Oregon Tort Claims Act: The 180-Day Notice Rule

The notice requirement is one of the most aggressive procedural traps in Oregon civil practice. The Oregon Tort Claims Act (“OTCA”) imposes it on top of, not in place of, the ordinary statute of limitations. A timely lawsuit can still be dismissed if no timely notice was given.

What the OTCA is

The Oregon Tort Claims Act, codified at ORS 30.260 through ORS 30.300, is the statutory framework that controls when, how, and how much an injured Oregonian can recover from a “public body” — the state, a state agency, a county, a city, a school district, or certain quasi-public entities like OHSU. The Act partially waives sovereign immunity, which means injured people can sue Oregon public entities at all — but it conditions that waiver on a set of procedural rules that do not apply to suits against private defendants.

The notice rule in ORS 30.275 is the most consequential of those conditions. Subsection (1) provides that “No action arising from any act or omission of a public body … shall be maintained unless notice of claim is given as required by this section.”

The 180-day rule for personal injury

Under ORS 30.275(2)(b), notice of any non-death claim against a public body must be given “within 180 days after the alleged loss or injury.” That window is far shorter than the two-year limitations period for ordinary personal injury claims under ORS 12.110 and shorter still than the five-year repose for medical malpractice under ORS 12.110(4).

The 180-day clock runs from the date of the loss or injury, but Oregon courts have applied a discovery-rule analysis to that starting point — the notice period does not necessarily begin until the claimant discovers, or reasonably should have discovered, that an injury occurred and that a public body was responsible. The Oregon Supreme Court applied that analysis in Adams v. Oregon State Police (1980), holding that the 180-day notice period did not begin to run until the plaintiff discovered that Oregon State Police were responsible for damage to a towed vehicle.¹ Dowers Farms v. Lake County (1980) reached the same result on a herbicide-spraying claim — the limitations period did not begin until the plaintiff discovered the damage.²

The practical implication: in latent-injury cases — missed cancer diagnoses, retained surgical objects, hospital-acquired infections that progress to sepsis only weeks after discharge — when the 180-day clock begins running is a fact-intensive question. It is not safe to assume there is plenty of time simply because injury appeared late. The discovery analysis can save an otherwise stale claim; it can also fail to save one if the patient reasonably should have known earlier. Cases that turn on discovery should be evaluated early by counsel with experience handling OTCA claims.

The one-year rule for wrongful death

For wrongful death claims, ORS 30.275(2)(a) provides a longer window: notice must be given “within one year after the alleged loss or injury.” The Oregon Supreme Court held in Stephens v. Bohlman (1992) that the one-year notice period begins to run from the date of discovery of the injury rather than from the date of death.³ Where the date of injury and the date of death are separated by a meaningful period — for example, a missed-diagnosis case where the negligent care occurred months before the patient died — the one-year clock can begin running before the death itself.

This is also the rule that catches families most often. The longer notice window for wrongful death feels like more time. It is not, in cases where the negligent act occurred well before the death. Many families assume they have a year from the funeral. They do not.

The 90-day incapacity extension

ORS 30.275(2) excludes from the notice period “the period, not exceeding 90 days, during which the person injured is unable to give the notice because of the injury or because of minority, incompetency or other incapacity.” That gives a maximum 270-day window for personal injury claims and a maximum 15-month window for wrongful death claims where the claimant was incapacitated.

For minor claimants, Oregon appellate law has held that the 90-day extension applies, but that ORS 12.160 — the general statute that suspends limitations periods for minors — does not toll the OTCA notice deadline.⁴ A minor injured by a public body's negligence must have notice given within 270 days of the injury, not 270 days plus the time to reach age 18. That rule applies broadly, not only to DHS-related claims.⁵

What counts as notice

ORS 30.275(3) describes four ways the notice requirement can be satisfied:

1. Formal notice — a written communication meeting the requirements of subsections (4) and (5).
2. Actual notice — a communication from which a reasonable person would conclude that a particular person intends to assert a claim, made to a person responsible for administering tort claims for the public body.
3. Commencement of the action itself — filing the lawsuit within the notice period.
4. Payment of all or part of the claim by or on behalf of the public body at any time.

Formal notice (ORS 30.275(4)) requires a written statement that (a) a claim for damages is or will be asserted, (b) describes the time, place, and circumstances of the injury so far as known, and (c) gives the claimant's name and a mailing address for correspondence. The Oregon Supreme Court has held that formal notice does not need to specify the legal theory of the claim, just the facts.⁷

Actual notice (ORS 30.275(6)) is broader and more forgiving. Any communication that conveys the time, place, and circumstances of the injury, made to someone responsible for administering tort claims at the public body — including an insurance adjuster working for the public body's carrier — can qualify, as long as a reasonable person reading it would understand that a particular person is asserting a claim. Letters from injured patients to hospital risk management offices, for example, can constitute actual notice.

Where to send formal notice

ORS 30.275(5) directs formal notice to be sent by mail or personal delivery:

• State claims — to the office of the Director of the Oregon Department of Administrative Services. This includes claims against OHSU, ODOT, and state employees acting in their official capacity.
• Local public body claims — to the public body at its principal administrative office, to any member of the public body's governing body, or to an attorney designated by the governing body as its general counsel.

Sending notice to the wrong recipient is a recurring problem. Letters delivered to the negligent provider personally, or to a hospital department that does not handle claims, do not satisfy formal notice. They may still satisfy actual notice if the recipient is someone responsible for administering tort claims, but the safer course is to identify and notice the statutorily designated office.

Who is a “public body”

The definition in ORS 30.260 is broad, and several institutions that look private are public bodies for OTCA purposes:

• OHSU is a public corporation under ORS 353.020 and is covered by the OTCA. ORS 30.267 sweeps broadly: all services constituting patient care provided on the OHSU campus or in any OHSU clinic are deemed within the scope of state employment when performed by salaried OHSU physicians, nonsalaried or courtesy physicians affiliated with OHSU, medical and nursing students or trainees affiliated with OHSU, and volunteer physicians affiliated with OHSU. A patient injured by a courtesy attending — a private-practice doctor working at OHSU — is in an OTCA case, not a private case. Clarke v. OHSU (2007) confirmed that OHSU is subject to the OTCA damages cap.⁶
• County hospitals — including most rural hospitals operated by county health districts — are public bodies.
• School districts and TriMet are public bodies, which matters for school-injury and public-transit cases.

Some clinics that look like private community health centers are actually treated as federal employees for liability purposes under separate federal statutes — those cases are outside the scope of this page and outside the scope of Huegli Law's practice.

Identifying whether a defendant is a public body is the first analytical step in any case involving a hospital or institutional defendant. Getting it wrong on either side — treating a private hospital as public and giving unnecessary notice is harmless; treating a public hospital as private and missing the notice deadline is fatal.

The two-year limitations period

Even after timely notice, ORS 30.275(9) imposes a two-year limitations period for OTCA claims — “an action … shall be commenced within two years after the alleged loss or injury.” This two-year deadline applies “notwithstanding any other provision of ORS chapter 12 or other statute providing a limitation on the commencement of an action.” That means the longer limitations periods that apply to many ordinary tort claims — three years for wrongful death under ORS 30.020(1), for example — are displaced by the OTCA's two-year period when the defendant is a public body.⁸

A medical malpractice claim against a private hospital has a two-year limitations period under ORS 12.110, capped by a five-year repose under ORS 12.110(4). The same claim against OHSU has a 180-day notice requirement and a two-year limitations period. The window is dramatically shorter on the public side.

What to do if a public body may be involved

If a claim involves any Oregon hospital with “Oregon Health & Science” or “OHSU” in its name, any county hospital, any state agency, any city, any school district, Tri-Met, or any quasi-public entity, treat the 180-day notice window (one year for wrongful death) as the working deadline. Get the case in front of an attorney long before that window closes. Even an attorney with extensive experience in private-defendant claims may miss OTCA-specific deadlines when picking up a public-body case mid-stream.

Huegli Law represents Oregonians in claims against public bodies — including OHSU and county hospitals — alongside the private-defendant medical malpractice and personal injury practice. For a free consultation, call 971-317-6436.