If You Were Hurt on the Subway, a Bus, or City Property

You may have 90 days. Not three years.

Which deadline applies to you

Where you were hurt	Notice of claim?	Deadline to serve
Subway or city bus ( NYC Transit)	Yes	90 days
MTA itself	Yes	90 days
City sidewalk, street, park, building; City vehicle or employee	Yes	90 days
Long Island Rail Road / Metro-North	No notice of claim required	—

And then a second deadline: after the notice of claim, the lawsuit itself generally must be filed within 1 year and 90 days of the incident. For wrongful death, generally 2 years from the date of death.

Deadlines vary by entity and by claim type, and some are shorter than the general rule. The safest course is to treat the 90-day clock as running from the day of the accident and to get advice immediately.

The trap: the MTA is not NYC Transit

This one catches lawyers, not just clients.

The subway and the city bus system are operated by the New York City Transit Authority — a distinct legal entity from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. If you sue only "the MTA" for a subway injury, the MTA will routinely move to dismiss on the ground that it does not operate the subway — and it frequently wins.

Meanwhile, the LIRR and Metro-North are MTA subsidiaries , and by statute the notice-of-claim requirement does not apply to them — the opposite of what most people assume.

The practical rule: identify the correct entity, and serve everyone who might be a proper defendant, within 90 days.

What a notice of claim actually is

It is a formal, written document — not a phone call, not a letter, not an accident report. It must be served on the right entity, in the right form, within the window, and it must state the nature of the claim, the time and place and manner in which it arose, and the damages claimed.

A defective or late notice can be as fatal as no notice at all.

What if the 90 days has already passed?

It may not be over — but it is urgent.

A court has discretion to permit a late notice of claim in some circumstances. The analysis turns on factors including whether the public entity had actual knowledge of the essential facts within 90 days or a reasonable time after, whether the delay prejudiced its ability to defend, and the reason for the delay.

Two things to understand: it is discretionary — not a right, and not granted routinely. And a late-notice application can never extend the underlying deadline to sue. If that period has run, the claim is gone.

Common claims against the City and Transit

• Subway platform and stairway falls
• Bus collisions and injuries to bus passengers
• Falls caused by defective City sidewalks and streets
• Injuries in City parks and City buildings
• Collisions with City-owned vehicles
• Injuries caused by City employees acting in the scope of employment
• Wrongful arrest and civil rights claims

The wrongful arrest wrinkle

If you were wrongfully arrested, you may have two different claims with two different clocks:

• A federal civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 — no notice of claim required, and generally three years to sue.
• A state-law false arrest claim against the City — 90-day notice of claim required.

Someone who comes in six months after an arrest may still have a live federal claim and have already lost the state claims. Do not assume you have three years.

What to do now

• Write down everything while you remember it: date, time, exact location, train or bus line, vehicle or badge numbers, employee names.
• Photograph the condition, the scene, and your injuries.
• Get the incident or accident report number if one was made.
• Identify witnesses and get their contact information.
• Request video preservation immediately. Transit and City video is routinely overwritten within days or weeks. Once it is gone, it is gone.
• Get medical attention, and follow through with treatment.
• Call a lawyer now, not later. The 90-day clock is the entire ballgame.

Frequently asked questions

Related: Personal Injury