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Cal. Gov. Code § 854.8

Medical, Hospital and Public Health Activities

Known as the Government Claims Act

The act spans §§ 810–998 (301 sections).

Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case 31 Cal. App. 4th 1791 - Hata v. Los Angeles County Harbor/UCLA Medical Center (1995)

Most recently applied in 7 Cal. 5th 798 - Quigley v. Garden Valley Fire Protection Dist. (July 2019)

Amended by Stats. 1970, Ch. 1099.

How often courts cite this section

199120002010201920
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of this part, except as provided in this section and in Sections 814, 814.2, 855, and 855.2, a public entity is not liable for:

(1) An injury proximately caused by a patient of a mental institution.

(2) An injury to an inpatient of a mental institution.

(b) Nothing in this section affects the liability of a public entity under Article 1 (commencing with Section 17000) of Chapter 1 of Division 9 of the Vehicle Code.

(c) Except for an injury to an inpatient of a mental institution, nothing in this section prevents recovery from the public entity for an injury resulting from the dangerous condition of public property under Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 830) of this part.

(d) Nothing in this section exonerates a public employee from liability for injury proximately caused by his negligent or wrongful act or omission. The public entity may but is not required to pay any judgment, compromise or settlement, or may but is not required to indemnify any public employee, in any case where the public entity is immune from liability under this section; except that the public entity shall pay, as provided in Article 4 (commencing with Section 825) of Chapter 1 of this part, any judgment based on a claim against a public employee who is lawfully engaged in the practice of one of the healing arts under any law of this state for malpractice arising from an act or omission in the scope of his employment, and shall pay any compromise or settlement of a claim or action, based on such malpractice, to which the public entity has agreed.

Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.