Drivers file claims against city for pothole damage

Hundreds of drivers have filed claims against the city of Colorado Springs for damage from potholes.

The city reports that more people have filed claims with the city so far this year than at this time last year. In total, 355 people have filed claims. The city’s risk management supervisor said no money has been paid to date.

The city gets protection under Colorado’s Governmental Immunity Act. In the instance of potholes, the city must know about the problem pothole and must have had a reasonable amount of time to fix.

“That reasonable amount of time can fluctuate due to weather, due to resources we may or may not have,” said David Miller, the city’s risk management supervisor.

Miller said the city paid out one or two claims last year related to potholes. This year, the city also had to bring in an outside adjusting firm because his office has been overwhelmed with claims in a short amount of time.

“We are at or higher than previous years and the reason being is the weather. January, the first two months, we had a lot of snow storms that hit just perfectly to where we couldn’t fix a lot of potholes and now we have a lot of rains so potholes are opening up, old ones are reopening up,” said Miller.

Attorney Mike McDivitt has represented drivers who received money from claims they filed against the city for pothole damage. He said there is not set standard for getting money back because every situation is assessed differently.

“The city is responsible but only under certain circumstances. They have to be aware of it, it has to be a dangerous condition, and it has to be a condition they knew of or should of known of,” said McDivitt.

Jacqueline Fair said a pothole is to blame for $1,100 in damage to her white van. Fair uses the van to drive day care children to school. She said she lost out on money she could have been earning while it sat in the shop, in addition to the costs of repairing the vehicle.

“It was a large part of my income and it was down and I also missed a certain portion of my income because of not having the van at that time,” said Fair.

She said she would have filed a claim with the city, but heard it was difficult to get cash back. She is frustrated by conditions on the city’s streets and the toll it’s had on her wallet.

“We aren’t sitting around and we aren’t made of money. I work hard for my money,” said Fair.

The city does encourage people to file claims with the city for pothole damages because it helps workers keep track of problem areas.