I hit a pothole today, and it totaled my wheel. $500 to replace the rim and the tire. My question is whether or not it is worth writing a letter to city hall and seeing if they will take some liability for this.
Anyone done this? Any precedence?
I hit the hole in Hammond, IN by the way.
Yes, it’s worth writing the letter. That doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily get the money, just that there’s enough of a chance that it’s worth the shot. I mean, how much time will it take to write the letter? What else can you do with that time that might get you $500.
Get a picture of the pothole. Include a copy of your receipt. Send copies of the letter to the City Atty, your Council Member or the Mayor, and the Director of Public Works. State under your signature that the copies have been sent (cc: City Atty, Mayor, and Dir. PW).
You may want to ask the Director of Public Works if there have been any previous complaints about that same pothole. If you ask for copies of the complaints, they can charge you copying costs. If the pothole is that big and has been there long, it probably has a complaint or two on file.
Good Luck. If they move really slow, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re trying to outwait you.
Best of luck. Exact same thing happened to me years ago. I wrote to City Hall, then finally called. The woman I spoke with basically said PILES of claims come in every year, esp. around late winter (like mine) when frost heaves appear in force. “Assumed Risk” seemed to be the gist of her message on behalf of the city. If you want to pay for legal representation… well, I’d bet the repair would be cheaper. IMHO.
It’s worth it to go by and see if their insurance covers it. Submit a claim anyway. The City where I used to work paid a lot of claims for things like rock damage (from mowers) and vehicle damage from potholes.
Some cities will be like Sangfroid’s. Others will already have established claim processes and happily pay this out.
I believe it’s a case by case basis, as far as whether cities will accept such claims. A local paper here in DC ran a story about a law on DC’s books that requires the city to pay for damage to cars resulting from potholes, but according to that article, DC had paid some trivial amount – I seem to remember like $500 – for those claims in the past several years.
Try calling your city councilman and asking him for help.
First, IANAL, this emphatically is not legal advice, but discussion by a layman who thinks he knows what he’s talking about, etc. You know the drill on how to protect yourself legally, and it’s not taking the advice of some Yahoo like me from a Internet message board. 
But I’ve got two comments. First, what Indiana state statutes and case law have to say about it is almost definitely governing. I’d check the state DOT’s and attorney general’s websites for further information on your rights.
Second, from my (casual) reading there actually is a small body of case law where people took municipalities to court over this sort of thing. And if I may be permitted a bit of generalization, they seem to boil down to resolving two “reasonable man” questions:
Could you have been reasonably expected to have been aware of the existence of the pothole and taken evasive action to avoid the damage?
Could the city be reasonably expected to be aware of the existence of the pothole and to have been negligent in fixing it?
A third question would be, Are the damages being sought reasonable and directly related to the damage from the pothole?
In short, if a pothole 500 feet from your driveway on your daily way to/from your home has been there for three months, you could have avoided it by moving left 18 inches without endangering yourself or others, and you hit it anyway, you have nobody but yourself to blame.
If a pothole appears overnight owing to the freeze/thaw cycle, the city is not obliged to have fixed it by the next morning – they deserve a chance to get reasonable notice. If it can be shown that (a) they have been notified of the potchole, or (b) the pothole has been there long enough that they got “constructive notice” – i.e., a diligent reasonable city D.P.W. should have been aware of its existence by its duty of due care in street maintenance – then they are responsible.
But for damages to your vehicle directly related to hitting the pothole, not for whatever the traffic will bear. If your car has 80,000 miles of wear on its springs and struts, and they break owing to hitting the pothole, the judge is not going to give you new ones free and clear.
(Repeat disclaimer. They are responsible; the judge is not going to… and similar statements are intended as summaries of common decision-making criteria, not as direct advice or a statement of your rights.)
I imagine there’s probably some kind of question related to what kind of car you drive also.
My buddy has a BMW M3 with aftermarket 18" wheels & low profile tires. He hit one of those large porcelain traffic control bumps (like a lane marker bump, but about 2x the size), and totally mangled a wheel.
I on the other hand, drive a small pickup, and I can drive over those things at 50 mph without any effect except a “THUD THUD THUD” as I hit each one.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a city told him to go to hell if he put a claim in on a pothole, simply because his car is ridiculously easy to damage compared to the vast majority of cars on the road.
I just wanted to comment that I did actually win a claim against a city for pothole damage to my car. The hole was about 20 inches deep (yikes!) and I hit it at night when it was imossible to see. My claim was greatly improved by the fact that several other people also had damage and we filed a police report together. I think that the hole had been there most of the day and other people had complained but nothing was done. By the time the police report was all completed (hour or so later) the city crew was out fixing the hole. I got about $300, but it took a really long time to get the check. In other words, it is definitely worth your time to fill out the paperwork, even if you don’t win.
Yeah to answer some of the questions:
I drive a 2002 ford focus. The damage was def due to the hole, not deterioration. The rim has a carrot in it… like ^ but pointing torward the center of the wheel.
I called the city today and they have a claim form for this. We will see when I submit it if I actually get anything.
I am also taking pictures of the damage to the wheel, the tire, and of the hole itself.
Wish me luck! Never hurts to try, right?