How to Sue the State of Maryland: MTCA Notice, Deadlines, and Caps

To sue the State of Maryland, you first file a written notice of claim with the State Treasurer within one year of your injury, wait for the Treasurer to deny the claim (or for six months to pass without a response), and then file your lawsuit in Circuit Court within three years of the date the injury occurred. Damages are capped at $400,000 for most claims under the Maryland Tort Claims Act, with higher limits for certain law enforcement and sexual abuse cases. Miss the notice step, and a judge will likely dismiss your case before ever looking at what happened to you.

Maryland has sovereign immunity, meaning the state cannot be sued unless it agrees to be. The Maryland Tort Claims Act (MTCA), in Title 12 of the State Government Article, is that limited agreement. It covers negligence by state employees acting within the scope of their jobs — a state highway crew leaving debris on the road, for example — and it comes with strict procedures that don’t apply when you sue a private person or company.¹

Step 1: File a Notice of Claim With the State Treasurer

Before any lawsuit, you must submit a written notice of claim to the State Treasurer within one year after the injury or property damage occurred.² The notice has to be personally signed by you, your attorney, or someone holding your power of attorney.³

By statute, the notice must contain:⁴

A concise statement of the facts, including the date, time, and location of the incident.
An explanation of why you believe a state employee’s negligence caused your injury or property damage.
Your name and address, plus those of any other involved parties. Include the name of the state employee involved if you know it.
Your attorney’s name, address, and phone number, if you have one.
A specific dollar demand for damages based on your calculated losses — medical bills, lost wages, property repair costs. The statute requires a specific number, not a vague description.

The damages demand is where people most often stumble, especially early after an injury when the full extent of medical costs isn’t clear. Put down what you know at the time. The number matters, and missing any required element gives the state grounds to reject the claim or argue you never satisfied the notice requirement.

Where to Send It

Send the notice to the Insurance Division at the Treasurer’s Office by certified mail with return receipt requested. You need proof of delivery:³

Dereck E. Davis, Treasurer
c/o Insurance Division
Louis L. Goldstein Treasury Building
80 Calvert Street, Room 442
Annapolis, MD 21401

The Insurance Division’s Claims Unit investigates claims filed against the state, its agencies, and its employees.⁵

If You Miss the One-Year Deadline

A late notice doesn’t automatically end your case. A court can still hear the claim if you show good cause for the delay and the state cannot prove that its ability to defend itself was harmed by the late filing.² That’s a harder position to be in, and it depends on facts you may not control.

The notice requirement is bypassed entirely if, within one year of the injury, the state already had actual or constructive knowledge of your injury or the conditions that caused it. A state agency’s internal incident report about the event, for instance, may satisfy the requirement on its own. Claims based on sexual abuse as defined in the Courts Article are also exempt.²

Step 2: Wait for the Denial or the Six-Month Silence

Once the Treasurer’s Office receives the notice, the Insurance Division investigates: what happened, whether the employee was acting within the scope of employment, and whether the state is legally responsible. You will be notified in writing whether the claim is approved or denied.

You cannot file a lawsuit until the Treasurer formally denies the claim. If the office takes no action within six months of receiving your notice, the law treats that silence as a final denial, and you can move to court.⁴⁶

One trap: if your claim is denied and you request reconsideration, that request does not pause or extend your deadline for filing suit.⁶ The clock keeps running while you wait to hear back.

Step 3: File the Lawsuit in Circuit Court

After a denial or the six-month silence, you file your lawsuit in Maryland Circuit Court. The action must be filed within three years after the cause of action arises.² That three-year window runs from the date of the injury, not from the date the claim was denied. Filing your notice does not pause it.⁷

The timing can get tight. Notice within one year. The Treasurer can take up to six months. File your notice near the end of the first year and let the office use the full six months, and you have already burned 18 months of a 36-month statute of limitations before you are even permitted to sue. File the notice earlier and you keep breathing room.

Serving the State

Once the complaint is filed, you serve the State of Maryland under Maryland Rule 2-124 by delivering the summons and complaint to the Attorney General or a designee the Attorney General has named in writing with the Clerk of the Supreme Court. If the claim targets a specific state agency or officer, you serve either the agency’s resident agent or the Attorney General.⁸

How Much You Can Recover

Even a winning claim is limited by statutory caps:

General negligence claims: state liability cannot exceed $400,000 to a single claimant for injuries arising from a single incident.¹
Law enforcement constitutional violations or intentional acts: combined economic and noneconomic damages cannot exceed $890,000 for all claims arising from the same incident, regardless of how many claimants are involved. In a wrongful death action with two or more claimants, the noneconomic portion cannot exceed 150% of that $890,000 figure.¹
Sexual abuse of a minor: $890,000 per claimant. For actions filed on or after June 1, 2025 that would have been time-barred before October 1, 2023, the cap drops to $400,000.¹

The caps set the maximum the state is legally required to pay. The Treasurer can pay above the cap from the State Insurance Trust Fund if a judgment or settlement has been entered for the full statutory amount and the Board of Public Works, with the Attorney General’s advice, approves the additional payment. That is uncommon, but the mechanism exists for catastrophic injuries where the cap would produce a plainly inadequate result.¹

When the MTCA Doesn’t Apply

The MTCA only waives immunity for negligent acts or omissions by state employees within the scope of employment.¹ Immunity remains intact for discretionary functions — policy-level decisions about where to place a traffic signal, for example. Failing to maintain a signal already in place is operational and can support a claim; the underlying decision to install it cannot.

Suing a county or city in Maryland is a different process entirely. Local governments are covered by the Local Government Tort Claims Act under the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, with its own notice requirements and deadlines.⁹ If your injury involves a county sheriff’s office, a city police officer, or a county agency, the MTCA is not your statute.

Federal Civil Rights Claims as an Alternative

If your injury involves a violation of your constitutional rights by a state employee, you may also have a claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983. That statute lets you sue any person who, acting under state authority, deprives you of rights guaranteed by the Constitution or federal law.¹⁰ A §1983 claim targets the individual employee in their personal capacity, not the state. The MTCA’s damages caps do not apply, and a winning plaintiff can recover reasonable attorney’s fees on top of damages. There is no notice-to-Treasurer requirement, but qualified immunity can shield officers if the right they violated was not clearly established at the time. Many plaintiffs pursue both — an MTCA claim against the state and a §1983 claim against the individual employee — at the same time.

Tax Treatment of a Settlement or Award

What you recover may or may not be taxable. Compensation for personal physical injuries or physical sickness is generally excluded from gross income under federal tax law, and that exclusion covers medical expenses, pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life flowing from a physical injury.¹¹

Emotional distress damages are treated differently. If the claim rests on emotional harm without an underlying physical injury, those proceeds are taxable. The narrow exception: the portion of an emotional distress award that reimburses out-of-pocket medical expenses related to the distress is not taxable, as long as those expenses were not deducted in a prior tax year.¹¹ Punitive damages are always taxable as ordinary income, and interest on the award — pre-judgment or post-judgment — is taxable too. When a settlement mixes categories, the allocation written into the settlement agreement can significantly affect the tax bill. Getting that allocation right at the settlement stage is far easier than trying to reclassify money later.

1
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code State Government 12-104 – Waiver of State Tort Immunity
2
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code State Government 12-106 – Claimant Actions
3
Maryland State Treasurer. Claims and Litigation
4
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code State Government 12-107 – Claims
5
Maryland State Treasurer. Citizen Services
6
Legal Information Institute. Maryland Code of Regulations 25.02.03.08 – Denial of Claims
7
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Courts and Judicial Proceedings 5-108
8
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. Maryland Rule 2-124 – Process, Persons to Be Served
9
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. Maryland Code Courts and Judicial Proceedings 5-304 – Notice of Claim
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness