Missouri sovereign immunity just changed: SB 916 and injury claims against the City, County, MSD and Metro
SB 916 took effect today, August 28, 2026. If a government vehicle, public property, or a MoDOT work zone put you in the hospital, two of the rules that govern your claim just moved. Educational, not legal advice.
Educational guide · Last reviewed August 28, 2026
By Dontay Phillips, Founder & Principal Attorney, ClearScope Counsel
Sovereign immunity is the default rule that you cannot sue Missouri governments for negligence. Two statutory waivers have always cut through it, and both survived this rewrite. What changed is narrower and easy to miss: who counts as having waived immunity through insurance, and who you sue when a MoDOT road project injures you.
What did SB 916 change on August 28, 2026?
Two things: being named an “additional insured” on someone else’s insurance policy no longer waives a public entity’s immunity (RSMo 537.610.1), and injury claims arising in certain windows of a MoDOT road project now run against MoDOT itself rather than the private contractor (RSMo 537.600.3–.5). The governor signed SS/SCS/SB 916 and it took effect August 28, 2026; the amended text is already the current version displayed on revisor.mo.gov. Section 537.600 grew from three subsections to ten.
What did SB 916 leave alone?
The two waivers most injury claims rely on are word-for-word unchanged: injuries caused by a public employee operating a motor vehicle, and injuries caused by a dangerous condition of public property (RSMo 537.600.1(1)–(2), including the pre-1977 highway-design defense). The damage caps did not move either. Section 537.610 still states them as $2,000,000 per occurrence and $300,000 per person, adjusted each year through a figure published in the Missouri Register (RSMo 537.610.5) — so the operative numbers change every January, and the current Register figure is the one that matters when a claim is valued. The bar on punitive damages against public entities (RSMo 537.610.3) also stands, and multistate compact agencies like Bi-State Development remain “public entities” under what is now RSMo 537.600.6.
Effective August 28, 2026, SB 916 closed the additional-insured route around the damage caps and re-routed certain MoDOT work-zone claims to MoDOT itself. The core waivers for government vehicles and dangerous public property are unchanged.
What does the new definition of “purchase” mean for my claim?
It kills the argument that a city, county, or district waived its immunity above the caps because someone else’s insurance named it. Before this amendment, injured plaintiffs could argue that a political subdivision listed as an additional insured on a contractor’s, vendor’s, or event operator’s policy had “purchased” liability insurance and waived immunity to that policy’s limits. The appended sentence in RSMo 537.610.1 now defines “purchase” as only the direct acquisition of coverage by the entity’s own governing body — expressly excluding “additional insured coverage or insured status under the insurance policy of another person or entity.” After August 28, 2026, only insurance the entity itself buys, or a self-insurance plan it adopts, waives immunity to the policy’s amount and purposes. If you were hurt at a festival on City property and the operator’s policy names the City, that policy no longer opens the City up beyond the statutory caps.
I was hurt in a MoDOT work zone. Who do I sue now?
It depends on when in the project’s life you were hurt: for injuries arising after the construction contract is signed but before construction begins, and after MoDOT approves and accepts the finished work, the claim now runs against MoDOT itself, not the private contractor (RSMo 537.600.3). In those two windows the statute says MoDOT “shall be solely liable for personal injury or death” — a capped claim with no punitive damages, replacing what used to be an uncapped common-law negligence claim against the contractor. An “agent of the Missouri department of transportation” means private contractors, subcontractors, engineers, and their employees working to MoDOT-approved plans (RSMo 537.600.7), and new subsections 8 through 10 define “final inspection” and the two time windows.
The channeling has four exceptions where the contractor is not immune (RSMo 537.600.4): work so defective it creates an imminent danger; concealed defects a reasonable inspection would not find; the agent knew of the dangerous condition and did not disclose it; or plans so imperfect the agent should have known the work would be unsafe. And the whole framework turns on dates — date of injury versus August 28, 2026, and where the project stood in its lifecycle. That is the first intake question on any work-zone case, whether it happened on I-70, I-64, or a state route resurfacing in the County. If a crash in a work zone is part of your case, the St. Louis car accident hub covers the rest of the claim.
I was hit by a City truck or hurt on public property. Can I still sue?
Yes — the motor-vehicle and dangerous-condition waivers SB 916 left intact are the same waivers those claims have always used. A City refuse truck, a County mower, an MSD crew vehicle: the motor-vehicle waiver. A broken handrail at a rec center, a missing grate, a collapsed sewer lid: the dangerous-condition waiver, the same theory that drives an ordinary premises liability case against a private owner, applied to public property. Metro is no different in kind: Bi-State Development is a public entity under RSMo 537.600.6, and the Supreme Court of Missouri held the 537.610 caps apply to it (Moore v. Bi-State Development Agency, 609 S.W.3d 698 (Mo. banc 2020)). A MetroBus or MetroLink collision claim fits the vehicle-operation waiver; the recovery is capped, with no punitive damages. If the injury was fatal, the claim proceeds under Missouri’s wrongful death statutes and its own three-year deadline.
What is the 90-day trap in St. Louis street and sidewalk cases?
Before suing the City of St. Louis over an injury caused by a defective bridge, boulevard, street, sidewalk, or thoroughfare, RSMo 82.210 requires written notice to the mayor within 90 days of the injury — miss the notice and the lawsuit is barred. The notice must state four things: where the injury happened, when, its character and circumstances, and that you will claim damages from the City. This is a 1939 statute SB 916 did not touch, and it runs far faster than any limitations period: a heaved sidewalk slab or an unmarked pavement drop-off becomes a dead case at day 91 without the letter, years before the filing deadline would have expired. The scope caution cuts both ways — the statute covers defect-in-condition claims about the ways themselves, not every claim against the City.
What does a lawyer cost on a claim like this?
A flat 33% contingency fee. One-third of the recovery, no upfront attorney fees or costs, and no fee at all if there is no recovery. Know the number before you commit. Immunity cases are cap-bounded by statute, so the fee math is knowable early — and worth knowing before anyone signs anything.
Frequently asked questions
No. The caps in RSMo 537.610 read exactly as they did before: $2,000,000 per occurrence and $300,000 per person, adjusted each year through a figure published in the Missouri Register. SB 916 changed what counts as a waiver of immunity, not what a capped claim is worth.
No. RSMo 82.210 is a city statute covering defects in bridges, boulevards, streets, sidewalks, and thoroughfares; it does not reach Bi-State Development. A Metro claim still faces sovereign immunity, the statutory caps, and the ordinary filing deadlines: five years for injury, three for wrongful death.
That is the first question to answer, and it is fact-specific. The amendments took effect August 28, 2026, so the date of injury and the stage of any MoDOT project involved shape which rules govern the claim. Bring the date to a case review before anything else.
No. RSMo 537.610.3 bars punitive damages against public entities, and SB 916 left that bar in place. What remains is the capped compensatory claim under the motor-vehicle or dangerous-condition waivers.
A flat 33% contingency fee: one-third of the recovery, with no upfront attorney fees or costs. If there is no recovery, there is no fee.
Primary sources: RSMo 537.600 and RSMo 537.610 as amended (Revisor of Statutes, current text effective August 28, 2026), SB 916 bill tracking (Missouri Senate), and RSMo 82.210. Related reading: Did Missouri’s injury filing deadline change in 2026?
Hurt by a public entity? The notice rules and the dates are the case.
Ninety days, two waivers, one set of caps — a claim against the City, County, MSD, Metro, or a MoDOT contractor is won or lost on procedure that runs from day one. A case review sorts out which statute governs and what deadline is already running.