Personal injury claims in California
Every injury claim, whatever caused it, is built from the same four parts. If you understand those, you can follow your own case — and you can tell when someone is being straight with you about it.
The four elements
A negligence claim requires all four. Missing any one of them and there is no claim, however badly you were hurt and however unfair that is.
Duty
The other party owed you a duty of care. Drivers owe it to everyone on the road, property owners to people lawfully on their land, common carriers a heightened duty to passengers. This is rarely the fight.
Breach
They fell short of what a reasonably careful person would have done. Running the light, ignoring the spill, dispatching a driver beyond their hours.
Causation
The breach actually caused your injury — both in fact and in the legal sense of being a substantial factor. This is where the real fight usually is, especially with pre-existing conditions and treatment gaps.
Damages
You suffered a loss the law recognizes and can quantify. No damages, no claim, even where someone was plainly careless.
What you can actually recover
| Economic damages | Medical bills already incurred and reasonably needed in future, lost earnings, lost earning capacity, household services you now have to pay someone for, property damage, mileage to treatment. Provable with paper. |
|---|---|
| Non-economic damages | Physical pain, mental suffering, inconvenience, anxiety, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life. Real, compensable, and with no formula — which is precisely why nobody can quote you a number from a web form. |
| Punitive damages | Rare. Available only for oppression, fraud or malice under Civil Code section 3294 — drunk driving being the common example. Punishes rather than compensates, and is generally not covered by insurance. |
The honest answer about what your case is worth
Nobody can tell you, early on, what your claim is worth. Not us, not anyone. It depends on a diagnosis that may not be settled yet, on treatment that has not happened, on how a particular insurer values a particular file, on the available insurance, on your share of fault, and ultimately on how twelve strangers would see it if it went that far.
What can be done honestly is to total what you can document — which is why our loss worksheet adds up bills, wages and out-of-pocket costs and pointedly refuses to multiply anything or predict a settlement.
Anyone who gives you a confident figure in the first phone call is either guessing or selling. California's rules of professional conduct prohibit a lawyer from guaranteeing an outcome, and there is a good reason for the rule.
The deadlines
Medical malpractice runs on a different clock again, and claims against certain defendants have their own rules. The deadline checker works out which applies and shows you the section it used.
What we do and do not take on
We handle injury and wrongful death claims arising from vehicle collisions, premises hazards, dangerous conditions of public property, animal attacks, defective products and catastrophic injury. If your matter is outside that, we will say so on the first call and point you somewhere useful rather than keep you on a list.
We also say no to claims we do not think are worth bringing. Being told honestly that a claim is not strong is more valuable than being signed up and quietly neglected, which is the single most common complaint about this profession.
Questions people ask
How much is my case worth?
Nobody can tell you that honestly at the start. It depends on a diagnosis that may not be final, treatment that has not happened, available insurance, your share of fault, and how a particular insurer values that particular file. What can be done now is to total what is documentable — bills, wage loss, out-of-pocket costs. Anyone quoting you a figure on a first call is guessing.
How long do I have to bring a claim?
Generally two years from the injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. If a government entity is involved it is six months to present an administrative claim under Government Code section 911.2. A minor's claim is usually tolled until 18, but that does not help with the government six-month rule.
What does hiring you cost?
Nothing up front. The fee is contingent on a recovery, costs are advanced, and if there is no recovery there is no fee. California requires the terms to be in a written agreement you sign under Business and Professions Code section 6147. Our fees page explains how costs and medical liens come out of a settlement.
Will I have to go to court?
Probably not. Most injury claims settle, many without a lawsuit being filed at all. A case prepared properly for trial tends to settle on better terms, which is the main reason to prepare one that way.
I had a prior injury to the same body part. Does that ruin it?
No, though it will be raised. California follows the eggshell plaintiff principle: a defendant takes the victim as they find them and is responsible for the aggravation of a pre-existing condition. The work is in documenting your baseline before the incident and the change after it, which is much easier when disclosed early rather than discovered later.
Related
Reviewed October 2026 by Simon Aziz Budhwani, Esq., the attorney responsible for this site. Legal statements here name the California code section they rely on, so you can check them rather than trust them. This is information about the law in general, not advice about your situation.
Find out where you stand.
Tell us what happened and we will tell you honestly whether you have a claim worth bringing, what it is likely to involve, and how long it tends to take. The review is free and there is no fee unless there is a recovery.