Claims made under a state negligence law meant to make drivers whole after their cars are damaged by potholes have almost never resulted in reimbursement in the past three and a half years.

In the first four months of 2023, roughly 450 Minnesotans filed pothole damage claims against the Minnesota Department of Transportation. As of Friday, two of those drivers have gotten some money back.

By the end of April, MnDOT had denied nearly $250,000 worth of pothole damage claims.

Minneapolis nonprofit repair shop The Lift Garage saw an uptick in repairs due to pothole damage this year, particularly to tires and rims, shop director Nate Kaar said Tuesday. It’s not a data point the shop tracks, but he was certain that related repairs in 2023 are up.

“I’ve had a couple of customers, you know, use the analogy of their cars have almost been swallowed up by potholes here,” Kaar said.

“We’ve had customers that have had, you know, even close to $1,000 worth of damage due to a pothole,” he continued. “That’s at our reduced prices here.”

MnDOT data obtained by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS revealed that between January and April, Minnesotans claimed potholes on state highways caused nearly $356,000 worth of damage to their cars. MnDOT, the state agency responsible for state highway upkeep, has reimbursed roughly $700, according to a Friday update from a spokesperson.

“So I have explored that, and I have never been successful, or at least had a client successfully report a claim and get it paid out here,” Kaar said, asked to react to the small percentage of claims that have resulted in payment.

MnDOT declined an interview for this story, but when we asked about financial relief for drivers in late April, a spokesperson pointed to state negligence law, which says MnDOT is only required to reimburse drivers if the pothole was previously reported and not repaired in a reasonable amount of time.

“It’s not lost on us that this is really frustrating for drivers, right?” MnDOT Communications and Public Engagement Director Jake Loesch said during the April interview. “We understand it, and as MnDOT employees, we use the same roads as everyone else. And I’ve hit potholes myself.”

The majority of claims that result in denial letters are because the pothole wasn’t reported to MnDOT until the incident in question or it was repaired in a “reasonable period of time,” Loesch said in an email last week. A sample of these letters provided by the state agency shows the common conclusion to be, “MnDOT does not believe they are negligent relative to this claim.”

A few letters revealed there were days or more than a week where snow and ice removal were the first priority, elongating the arbitrary “reasonable period of time” for repairs.

“MnDOT only manages about 10% of all roads in the state — so the scope of pothole concerns is far from limited only to state highways,” Loesch noted in last week’s email response.

Minneapolis, as another example, reported 377 claims filed against the city for pothole-related car repairs this year. Three claims have paid out a total of $2,282.44, and five are still pending, a city spokesperson said Friday.

“If they’re not willing to, you know, fix those potholes here, then there should at least be some compensation or reimbursement to the consumers that are affected by it here,” Kaar concluded.

As of this report, MnDOT was still working through a few dozen claims.

Looking back to 2019 — the next most comparable year in terms of the number of claims filed against the state agency — by the end of April, MnDOT had paid out or settled with drivers for nearly $20,000, significantly surpassing the $700 paid out by June in 2023.

“There are several factors that can affect the severity of potholes or number of claims in any given year — snow, temperatures, traffic volumes, etc.,” Loesch said when asked about the discrepancy.

“I can’t speak to individual claims from several years ago, but any of those factors could have impacted MnDOT’s ability to address potholes in a reasonable amount of time and in 2019, MnDOT determined that our agency was legally negligent in more instances,” he added.