was approved, the entity should have posted additional warnings about a hazard the design created. Cases like Cameron v. State of California and later decisions carved out room for failure-to-warn theories where the warning issue was separate from the design decision.
Tansavatdi on remand narrows that path. If the record shows that the approving body considered warnings, or considered whether warnings were necessary, and made a discretionary decision as part of the approved plan, courts are more likely to treat a challenge to those warnings as a challenge to the design itself. That means immunity can apply even where a jury might have found that a different warning would have prevented the crash.
Public-Entity Claims Still Have Strict Procedural Rules
Whatever theory you pursue, public-entity injury claims in California remain governed by the Government Claims Act. Under Government Code section 911.2, a claim for personal injury generally must be presented to the correct public entity within six months of the accrual of the cause of action. Miss that window and, absent a successful application for leave to present a late claim, the case is over before it starts.
After a claim is presented, the entity has 45 days to act. A rejection, or a deemed rejection by inaction, starts a six-month clock to file suit under Government Code section 945.6. These deadlines are strictly enforced. We regularly hear from people who assumed the standard two-year personal injury statute of limitations applied to a case against a city or Caltrans, only to learn they lost their rights months earlier.
If your injury involves a public road, a public building, a school district vehicle, a transit bus, or any other government actor, treat the six-month clock as your operative deadline until an attorney confirms otherwise.
A Practical Checklist for Evaluating a Public-Entity Case After Tansavatdi
Before deciding whether to file a claim, and long before responding to a section 998 offer, we work through a checklist designed to separate design-immunity cases from cases with a viable path forward.
1. Identify the exact condition that caused the injury. Was it the geometry of the road, the placement of a sign, the timing of a signal, the height of a curb, a pothole, a downed sign, faded striping, a tree obstructing a sightline, or debris left after a maintenance job? The specific defect drives everything.
2. Pull the approved plans and design records. Through a Public Records Act request under Government Code section 7920.000 and following, we ask for the approved design drawings, the traffic engineering studies, staff reports, and any minutes reflecting discretionary approval. If the condition that hurt you is not in the approved plan, design immunity is much harder for the entity to invoke.
3. Look for post-approval changes. Roads change. Signs get replaced. Signals get retimed. Restriping happens. A condition that developed after the approved design, or a modification made without a fresh discretionary approval, can fall outside immunity. Ask for work orders, maintenance logs, and any change orders.
4. Investigate maintenance history. Even a perfectly designed intersection can become dangerous if the entity fails to maintain it. Faded crosswalk paint, an obscured stop sign, a burned-out signal bulb, or an unaddressed pothole can support a claim under Government Code section 835 that does not depend on attacking the design.
5. Check for prior notice. Under section 835, liability often requires that the entity had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition in time to protect against it. Prior complaints, prior collision reports, and internal emails can establish notice. We request collision histories for the location, typically going back several years.
6. Preserve photographs and witness accounts immediately. Conditions at the scene change fast. Repaving, signal upgrades, and sign replacements often follow serious incidents. Photographs, dashcam video, and statements taken while memories are fresh can be the difference between proving a maintenance failure and losing to a design-immunity motion.
7. Consider alternative theories. Not every injury on public property is a dangerous-condition case. A negligent government employee driving a vehicle, a negligently supervised program, or a private contractor working on the road may all offer paths to recovery that do not run into design immunity.
John Reardon spent 20 years as a chiropractor before becoming a lawyer, and one thing that clinical experience teaches is that documentation determines outcomes. The same principle applies to the physical evidence at a crash site. If we do not capture the roadway, the signs, and the sightlines quickly, we lose the ability to reconstruct what happened. And the medical documentation matters just as much. In a public-entity case where liability may be contested aggressively, the strength of your medical records, the consistency of your treatment, and the clarity of your provider’s causation opinions all shape settlement value.
Why Section 998 Offers Deserve Serious Analysis
The expert-fee award in Tansavatdi is a reminder that Code of Civil Procedure section 998 has teeth. A valid 998 offer, if not accepted and not beaten at trial or on dispositive motion, can shift expert witness fees to the offeror. Public entities use these offers strategically, often early in the case, sometimes for a nominal amount, to lock in fee-shifting exposure.
Evaluating a 998 offer in a public-entity case requires a candid assessment of the design-immunity risk, the strength of the maintenance or notice theory, the likelihood of surviving summary judgment, and the realistic range of damages if the case reaches a jury. That analysis is different from a garden-variety auto case, because the risk of losing on immunity, rather than on the merits, is a real possibility.
We have seen plaintiffs reject modest 998 offers based on optimism about a warning theory, then lose on immunity and face six-figure expert-cost bills. We have also seen entities make lowball offers hoping to pressure plaintiffs into cheap settlements when a strong maintenance theory would justify pushing forward. The right decision depends on the specific record.
When to Get Help
Public-entity injury claims in California are unforgiving. The Government Claims Act deadlines are strict, the immunities are broad, and the cost consequences of guessing wrong on a 998 offer can be significant. Tansavatdi on remand tightens the design-immunity analysis further, particularly for cases that turn on the adequacy of warnings.
If you were hurt on a California road, at an intersection, on public transit, or on any government-controlled property, do not assume the case is either automatic or hopeless. The right questions are what caused the injury, whether the condition matches the approved design, whether the entity had notice, and how the maintenance record reads. Those answers determine everything.
At Reardon Injury Law, we combine John Reardon’s two decades of clinical experience with a careful, records-driven approach to government liability. If you have questions about a possible claim against a city, county, Caltrans, a transit agency, or any other California public entity, contact our team for a free consultation. We will review your timeline, help you understand the deadlines, and give you a straight answer about whether your case has a path forward after Tansavatdi.