How to Sue the Federal Government and Win: FTCA Steps & Deadlines

To sue the federal government, you generally have to file a written administrative claim with the agency responsible for your injury within two years of the incident, wait for that agency to deny the claim or let six months pass without a response, and then file a lawsuit in federal district court within six months of the denial. That path exists because of the Federal Tort Claims Act, and it comes with hard deadlines, a mandatory claim form, a dollar amount you have to commit to up front, and a bench trial at the end. Miss a step and the case is over before it starts.

Why You Can’t Just File a Normal Lawsuit

The federal government is protected by sovereign immunity. It cannot be sued in its own courts unless Congress has passed a statute consenting to that specific type of claim. Those statutes are narrow. Each one defines what injuries qualify, which court hears the case, how much you can recover, and what you have to do before filing suit. If your situation doesn’t fit inside one of those waivers, there is no courthouse door to walk through.

For injuries caused by federal employees, the waiver you’ll almost always rely on is the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).

What the FTCA Covers

The FTCA lets you seek money damages for personal injury, death, or property damage caused by the negligent act of a federal employee acting within the scope of their job.¹ The textbook example is a Postal Service driver who runs a red light on a delivery route and hits your car.

Liability is measured by the law of the state where the incident happened. The government is held to the same standard of care a private person would face in that state.²

One boundary trips people up: the FTCA covers federal employees, not independent contractors.¹ The government uses contractors for security, healthcare, construction, and a long list of other services. If a contractor caused your injury, the FTCA path isn’t available to you.

Claims the FTCA Won’t Help You Bring

Congress built a long list of exceptions into the statute. Several of them close off common categories of claims entirely:

Decisions involving policy judgment or discretion, even negligent ones, are immune.³
Intentional torts like fraud, defamation, and interference with contract are generally barred. There is a carve-out when the defendant is a federal law enforcement officer empowered to make arrests, execute searches, or seize evidence; claims for assault, battery, false arrest, false imprisonment, abuse of process, and malicious prosecution against those officers can proceed.³
Injuries that occurred outside the United States are completely excluded.³
Claims arising from military combat during wartime are excluded.³
Lost or misdelivered mail is not actionable under the FTCA.³

Active-duty service members face an additional barrier. Under the Feres doctrine, military personnel cannot sue under the FTCA for injuries that occurred incident to active-duty service. A 2020 statute created a narrow administrative route for medical malpractice at Department of Defense facilities under 10 U.S.C. 2733a, but that process goes through the agency, not a courtroom.⁴

If your complaint is that a federal officer violated your constitutional rights rather than committed a state-law tort, the FTCA may not fit. A separate category of suit against individual federal officers, called a Bivens action, exists in theory. In practice, the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Egbert v. Boule described creating any new Bivens remedy as a “disfavored judicial activity,” and courts almost never recognize new ones.⁵ Treat this as an extremely narrow path.

Step One: File the Administrative Claim

You cannot go straight to court. Before any FTCA lawsuit, you must submit a formal administrative claim to the agency responsible for your injury and wait for a response.⁶ A court has no discretion to overlook this requirement. Skip it or botch it and your lawsuit gets dismissed.

The claim goes on Standard Form 95, “Claim for Damage, Injury, or Death.”⁷ The form asks for your personal information and a written description of what happened: date, time, location, and the names of any federal employees you can identify.

File it with the right agency. If the injury happened at a VA hospital, it goes to the Department of Veterans Affairs. A collision with a military vehicle goes to the Department of Defense. A postal truck collision goes to the Postal Service. Sending it to the wrong agency does not stop the two-year clock from running. Send it by certified mail so you have proof of the filing date.

The Sum Certain

The most consequential field on SF 95 is the “sum certain” — a specific dollar amount you are claiming. You cannot leave it blank or write “to be determined.” Without a specific number, the agency will not treat your submission as a valid claim, and your filing deadline keeps running.⁷

The amount acts as a ceiling. If you claim $100,000 and later realize your damages are actually $500,000, you are generally stuck with the lower number. The only escape is if the increase is based on newly discovered evidence that you could not reasonably have found when you filed, or on facts that arose after filing.⁶ That exception is hard to invoke in practice. Account for future medical treatment, lost earning capacity, and pain and suffering, not just the bills already on your kitchen table. When in doubt, claim more rather than less.

Supporting Evidence

The SF 95 instructions tell you what to attach. For personal injury, submit a written physician’s report describing the injury, treatment, any permanent disability, prognosis, and the period of hospitalization or missed work, along with itemized medical bills. For property damage that can be repaired, submit at least two signed, itemized estimates from unrelated repair businesses. For property that was destroyed, submit statements showing original cost, date of purchase, and value before and after the incident, ideally from a dealer or appraiser.⁸

A thin claim invites a quick denial. A detailed one, with records and a well-calculated sum certain, forces the agency to evaluate the case on the merits.

Step Two: Wait Out the Agency

Once the claim is filed, the agency has six months to investigate and either settle or deny it. You cannot file a lawsuit during that window. If six months pass with no response, the law treats the silence as a denial, and you may proceed to court whenever you choose after that point.⁶

Step Three: File Suit in Federal Court

After a formal denial, or after six months of silence, you can file a complaint in U.S. District Court. The lawsuit must be filed in the federal judicial district where you live or where the incident occurred.⁹ You get to pick between those two, which matters if the incident happened far from home.

There is no jury. Federal law requires FTCA cases to be tried to a judge alone.¹⁰ That changes how you build the case. A single federal judge decides both the facts and the law, and judges tend to be moved by evidence rather than emotion. Expert witnesses carry real weight: a medical expert explaining the extent of injury, or an accident reconstructionist walking through the collision, often matters more than a sympathetic witness.

The Three Deadlines That Can End Your Case

Three timing rules control everything, and missing any of them bars the claim permanently.

Two years to file the administrative claim. You must file SF 95 with the correct agency within two years of when the claim accrues.¹¹ Accrual usually means the date of injury. For medical malpractice and other injuries where harm isn’t immediately apparent, the clock may start when you discovered or reasonably should have discovered the injury and its cause. The statute uses the words “forever barred.”

Six months of mandatory waiting. You cannot sue during the agency’s six-month review window.⁶

Six months to sue after a denial. If the agency formally denies your claim, you have exactly six months from the date the denial letter is mailed by certified or registered mail to file suit.¹¹ The clock starts when the agency mails the letter, not when you receive it.

Calendar every one of these and set multiple reminders. Government attorneys check these dates first in every case.

What You Can and Can’t Recover

Even if you win, the FTCA limits what the government pays. You cannot recover punitive damages. You are limited to compensatory damages: medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, property repair. The government also does not pay pre-judgment interest, so no interest accrues on the amount during the years the case is pending.²

Attorney fees are capped by statute. If the case settles during the administrative stage, the attorney cannot charge more than 20% of the recovery. If a judgment or settlement happens after a lawsuit is filed, the cap is 25%.¹² These caps control regardless of what any fee agreement says, and the statute makes it a crime for an attorney to charge more.

Payment itself is not a problem. Final judgments and settlements in FTCA cases are paid out of a permanent appropriation called the Judgment Fund, administered by Treasury.¹³ A win is collectible.

When Your Claim Isn’t a Tort

If the dispute involves a government contract or money you believe is owed to you under a federal statute or regulation, the FTCA isn’t the right vehicle. The Tucker Act gives the U.S. Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction over monetary claims against the government founded on the Constitution, federal statutes, regulations, or contracts, with no dollar cap.¹⁴ For smaller claims of $10,000 or less, the Little Tucker Act lets you file in U.S. District Court instead.¹

Protecting the Case

Document everything from day one. The administrative claim is your first and sometimes only chance to present the case before the government decides whether to fight. Agencies settle when the proof is strong and the exposure is clear.

Get the sum certain right. Because that figure generally caps what you can recover in court, undervaluing damages at the agency stage can cost you a great deal of money later, and the newly-discovered-evidence exception is hard to invoke.⁶

File with the right agency, by certified mail, well before the two-year mark. Build the case for a bench trial from the start: methodical, documented, expert-supported.¹⁰ The federal government has a large bench of lawyers whose first move is to look for a missed deadline or a procedural slip. Give them nothing to find.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1346 – United States as Plaintiff
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2674 – Liability of United States
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2680 – Exceptions
4
Federal Register. Medical Malpractice Claims by Members of the Uniformed Services
5
Supreme Court of the United States. Egbert v. Boule, 596 U.S. 482 (2022)
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2675 – Disposition by Federal Agency as Prerequisite; Evidence
7
U.S. Department of Justice. Civil Division Documents and Forms
8
General Services Administration. Standard Form 95 – Claim for Damage, Injury, or Death
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1402 – United States as Defendant
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2402 – Jury Trial in Actions Against United States
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2678 – Attorney Fees; Penalty
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 1304 – Judgments, Awards, and Compromise Settlements
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1491 – Claims Against United States Generally