Can You File a Class Action Lawsuit Against the Government?

Suing the government is not like suing a company. Federal, state, and local governments start out shielded by sovereign immunity — you can only sue where a law specifically allows it, and the rules for doing so (and for banding claims together) are different from an ordinary Rule 23 class action.

Why You Can't Just Sue the Government

Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the federal government and each state generally cannot be sued unless they consent to it. That consent has to come from a statute — a specific law in which the government waives its immunity and lets people sue for a defined category of harm, on defined terms (deadlines, procedures, sometimes a cap on what you can recover).

This is the single biggest difference from suing a private company. Against a business, you can generally sue for any recognized legal claim. Against the government, you can only sue for the claims Congress or a state legislature has specifically agreed to let you bring — and you have to follow that statute's process exactly, or the case can be dismissed regardless of the merits.

Suing the Federal Government: The FTCA

The main way to sue the United States for everyday harm — a government vehicle accident, negligence at a VA hospital, an injury caused by a federal employee's carelessness — is the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2671–2680. It waives the federal government's immunity for certain torts committed by federal employees acting within the scope of their job.

The FTCA has its own procedure, and skipping a step is one of the most common ways these cases get thrown out before they're heard on the merits:

• File an administrative claim first. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a), you must submit a claim (usually on Standard Form 95) to the federal agency responsible, before you can sue in court.
• Two-year deadline. The administrative claim generally must be filed within two years of the injury (28 U.S.C. § 2401(b)).
• Wait for a decision. The agency has six months to respond. If it denies the claim (or six months pass with no answer), you can then file suit in federal district court, generally within six months of a written denial.
• No jury. FTCA cases are tried by a judge, not a jury (28 U.S.C. § 2402).

What the FTCA Does Not Cover

28 U.S.C. § 2680 lists exceptions where the government's immunity is not waived, even though the FTCA otherwise applies. The two that trip people up most:

• The discretionary function exception. The government can't be sued over decisions that involve policy-based judgment calls by an employee — for example, how an agency chose to design a regulation or allocate resources — even if that judgment turned out badly.
• Intentional torts. Claims like assault, battery, false imprisonment, or defamation are generally excluded, with one major carve-out: since a 1974 amendment, those claims can be brought against the United States when the conduct is by a federal law-enforcement or investigative officer.

Constitutional Claims Against Federal Officials

If a federal official personally violated your constitutional rights, the FTCA usually is not the tool — that's the territory of a Bivens claim, named for Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), which let a plaintiff sue individual federal agents directly for a Fourth Amendment violation.

Since then, the Supreme Court has sharply narrowed when a Bivens claim is available. In Ziglar v. Abbasi (2017) and again in Egbert v. Boule (2022), the Court held that courts should rarely recognize a Bivens remedy in any context beyond the small set of situations it has already approved. Practically, this means a constitutional claim against a federal official is a fact-specific, attorney-territory question, not a straightforward filing.

Suing State and Local Governments

States have their own sovereign immunity, generally enforced in federal court through the Eleventh Amendment, with narrow exceptions (for example, a suit for injunctive relief against a state official under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908)). To sue a state itself for an ordinary tort, you typically need to use that state's own state tort claims act — each state sets its own notice deadlines, filing procedure, and sometimes a damages cap, so the process genuinely differs by state.

Cities, counties, school districts, and other local governments are treated differently from the federal government and the states. Under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), a municipality can be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a constitutional violation that resulted from an official policy or custom — though not simply because one of its employees did something wrong (there's no respondeat superior liability under § 1983). Because municipalities don't have the same sovereign-immunity shield, they're the government defendants most commonly named in ordinary civil lawsuits, including class actions.

Example: The Oregon Tort Claims Act

Oregon's version of a state tort claims act is codified at ORS 30.260 to 30.300. It is a useful illustration of how much shorter and stricter these state-specific deadlines can be than an ordinary personal injury statute of limitations. Under ORS 30.275, anyone with a tort claim against an Oregon public body generally must give formal written notice of the claim within 180 days of the injury. That public body can be the state, a city, a county, a school district, or another local government entity. That deadline extends to one year for a wrongful-death claim. Both are far shorter than Oregon's general two-year personal injury statute of limitations, and missing one can bar an otherwise valid claim regardless of its merits.

Oregon also caps how much a claimant can recover from a public body. Unlike many states' caps, Oregon's adjust every July 1 under a statutory formula. The cap is lower for claims against a local government than against the state itself, and lower still for a property-damage-only claim. The applicable cap depends on the exact date of the injury and which level of government is involved. Always confirm the current figure against the official Oregon Revised Statutes rather than assuming it from a prior year.

So Can It Actually Be a Class Action?

This is where the two topics — class actions and government defendants — collide. A traditional Rule 23 class action pools many people's claims into one case with one certification decision. The FTCA's administrative-exhaustion requirement is inherently individual: each claimant generally has to file their own Standard Form 95 before their claim exists at all, which cuts against treating a large group as a single class the way you would in a consumer class action. Courts have been reluctant to certify FTCA claims against the United States as Rule 23 class actions for this reason.

In practice, when many people are harmed by the same federal conduct, the claims usually move forward as coordinated individual claims — sometimes consolidated for pretrial purposes as multidistrict litigation (MDL) — rather than as one certified class. See our guide on how to start a class action for how Rule 23 certification normally works against a private defendant.

Suing a municipality or local government is a different story: because Monell claims aren't hemmed in by FTCA-style individual exhaustion, a genuine Rule 23 class action against a city, county, or school district — for example, over a policy that affected many people the same way — is more procedurally realistic than one against the federal government or a state.

Steps If You Think You Have a Claim

1. Identify who actually harmed you — a federal employee/agency, a state agency, or a city/county/school district. The path (FTCA, state tort claims act, or § 1983) depends on which one it is.
2. Check the deadline immediately. Government claims have short, strict notice deadlines — often far shorter than an ordinary lawsuit's statute of limitations — and missing one can end the claim regardless of its merits.
3. Preserve documentation — records, correspondence, incident reports, and anything showing the government's involvement.
4. Talk to an attorney experienced with claims against the government. The administrative-claim requirements are technical and jurisdiction-specific; general litigation experience isn't the same as FTCA or § 1983 experience.

Not sure where your situation fits? Start with our guide to filing a lawsuit, or go straight to finding a lawyer who handles claims against government entities.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you sue the federal government?

Only where a statute waives sovereign immunity and allows it. For most everyday torts by federal employees, that statute is the Federal Tort Claims Act, which requires you to file an administrative claim with the responsible agency before you can go to court.

Can a class action be filed against the government?

It's uncommon against the federal government, because the FTCA generally requires each claimant to exhaust an individual administrative claim first, which courts have found hard to reconcile with Rule 23 class certification. Large-scale federal claims more often proceed as coordinated individual claims or multidistrict litigation. A class action is more realistic against a city, county, or school district for a policy-based constitutional claim under § 1983, since local governments don't have the same immunity.

What is the deadline to sue the government?

It depends on which government and which statute. Under the FTCA, you generally must file an administrative claim within two years of the injury, then sue within six months of a denial. State tort claims acts and municipal notice-of-claim rules set their own, often much shorter, deadlines — sometimes as little as 60 to 180 days. Check the specific deadline for your situation immediately; these deadlines are stricter than ordinary statutes of limitations.

Do you get a jury trial when you sue the government?

Not under the FTCA — those cases are decided by a judge, not a jury. Claims against state or local governments may or may not include a jury right depending on the state and the type of claim.

What can't you sue the federal government for?

The FTCA excludes claims based on a federal employee's discretionary policy judgment (the "discretionary function exception") and most intentional torts, though intentional torts by federal law-enforcement or investigative officers are a specific exception to that exclusion. Purely constitutional claims against individual officials fall under the separate, and now very limited, Bivens doctrine instead of the FTCA.

How does the Oregon Tort Claims Act's notice deadline work?

Under ORS 30.275, most tort claims against an Oregon state or local public body require formal written notice within 180 days of the injury, or one year for a wrongful-death claim. That is much shorter than Oregon's general two-year personal injury deadline. Oregon also caps recoverable damages against a public body, with the exact cap adjusting every July 1, so the current figure should be confirmed against the Oregon Revised Statutes for the date of the injury.