Last updated
By Ron McMinn, Esq. | Last updated November 10, 2026.
Read this article in Español.
On October 30, 2026, the mayors of 13 of California’s largest cities stood at Riverside City Hall and made injury lawsuits against local governments a legislative priority. The bipartisan California Big City Mayors coalition, chaired by Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson, said it would seek “reasonable limits” on noneconomic damages, liability that matches each city’s share of fault, and greater transparency about attorney fees in suits against local governments. The City of Riverside’s press release that day also described “reasonable limits on attorneys’ contingency fees.” According to IE Law News, the mayors did not present draft bill language.
If you were hurt because a city failed to fix a road, a sidewalk, a signal, a tree, or a bus hazard, here is the part that matters most right now: nothing in that announcement changed your rights. There is still no cap on noneconomic damages in an ordinary injury claim against a California city. The six-month government-claim deadline in Government Code section 911.2 still applies. A separate statute, Senate Bill 577, was signed on September 30, 2026, and it will change who pays economic damages in some public-entity cases filed on or after January 1, 2027. That bill is already law. The mayors’ new cap proposal is not.
This article explains what the coalition asked for, why a cap on pain and suffering damages is a bad bargain for people injured by someone else’s negligence, and what you should do if a public hazard hurt you today.
What the mayors asked for
IE Law News reported that the coalition’s three requests were reasonable limits on noneconomic damages, liability proportionate to responsibility, and transparency with the cost of attorney fees for potential litigants. The same report said the mayors do not yet have draft language for those reforms.
The City of Riverside’s October 30, 2026, press release said the coalition represents the state’s 13 largest cities and nearly 11 million residents, and that the mayors set priorities for California’s next Governor and the 2027 legislative session at their annual summit in Riverside.
IE Law News also reported that the mayors are arguing for changes to California personal injury law, not civil rights cases such as those filed after police shootings.
Mayors Todd Gloria of San Diego and Rex Richardson of Long Beach described premises-liability suits against cities as a drain on taxpayers. Richardson said, as quoted by IE Law News, that insurance costs for litigation have doubled, from $10.5 million to $23 million, over the last three years. The Riverside press release cited an August 2026 analysis by Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and Beacon Economics reporting that public-entity liability costs have tripled over seven years, with large claims accounting for a disproportionate share of financial exposure. We have not independently audited those figures. Cities may make their budget case to the Legislature. Injured people deserve an equally clear account of who would actually pay if damages are capped.
Nothing has changed for you yet
No statute enacted after that press conference places a new ceiling on what a jury may award for pain, suffering, disability, or the loss of companionship in an ordinary claim against a city. Until the Legislature writes, passes, and the Governor signs a bill, the announcement is a lobbying agenda, not a change in your case.
Government Code section 911.2 still says a claim relating to a cause of action for death or for injury to person or to personal property shall be presented not later than six months after the accrual of the cause of action. Accrual is a legal question. Do not invent the start date from a news story. Our government claims page explains the broader process, and our guide to a missed six-month government claim deadline explains why waiting is dangerous.
If a dangerous road, sidewalk, or similar public condition is part of what hurt you, see our guide on suing the government over a dangerous road or sidewalk.
Why noneconomic damages are often the real compensation
California law already distinguishes two kinds of damages. Civil Code section 1431.2, as amended by Senate Bill 577, defines economic damages as objectively verifiable monetary losses, including medical expenses, loss of earnings, burial costs, loss of use of property, repair or replacement costs, the cost of substitute domestic services, and lost employment opportunities. It defines noneconomic damages as subjective, non-monetary losses, including pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental suffering, emotional distress, loss of society and companionship, loss of consortium, injury to reputation, and humiliation.
A child who will live with a permanent injury may have modest past medical bills and no lost wages at all. A retired person may have no paycheck to claim. A parent whose work is unpaid care of a household may show little “loss of earnings” on paper. A low-wage worker may face a lifetime of pain and a shortened ability to enjoy ordinary life, and still show a small wage claim. In each of those cases, noneconomic damages are often the main way the civil system measures what was taken from them.
A cap does not ask whether the city was careless. It sets a ceiling on what that pain, disability, disfigurement, and loss of companionship can be worth, no matter how lasting the harm. The people who lose the most under a flat ceiling are not high earners with large wage claims. They are the people whose losses do not show up neatly on a pay stub.
Caps move the cost off the at-fault party and onto the injured person
When a city leaves a known hazard in place and someone is badly hurt, a cap would let the at-fault party pay less than the amount needed to compensate for that harm. The difference does not disappear. Families absorb it. Health insurers try to recover what they paid. Public programs such as Medi-Cal, Medicare, and disability benefits can be left covering medical care and lost income that the at-fault party no longer has to make whole. A proposal sold as protection for taxpayers can shift costs from the department that failed to maintain a street, a sidewalk, a signal, or a tree onto other taxpayer-funded programs, and onto the injured person.
Cities, not the people they injure, decide whether a sidewalk is repaired, a signal is timed safely, a bus stop is maintained, or a dying tree is removed. A rule that shrinks the consequences of leaving a known hazard in place weakens the financial reason to fix it.
The Long Beach tree case the mayors used as an example
IE Law News reported that Mayor Richardson pointed to a jury verdict of about $5 million for a Long Beach man injured by a tree branch. The man suffered spinal damage and had to retire from his job as a teacher, according to reporting from the Long Beach Post as summarized by IE Law News. Richardson said the tree had been recently trimmed and had no visible signs of danger.
The same IE Law News article reported that a 2016 audit, presented at trial, had found a quarter of Long Beach’s trees were dead or in poor condition, and that a lack of adequate funding was one cause. According to the plaintiff’s attorney, as reported by IE Law News, the verdict included $188,470 for medical expenses, $3 million for past noneconomic damages, and $1.9 million for future noneconomic damages. The city appealed. IE Law News identified the trial case as Los Angeles Superior Court No. 24LBCV00932 and the appeal as Court of Appeal No. DB351094.
Those reported figures show why a noneconomic cap would have fallen hardest on the injured person. Medical expenses were a small fraction of the award. Most of the compensation was for the pain and life-changing loss that spinal damage and a forced retirement inflicted. Richardson asked, as quoted by IE Law News, “Imagine how many trees can be maintained with $5 million.” A fair reply is to imagine leaving a teacher with spinal damage to bear the cost of a tree inventory the city already had reason to know was failing. Paying a judgment is not the same as maintaining trees. Caps do not plant, trim, or inspect them.
Proportionate fault can leave medical bills unpaid
Under Civil Code section 1431.2, each defendant already pays only its own share of noneconomic damages. Economic damages such as medical bills and lost earnings have historically been joint and several. That means an injured person could collect the full amount of those economic losses from a defendant who could pay, even if another defendant was more at fault but had no insurance or no assets.
Senate Bill 577 changes that rule for public entities. Governor Newsom approved the bill on September 30, 2026, and it was filed with the Secretary of State the same day. In an action filed on or after January 1, 2027, alleging personal injury, property damage, or wrongful death against a public entity, each public entity defendant’s liability for economic damages is several only, and shall not be joint, unless the public entity is found more than 15 percent at fault. If the public entity is found more than 15 percent at fault, that several-only limit on economic damages does not apply. Our earlier article on what SB 577 changes for public-entity injury claims explains the statute in more detail.
The mayors asked for “liability proportionate to responsibility.” Because there is no bill text yet, no one can say how far that request would go beyond SB 577. What can be said is this: any rule that limits a city to its percentage of fault for medical bills, when another wrongdoer is uninsured or insolvent, leaves those bills on the injured person. A common pattern is an uninsured or impaired driver plus a dangerous city intersection, a missing warning, or a poorly maintained roadway. If the driver cannot pay, a proportionate-only rule against the city can leave the victim with only a percentage of the medical bills and none of the rest.
That is not fairness to the injured consumer. It is protection for the party that still has a budget, at the expense of the person who did not choose to be hurt.
MICRA shows how a damages cap really works
California has lived with a noneconomic-damages cap in one category of cases for decades. The Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 limited noneconomic damages in professional-negligence cases against health care providers. When the Legislature enacted Assembly Bill 35 in 2022, it described the long-standing ceiling as $250,000. That figure did not rise with inflation for many years.
Assembly Bill 35 amended Civil Code section 3333.2. For cases filed or arbitrations demanded on or after January 1, 2023, the statute set starting limits of $350,000 for injury cases that do not involve wrongful death and $500,000 for wrongful-death cases. It then scheduled an increase of $40,000 each January 1 for 10 years on the injury figure, up to $750,000, and $50,000 each January 1 for 10 years on the wrongful-death figure, up to $1 million. Those later increases were an admission that a frozen cap falls behind the real value of a life, a face, or a permanent disability.
MICRA applies to medical professional negligence, not to a claim that a city left a sidewalk, a signal, or a tree in a dangerous condition. It is still the clearest California example of what a noneconomic cap does. It does not make the injury smaller. It makes the recovery smaller, especially for people whose largest losses are pain, disability, disfigurement, and the loss of companionship rather than a large salary.
Attorney fees are not a reason to cut an injured person’s recovery
The mayors also asked for more transparency about attorney fees, and the Riverside release added “reasonable limits on attorneys’ contingency fees.” Contingency fees are how people who cannot pay an hourly lawyer hire counsel. A rule that limits what an injured person may agree to pay, piled on top of a cap that shrinks the recovery, can make a hard case against a well-funded city less practical to bring. That result would favor the defendant that asked for the rule.
Fee transparency, standing alone, is not the same as a cap on damages. Until there is bill language, treat both ideas as proposals, not as the law that applies to your claim today.
If a city hazard hurt you
Do not wait to see whether the Legislature takes up the mayors’ agenda. Photograph the scene. Get medical care. Keep the names of witnesses. Present a government claim on time. Opening an insurance file or calling a city complaint line is not the same as presenting the claim that Government Code section 911.2 requires.
Win Attorneys handles government claims and personal injury matters statewide from our Tustin office. We speak Spanish and Vietnamese.
Call us at (657) 235-8097, reach us through our contact page, or start online with our intake form. Office: 17291 Irvine Blvd., Suite 210, Tustin, CA 92780.
Frequently asked questions
Have California cities already capped what an injured person can recover?
No. The October 30, 2026, announcement by the California Big City Mayors coalition is a legislative agenda, not a new statute. The mayors have not released draft bill language. Ordinary injury claims against cities are not subject to a MICRA-style noneconomic-damages cap.
How long do I have to present an injury claim against a California city?
Government Code section 911.2 generally requires that a claim relating to death or injury to a person or to personal property be presented not later than six months after the cause of action accrues. That deadline has not changed.
What did the mayors ask the Legislature to change?
They asked for reasonable limits on noneconomic damages, liability matching each city’s share of fault, and greater transparency about attorney fees. The City of Riverside’s press release also described reasonable limits on attorneys’ contingency fees. There is no bill text yet.
What does Senate Bill 577 change, and when does that change apply?
Governor Newsom signed SB 577 on September 30, 2026. For actions filed on or after January 1, 2027, alleging personal injury, property damage, or wrongful death against a public entity, a public entity found 15 percent or less at fault pays only its own share of economic damages. If it is found more than 15 percent at fault, that several-only limit on economic damages does not apply.
Why would a cap on noneconomic damages hurt people injured by someone else’s negligence?
Noneconomic damages compensate for pain, suffering, disability, disfigurement, and the loss of companionship. They are often the main recovery for children, seniors, homemakers, and low-wage workers who have little documented wage loss. A cap shrinks that recovery and can shift unpaid harm onto families and public benefit programs, while weakening the reason for a city to fix a hazard it controls.