Estill v. County of Shasta

Renee Estill submitted a government claim against the County of Shasta and others, specifically representing that she first became aware of an alleged incident on September 9, 2011. The County accepted Estill’s representation and denied her claim on the merits. Because it accepted the claim as timely, the County did not warn Estill to seek leave to present a late claim. During Estill’s deposition, defendants learned she was aware of the alleged wrongdoing as early as 2009. The trial court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment primarily on the ground that Estill’s government claim was untimely, but later granted her motion for a new trial, ruling there were triable issues of fact as to whether defendants waived their defense of untimeliness because the County did not warn Estill that she should seek leave to present a late claim pursuant to Government Code section 911.3(b). Defendants appealed the grant of a new trial, and Estill appealed the judgment in favor of defendants. The Court of Appeal reversed the grant of a new trial, finding that a claimant may be estopped from invoking the section 911.3 waiver provision where a public entity’s failure to notify the claimant that a claim is untimely is induced by the claimant’s representation on the government claim form. The Court found Estill was estopped from asserting that defendants waived their defense of untimeliness because she represented in her government claim that the incident of wrongdoing occurred in September 2009, but that she “first became aware” of the incident on September 9, 2011. She included an attachment to her government claim in which she could have explained what she had learned in 2009 and 2010 about the alleged misconduct, but she did not mention her prior knowledge. Thus, the record indicated she intended for the County to rely on her representation in the government claim, and the County did in fact rely on the representation. View "Estill v. County of Shasta" on Justia Law