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By David Gammill · Last reviewed: August 21, 2026
Government Code § 835 is the California statute that lets an injured person sue a city, county, school district, transit agency, or the State itself when a dangerous condition of public property causes the injury. It is the main exception to the general rule that public entities answer only when a statute says so. A pothole that throws a motorcyclist, a sidewalk that trips a pedestrian, an intersection that hides cross traffic, a guardrail that fails: § 835 is how those cases reach a jury. It comes with special deadlines and special defenses, and both can end a case before it starts.
The section is short, quoted here in full:
Except as provided by statute, a public entity is liable for injury caused by a dangerous condition of its property if the plaintiff establishes that the property was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury, that the injury was proximately caused by the dangerous condition, that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury which was incurred, and that either:
(a) A negligent or wrongful act or omission of an employee of the public entity within the scope of his employment created the dangerous condition; or
(b) The public entity had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition under Section 835.2 a sufficient time prior to the injury to have taken measures to protect against the dangerous condition.
Source: Cal. Gov. Code § 835, California Legislative Information (verified August 21, 2026).
In plain English, the injured person must prove four things: the property was in a dangerous condition; that condition caused the injury; the injury was the kind of harm the condition made foreseeable; and the entity is connected to the condition in one of two ways, either its own employee created it, or the entity knew about it (or should have) with enough time to fix it or warn about it.
The Government Code defines it. Under Gov. Code § 830(a), a dangerous condition is “a condition of property that creates a substantial (as distinguished from a minor, trivial or insignificant) risk of injury when such property or adjacent property is used with due care in a manner in which it is reasonably foreseeable that it will be used.”
Two phrases in that definition decide real cases. “Substantial, as distinguished from minor, trivial or insignificant” is the source of the trivial defect defense: courts screen out claims over small sidewalk lips and shallow cracks, so the size, location, lighting, and history of the defect all matter. And “used with due care” does not mean you lose because you were partly careless; it asks whether the property is dangerous even for careful users. A hazard that catches careful people is a dangerous condition; your own conduct is handled separately under comparative fault, which reduces rather than eliminates recovery.
Dangerous condition cases come from everywhere public property touches daily life: roadway design that hides oncoming traffic, missing or broken guardrails and crash cushions, failed traffic signals, potholes and pavement failures, uneven public sidewalks, unlit walkways, park and playground hazards, and school premises. If a private business’s property hurt you instead, that is ordinary premises liability, covered on our Torrance slip and fall page.
Unless a public employee created the hazard, the case must prove notice under Gov. Code § 835.2. Actual notice means the entity actually knew of the condition and knew or should have known it was dangerous. Constructive notice means the condition existed long enough, and was obvious enough, that a reasonably run inspection program should have found it. This is why these cases are built on records: maintenance logs, prior complaints, earlier crashes at the same spot, work orders, and inspection schedules, all obtained in discovery. A hazard with a paper trail is a case; a hazard that appeared minutes before the injury usually is not.
The defense you should expect in any roadway case is design immunity under Gov. Code § 830.6: the entity argues the allegedly dangerous feature was built according to a plan that a public body or authorized employee approved in advance, and that the approval was reasonable. In Cornette v. Department of Transportation (2001) 26 Cal.4th 63, the California Supreme Court confirmed the defense has three elements: a causal relationship between the approved plan and the accident, discretionary approval of the plan before construction, and substantial evidence that the plan was reasonable.
The defense is not forever. Cornette also confirmed that design immunity can be lost: when changed physical conditions have made the approved design dangerous, the entity knew it, and it had reasonable time to fix the property or at least warn the public, the immunity gives way, and the injured person is entitled to a jury on those questions. In practice, design immunity fights are document fights, over what was actually approved, when, by whom, and what the entity learned in the years after, from its own collision data.
Claims against public entities do not start with a lawsuit. They start with a written claim presented to the entity, generally within six months of the injury, under the Government Claims Act; our guide to the six-month government claim deadline covers the process, the entity-by-entity traps, and what happens after a rejection. Miss the claim deadline and the courthouse door usually closes, no matter how strong the case. The ordinary two-year statute of limitations still matters, but in a public entity case the six-month clock is the one that runs out first.
Identifying the right entity is part of the deadline problem. The same stretch of South Bay pavement can involve the State (Caltrans maintains the state highway system, including Pacific Coast Highway), the City of Torrance, Los Angeles County, a school district, or a transit agency, and the claim must reach the entity that actually controls the property. Serving the wrong one does not stop the clock on the right one.
Our firm has tried a dangerous condition case to verdict. In a wrongful death case against Caltrans involving a crash cushion failure on a state highway, brought under this statute’s framework, the State’s final pre-trial offer was $10,000; the jury returned a $21.1 million wrongful death verdict. Every case is different and no result is ever guaranteed; that case is told in full, including the State’s defenses and how they were answered, on its own page. What it illustrates is the shape of § 835 litigation: the case was won on the entity’s own records and the physical evidence, element by element.
The everyday versions matter just as much: the pedestrian who trips on a long-reported sidewalk break, the cyclist thrown by a pavement failure, the driver hurt at an intersection with a documented crash history. The elements are the same; only the scale changes. Where the hazard is a Torrance road or intersection, our guide to dangerous roads and intersections in Torrance shows how road cases come together locally.
Yes. The text quoted above reflects California law as of the review date at the top of this page, verified against the official California Legislative Information site and independent mirrors. Section 835 has stood unchanged since the Government Claims Act was enacted in 1963, and the case law around it, on notice, trivial defects, and design immunity, is where the fights actually happen.
The six-month claim deadline makes early legal help matter more in these cases than almost any other. If a dangerous road, sidewalk, or other public property hurt you or someone you love in Torrance or the South Bay, get your free case evaluation or call 310-750-4149, and see our dangerous Torrance roads and Torrance personal injury attorney pages. There are no upfront legal fees; a fee is collected only if we win, under a written contingency fee agreement that complies with California law.
Disclaimer: This article is educational and informational in nature. It does not constitute legal advice for any specific situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case turns on its own facts, and no result is guaranteed; consult a licensed California attorney about your own circumstances.