What Is an Ante Litem Notice, and Why Is It So Important in Georgia?
On this page
- Three statutes, three different rules
- A child’s claim gets no extra time for city or state notice
- A dollar amount is part of the city deadline
- When the government entity is not what it seems
- What happens after the notice is delivered
- The lawsuit deadline still applies
- A working checklist when a government may be involved
- Sources
An ante litem notice is a written claim that Georgia law requires you to deliver to a city, county, or state government before you can sue it for an injury. The deadlines are 6 months for a city, 12 months for a county, and 12 months for the state, and they run separately from the two-year lawsuit deadline. A late or incomplete notice can end the claim before any court looks at fault.
Three statutes, three different rules
| City (municipal corporation) | County | State and its agencies | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statute | O.C.G.A. § 36-33-5 | O.C.G.A. § 36-11-1 | O.C.G.A. § 50-21-26 (Georgia Tort Claims Act) |
| Deadline | 6 months "of the happening of the event" | 12 months after the claim accrues | 12 months after the loss "was discovered or should have been discovered" |
| Deliver to | The mayor or the chair of the city council or commission, personally or by certified mail or statutory overnight delivery | The statute names no recipient; it requires presentation to the county | Risk Management Division of the Department of Administrative Services (certified mail or statutory overnight delivery, return receipt requested, or personal delivery with a receipt), plus a copy to the agency involved |
| Contents | Time, place, and extent of the injury, the negligence that caused it, and "the specific amount of monetary damages being sought" | Not listed in the statute | Agency name, time, place, nature of the loss, amount claimed, and the acts or omissions that caused it |
| Minor or person under disability | Deadline is not paused (Dates v. City of Atlanta, 2025) | 12 months "after the removal of the disability" | Statutory tolling provisions do not apply (Ragsdale, as described in Dates) |
A child’s claim gets no extra time for city or state notice
A child hurt by a city vehicle or on city property does not get extra time for the city notice. In Dates v. City of Atlanta (2025), an eight-year-old was injured when a rotten branch fell in a city park. The mother’s first notice gave no dollar amount, and her second notice, which did, came after six months. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that “the minor tolling provision does not apply to OCGA § 36-33-5”, because the city notice is a condition precedent to suit, not a statute of limitation, and affirmed the dismissal.
The Court reached that result partly by comparing the county statute, which does protect minors: § 36-11-1 allows “minors or other persons laboring under disabilities” 12 months “after the removal of the disability”. The city statute has no such clause.
For state claims, the Dates opinion relied on Department of Public Safety v. Ragsdale (2020), which it quotes as holding that because the Tort Claims Act notice “is not a statute of limitation, the Code’s statutory tolling provisions, such as OCGA § 9-3-99, do not apply”. A family should therefore treat the 6-month city deadline and the 12-month state deadline as running against a child exactly as they run against an adult. The general rules that pause a minor’s lawsuit deadline are explained in how Georgia tolls the limitation period for minors and incompetent plaintiffs.
A dollar amount is part of the city deadline
Section 36-33-5(e) requires the notice to include “the specific amount of monetary damages being sought”. That amount is treated as an offer of compromise and does not bind the claimant if the case goes to court. In Dates, the notice without a number did not satisfy the statute, and the corrected notice was too late. Content and timing fail together.
The State’s notice also needs a figure. Section 50-21-26(a)(5)(E) requires “the amount of the loss claimed”. In Dorn v. Georgia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities (2014), a father’s notice for his son’s death described the loss as the “[m]onetary value of [the decedent’s] life” without a dollar figure; the Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of the suit, relying on a Supreme Court of Georgia decision requiring strict compliance with that item.
When the government entity is not what it seems
Some Georgia cities and counties operate as consolidated governments, and the correct statute is not always the one the name suggests. In City of Columbus v. Barngrover (2001), the Court of Appeals held that for ante litem purposes the City of Columbus “must be treated as a county”, so § 36-11-1 applied. In Warnell v. Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County (2014), the court held that a claim against a county not presented within 12 months of accrual “is barred”, whatever the lawsuit deadline would have been. Identifying the exact entity that owns the road, vehicle, or building is the first task.
What happens after the notice is delivered
- City: the governing authority has 30 days to act on the claim, and the running of the statute of limitations is suspended while the demand is pending without action (§ 36-33-5(c), (d)).
- State: no lawsuit may be filed until the Department of Administrative Services denies the claim or 90 days pass without action, whichever comes first (§ 50-21-26(b)). The complaint must attach the notice and the delivery receipt; a missing exhibit not cured within 30 days after the state raises it leads to dismissal without prejudice (§ 50-21-26(a)(4)).
- State damages limit: under § 50-21-29(b)(1), no person may recover more than $1 million for a single occurrence, and the state’s total liability per occurrence is capped at $3 million. The statute also forbids telling the jury that the cap exists.
The lawsuit deadline still applies
An ante litem notice is a precondition, not a substitute for filing suit. The ordinary two-year period for personal injury claims keeps running, apart from the city suspension in § 36-33-5(d). How that period starts is covered in how long you have to file a Georgia personal injury claim.
A working checklist when a government may be involved
- Name the owner of the vehicle, road, building, or program, and whether it is a city, a county, a consolidated government, or a state agency.
- Write down the event date (city clock) and the date the loss was discovered (state clock).
- Deliver the notice by a method the statute names and keep the receipt.
- Include the dollar amount for a city claim and every item § 50-21-26(a)(5) lists for a state claim.
- Do not count on a child’s age to buy time for a city or state notice.
Sources
- O.C.G.A. §§ 36-33-5, 36-11-1, 50-21-26, 50-21-29.
- Dates v. City of Atlanta, 321 Ga. 696 (2025)
- City of Columbus v. Barngrover, 250 Ga. App. 589 (2001)
- Warnell v. Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County, 328 Ga. App. 903 (2014)
- Dorn v. Georgia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities, 329 Ga. App. 384 (2014)
General information about Georgia law as of October 2026. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.