You’re driving north on Southeast 82nd Avenue from Powell Boulevard during a hard rain in November when your front tire hits a pothole hidden under the water. Your car jerks to the right and strikes a light pole before you can react. By the time the tow truck arrives, you’re fairly sure your wrist is broken.
While you wait, a woman from the bus stop across the street tells you she reported that hole to the city in September.
If she’s right, the city could have known about that hazard for weeks. A car accident claim based on poor road conditions goes against a government, not another driver’s insurer, and those claims follow rules you might not know.
A Portland car accident lawyer can explain how these rules apply to your crash, starting with who owns the road, what limits a claim against the government, and what evidence you should gather while everything’s still fresh.
Who Owns the Pothole That Wrecked Your Car?
Most streets inside Portland belong to the city, which maintains them through the Portland Bureau of Transportation, or PBOT, while the state owns the interstates and state highways. Even 82nd Avenue is split. When the Oregon Department of Transportation handed it to the city in 2022, the state kept the intersection at Southeast Powell, a few hundred feet behind that pothole you hit.
Owning the road doesn’t make a government responsible for every crack in it.
Government liability for car accidents in Portland depends on whether the public body knew about the hazard or should have known and didn’t fix it within a reasonable time. PBOT relies on public reports to find potholes, and it aims to fill each reported one within 30 days. When a driver files a claim, the city’s risk management office checks whether the pothole was reported and whether it was repaired.
If the woman at the bus stop did report it in September, that report should be in the city’s records with a date stamped on it.
Where Sovereign Immunity Still Protects the Government
The Oregon Tort Claims Act lets you sue the city over that pothole on 82nd, but it keeps one big piece of sovereign immunity, called discretionary immunity. It covers policy decisions made by someone with the authority to make them, though not the routine, day-to-day work of public employees.
Decisions about road design often count as policy choices, which makes liability for dangerous road design hard to prove. In a 2022 case, the Oregon Court of Appeals held the state immune after a driver hit a guardrail end on Highway 20, because the guardrail met state design standards and the transportation department’s policy on when to replace end pieces.
Let’s say the pothole on 82nd was reported in September and was still there in November, well past PBOT’s 30-day goal. In that case, the city will have a harder time calling the delay a policy choice, since the Oregon Supreme Court has refused immunity to a county that couldn’t show it had followed its own maintenance policy.
A strong claim still has a ceiling, because for crashes since July 1, 2026, a city or county can’t be made to pay more than $902,700 to one injured person, and the state’s limit is $2,708,100.
Oregon’s court system adjusts those limits every July.
180 Days to Put the City on Notice
Under the Oregon Tort Claims Act, the notice period for an injury claim is 180 days from the crash, or one year if a family is bringing a wrongful death claim.
For your crash on 82nd, formal notice has to be in writing. It must also say that you’re making a claim, while describing the time, place, and circumstances. You must also give your name and mailing address. Calling PBOT about the pothole the morning after your crash doesn’t count, because that report only tells the city where the hole is.
Photograph the Hole Before the Pothole Patch Truck Gets There
PBOT crews fill nearby potholes while they’re out on a report, so once your crash draws attention to that block, the hole could be repaired within days.
Start your road defect evidence collection with photos from a few steps back, with a street sign in the frame, and then up close with a tape measure laid across the hole and another held upright in it to show the depth.
If you can, go back after dark, too, and take a few from headlight level with water in the hole, because the city might argue you should have seen it. Under Oregon law, any share of the blame you carry comes off your recovery, and if your share is greater than the city’s, you recover nothing.
Do not repair the bent rim or the blown tire from the accident. Ask the woman from the bus stop for her name, her number, and the date she reported the hole.
Your lawyer can then request PBOT’s pothole reports and repair records for that block, which show when the city first heard about the hole and what it did next.
Help When the Road Itself Caused Your Crash
A pothole crash on a rainy night puts you up against a government with a 180-day deadline and defenses no other driver gets.
Dozier Law Group has practiced personal injury law in Oregon since 2001, and our firm finds out who owns the stretch of road where you crashed and sends the notice of claim well within those 180 days. We work on contingency and advance your case costs, so you owe no fee unless we win.
If a pothole or another road defect caused your crash, reach out to our firm for a free consultation.
Bring your photos and the name of anyone who told you the hole had been reported, and write down exactly where it was while you can still picture the block.