Because of its enormous size and huge population, California sees more miles of vehicle travel than any other state. Constant traffic in cities and along busy corridors like Interstate 5 means that a car accident is extremely likely at any given time of the day. During riskier time periods, like holiday weekends, the chances of a serious accident rise even higher.
A car accident is a devastating event, one that can lead to major injuries, significant time missed at work, and a great deal of personal pain and suffering. Recovering financially from the effects of a car accident can take years — unless the injury victim takes the initiative and seeks a claim for reasonable damages from the at-fault parties.
Working with a California car accident lawyer can increase your chances of receiving compensation for the full amount of damages you have experienced. At Hillstone Law Accident & Injury Attorneys, our goal is to make every client feel whole again after their traumatic car accident.
We aim to get you back on your feet, assisting you with your claim when you need it most.
Find out why we’re one of the most consistently high-rated law firms in our field and how we can help you recover financially during a free, no-obligation case review. Schedule a free consultation with an experienced California car accident attorney today when you call (855) 604-4641 or contact us online.
When Is It Important to Work With a California Car Accident Attorney?
Any time you have been involved in a car accident, there is the potential for you to have losses (called damages) that won’t be reflected in the offer you receive from an insurer. In fact, with some accidents, you may not receive an offer at all.
Insurers will find the most favorable interpretation of fault possible while working hard to leave benefits off the table because of a supposed technicality.
The experienced California car accident lawyers at Hillstone Law Accident & Injury Attorneys have decades of collective experience handling cases like yours. In fact, the co-founder and lead trial counsel of our firm once worked in the insurance industry, giving us unique insights into how these cases are handled from the other side.
We know what strategies insurers use to reduce your available benefits and weaken your position during a claim. We have been there to intercede on behalf of clients who would otherwise have lost tens of thousands of dollars in damages — money they desperately needed to pay off their car accident-related bills and get back on their feet.
By leveraging our knowledge of insurance procedures, we can help you anticipate common hurdles to succeeding in your claim. We know the types of evidence that insurers respond to, especially when it comes to documenting the full extent of your injury and its impact on your daily life.
Reach out to our California car accident law firm after you have been hurt in a car accident. We’ll reduce your overall stress and increase your chances of obtaining a settlement for all the damages you have incurred.
It is particularly important to reach out to an experienced car accident attorney in California if you find yourself in the following situations:
- You have been seriously hurt, requiring hospitalization or a work absence for more than a few days
- You have evidence of the other party’s fault, but the insurer is disputing your interpretation of events
- A loved one has died or has acquired a permanent disability as a result of your car accident
- The opposing side is withholding evidence needed to prove the fault
- Your car accident involved a semi-truck or another commercial vehicle
- Your car accident involved multiple collisions, making each instance of fault difficult to decipher
- The insurance company is disputing the full extent of your injuries, such as by alleging that you had a pre-existing condition or that your actions contributed to the injuries’ severity
- An opposing side is accusing you of fault and filing a claim or a lawsuit against you
- You have been denied the full amount of benefits you expected to receive from your insurance claim
- You are feeling overwhelmed or confused at any point in the claims process and are seeking professional assistance
What Forms of Compensation Are Available After a Car Accident in California?
Depending on the damages you have suffered, you may be eligible for one or more of the following types of compensation as part of your eventual personal injury settlement or court award.
Medical Expenses
The cost of treating an injury can be astronomical, especially when the victim requires hospitalization, surgery, and specialist care. In fact, a 2019 study by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that the average medical treatment cost of an accident of any severity was $7,314.
Even minor injuries incurred an average cost of $2,830. Severe injuries, which require hospitalization and surgery, have an average medical treatment cost of $188,295.
Emergency medical treatment is expensive, as are inpatient surgeries and long-term hospital stays. After just a few days, your bills can easily reach thousands of dollars.
On top of that, you may need to buy medications, attend appointments at specialist clinics, or purchase pricey medical devices, like a back brace.
Victims must also consider the projected cost of their future care. When calculating medical expenses, the most important factor to remember is that you must claim the full cost of treating your injury through the remainder of your lifetime.
Even if you have a minor injury, the total cost of doctor’s visits, follow-up exams, and medications can all add up to quite a bit over the long term. For serious-to-critical injuries, you may have to bear treatment costs for years — or even the rest of your life.
Once you have received a settlement for your damages, you won’t have a legal right to seek further compensation, so calculating the full lifetime cost of your injury treatment is essential.
Hillstone Law Accident & Injury Attorneys will work with your professional care team along with our own teams of trusted experts to accurately determine the full cost scope of treating your injuries to the point of maximum recovery. Our goal is to ensure that you are not left on the hook for your own treatment expenses in the future long after the settlement check has been signed.
| Average Costs of an Injury, by MAIS Severity Level* | |||
| MAIS Injury Severity | Medical Expenses | Lost Wages | Total |
| 1 (Minor) | $2,860 | $27,775 | $30,635 |
| 2 (Moderate) | $13,145 | $23,161 | $36,306 |
| 3 (Serious) | $69,075 | $92,829 | $161,904 |
| 4 (Severe) | $188,295 | $230,165 | $418,460 |
| 5 (Critical) | $341,516 | $288,796 | $630,312 |
| 6 (Fatal) | $1,279,308 | $1,028,210 | $2,307,518 |
| Any | $7,314 | $10,071 | $17,385 |
| Source: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813403.pdf *Does not imply a monetary value for damages in your particular case | |||
Lost Wages
Lost wages are calculated as the difference between the income you earned after the injury-causing car accident compared to before. In many cases, injury victims will need to miss several days of work so that they can heal and attend all of their needed appointments.
They may also be unable to return to work — or only able to return in a reduced capacity — because of the physical limitations imposed by their condition.
A claim for lost wages seeks to recover losses stemming from all such reductions in working hours. Lost wages claims can also compensate injury victims who permanently reduce their ability to earn income because of a physical disability.
If the injury victim can only work reduced hours or must take on new job duties that offer a lower rate of pay, then they can be compensated for that reduction in overall income.
Note that reductions in income may not come solely from salary or wages. If your job allows you to earn tips, commissions, bonuses, or other performance-based pay, you can recover those losses through a lost wages claim.
Likewise, if you were forced to use your employee benefits to take time off while recuperating, your lost wages claim will seek appropriate compensation to reimburse you for those paid time off hours you had to use.
In addition, if the injury victim needs new skills training, certification courses, or other career development programs to transition to a new career, then a lost wages claim should request compensation to cover the resulting cost.
Out of Pocket Expenses
Injury victims should save all receipts for expenses they have incurred as a result of their car accident. You may be surprised at what you can claim, so it is always better to have the documentation needed to prove where your money went.
Common examples of out-of-pocket costs that can be triggered by a car accident in California include the cost of transportation to or parking at your medical appointments. You may also need to pay for certain over-the-counter medications and medical devices out of pocket when buying them from a retail store instead of directly from a provider.
In extreme cases, you may need to pay for home modifications to permit access to the injury victim, such as by installing a ramp to the entrance of your home or widening hallways to fit a hospital bed.
Your California car accident lawyer will review all of your expenses in the period after your crash to ensure that no costs go unaccounted for in your claim.
Vehicle Repair or Replacement
The cost of vehicle repairs can add up quickly. Certain vehicles, such as luxury models or foreign cars with hard-to-get parts, can be even more expensive to fix.
In some cases, your vehicle may even be totaled, requiring you to get an entirely new one after your car accident.
Your claim for damages should also include payment to cover the cost of all repairs, as estimated by a qualified and reputable mechanic. Many times, insurers will try to lower the apparent cost of these repairs by relying on shops that routinely give low estimates.
They may also list a price that assumes that you will be using the cheapest available parts rather than ones that replace the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts.
A California car accident attorney will work closely with you to fully understand what your vehicle needs to be legitimately restored to the same working order it was in at the time of your crash. If you need a replacement vehicle, they will fight to ensure that you receive either fair market value or the full replacement value for your car, depending on the coverage available under the applicable insurance policy.
Replacement of Domestic Services
If you live in a home with others, you likely lend a hand to helping your household function, especially if you have young children.
Even if you work full time, you are also probably going home and performing domestic tasks to help your household function while making everyone’s life easier. In some cases, you may be the primary caretaker for your children and your household, making it impossible to hold a full-time job.
No matter what, your labor has value. In the past, insurers would ignore this value because it was not reflected by a dollar amount — i.e., you weren’t getting “paid” to work in the home. Nevertheless, your ability and time to perform chores produced a physical result.
If you are too hurt to provide the services you once did to your family, those services will need to be replaced in other ways. Your spouse may miss work hours to help care for the children, for example, or you may be forced to hire someone to temporarily help with tasks like cooking and cleaning.
Your car accident personal injury claim should include fair and reasonable compensation for any losses (both monetary and non-material) associated with your inability to perform domestic services. A California car accident attorney can help you calculate these losses with a high level of accuracy by itemizing the services you provided, multiplying them across the hours you spent on them in a typical week, and then extrapolating the total cost across your entire recovery period.
Many car accident claimants neglect this form of compensation, which illustrates why it is so critical to speak to a car accident lawyer in California to ensure that your claim requests every available benefit.
Pain and Suffering
Your personal pain and suffering may not have a material cost, but it absolutely has an effect on your ability to enjoy life and participate in it as you did before the car accident. Accordingly, you can claim an appropriate amount of compensation commensurate with the level of pain and suffering you have undergone.
Damages for pain and suffering are usually calculated in proportion to the severity of your injuries and how they affect your ability to go about your regular routine. The more serious and limiting the injury, the more likely it is that you have to rest and miss out on enjoyable activities, time spent with loved ones, or important events, like a nephew’s graduation.
Hillstone Law Accident & Injury Attorneys will document the full extent of your pain and suffering with reference to your medical diagnosis and the experiences of car accident victims who have endured injuries similar to yours. We strive to maximize the amount of pain and suffering damages you receive by also working with experts and taking diligent notes for each day your injuries force you to set aside your typical routine.
Wrongful Death Damages
Losing a loved one in a car accident is the worst possible outcome. Your family must now grapple with the loss of their physical presence, the comfort they brought, the love they shared, and the experiences you would all participate in together.
Not only that, but they also likely brought vital wages and domestic skills to the household.
A wrongful death claim seeks compensation for survivors for their own pain and suffering, the loss of companionship they will experience, and the total loss of wages (or domestic services) their loved one contributed to their family.
In addition, the claim should seek to restore the value of the loved one’s estate by recovering the cost of end-of-life care, any losses to their personal property, and the estimated value of their pain and suffering before they died.
Our experts at Hillstone Law Accident & Injury Attorneys understand that if you have lost a loved one, this will be one of the most difficult times in your life. Know that we are here for you and your family. We are willing to fight to help ensure that your financial future remains secure — while also helping you honor the memory of your loved one by holding liable parties accountable for the damages they have wrought.
How Do I Prove Fault After a California Car Accident?
“Fault,” in a car accident case, is usually decided based on whether a driver’s negligent (or, sometimes, intentional) actions were the main reason that the accident happened.
In the legal sense, negligence is defined by meeting four primary criteria:
- Duty of care — The party accused of fault had a duty of care to the injury victim, requiring them to obey traffic laws while also exercising ordinary care, as any reasonable person might in their situation.
- Breach in duty — The party breached their duty of care, committing a traffic violation or otherwise taking an action that they could reasonably foresee would be capable of causing a car accident.
- Proximate cause — The negligent party’s breach in duty was the most direct or proximate cause of the victim’s personal injury.
- Damages — The injury the victim suffered because of the negligent party resulted in damages, including monetary costs and non-material damages like pain and suffering.
At the onset of your case, your California car accident lawyer will thoroughly investigate your collision to determine how each of these primary factors played a part in causing you to suffer significant damages.
Establishing Duty of Care
Car accident lawyers in California can often establish a duty of care by pointing to specific laws that the negligent party violated immediately before the crash occurred.
For example, someone who was texting and driving may have violated the California law (VC §23123) against using a cell phone in a moving vehicle.
Similarly, someone who failed to carefully check that their adjacent lane was clear before making a lane change would have violated VC § 22107, which states that no one can change lanes “until such movement can be made with reasonable safety and then only after the giving of an appropriate signal.”
Other common forms of negligence that your attorney will look for evidence of include:
- Drunk driving
- Driving under the influence
- Speeding
- Following too closely
- Aggressive driving
- Fatigued driving
In this way, your California car accident lawyer can build the foundations of a case, pointing to the specific duty that would have normally prevented the at-fault driver from hitting you.
Proving a Breach of Duty
A breach of duty can be established in many different ways. If a police officer responded to the scene of your accident and gave the at-fault driver a citation, this is one of the easiest ways to prove that a breach occurred.
Other times, your California car accident law firm will need to hire expert witnesses, such as a car accident reconstructionist. Using physical evidence, such as tire marks at the scene, along with other facts documented by police or eyewitnesses, an attorney can often demonstrate conclusively that a dangerous action must have occurred for the accident to have happened in the way that it did.
In some cases, the driver who caused your accident may not have violated a specific law, or your California car accident attorney may not be able to prove that such a violation occurred. In these situations, they can often use research to find a case similar to yours that went to trial, where a jury or panel of appellate judges ruled that the action was sufficient to qualify as a violation of the driver’s duty of care.
This case law can be combined with other documentation, such as eyewitness statements, to paint a picture of general negligence and establish how the at-fault driver’s carelessness led to your car accident.
Determining the Proximate Cause of Your Car Accident Injury
Medical evidence supplies a crucial component to connect the circumstances of your car accident to the injuries you have sustained. For example, by examining the wreckage of your vehicle, your California car accident lawyer can show how the intrusion of the vehicle’s structural beams clearly caused your knee to sustain trauma.
Because medical documentation is such an important part of proving the cause of your injury, victims should always make sure to be specific and detailed when talking to a physician during their initial examinations. Your medical care team should be able to record every possible symptom you have experienced, and the car accident should be listed as the cause of these injuries.
You should consent to any testing and imaging needed to confirm the full extent of your medical condition. Doing so allows you to be thorough and obtain documentation of your injuries from the onset of your case, making it easier to draw parallels between the injuries you have suffered and the moment-by-moment events of your car accident.
Documenting Damages
Your California car accident attorney will review your medical billing information and all other provided receipts to paint a picture of your total medical treatment cost. They can then consult with medical and billing experts to project the cost of future treatments.
For lost wages, your lawyer will request pay stubs, account statements, and any other proof of income that you are able to provide. They’ll compare this information with what you have been earning since the accident, building a formula to claim the ultimate difference.
In cases of long-term disability caused by an injury, your California car accident lawyer can refer to experienced disability law experts and physicians to calculate the long-term cost of your acquired condition.
Submitting a Claim for Damages After a Car Accident in California
The number one piece of advice to follow in the wake of your car accident is to think carefully before providing information to an insurer or any other party.
It is in your best legal and financial interests to refer to a car accident lawyer in California before submitting any claim for damages. An attorney can help you calculate your damages in full, document them thoroughly, and point to specific benefits listed in the insurance policy under which you will be filing a claim.
Ideally, you will wait until the full extent of your medical condition is known, along with your likely prognosis, before filing a request for damages. Once you start to recover, you can begin to grasp the total cost of your personal injury treatment as well as the likely cost of all future care.
All of the necessary information for insurers (or another liable party) will be provided in the form of a demand letter, which will be sent in addition to any official claim documents. The recipient has a limited time to respond to the demand letter.
They can either accept the listed amount in full or present a counteroffer that they feel is reasonable.
Will I Need to File a Lawsuit to Recover My Car Accident Damages?
In some cases, the at-fault party may try to deny liability outright for the car accident. Your car accident lawyer in California will continue to submit compelling materials to them, documenting your losses and their fault in detail while continuing negotiations in an effort to reach a settlement.
If no settlement can be reached, your case may escalate to a personal injury lawsuit and a jury trial. The at-fault party then has the opportunity to negotiate a settlement to avoid the time and expense of taking their case to court.
The experts at Hillstone Law Accident & Injury Attorneys have experience litigating car accident cases in and out of court. We make every effort to settle your case efficiently, but we are also not afraid to go to trial and argue your case in front of a jury.
Our history of favorable verdicts shows that we know how to build a strong case on behalf of our clients from the onset of their case.
Filing a Police Report After a California Car Accident
You should always call the police to respond to the scene of your car accident. They will document the scene, gather information from you and the other parties involved, and submit a report suggesting the main causes of the collision.
Even if you were able to have a police officer come out to report your car accident, you are expected by California law to submit your own accident report within ten days if anyone was injured or if property damage occurred that is estimated to cost over $1,000 to repair.
You can submit form SR-1 online yourself, or you can have an insurance representative or your California car accident lawyer do it for you.
How Common Are Car Accidents in California?
According to statistics provided by the California Highway Patrol (CHP), 3,982 individuals were killed and 203,888 were injured as a result of California car accidents in 2020. In total, there were 3,672 fatal crashes and 143,476 crashes that caused an injury.
Fatal accidents then increased by 7.6% from 2020 to 2021, per the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), reaching 4,285 total fatalities.
Work With California Car Accident Law Firm You Can Depend Upon
In the weeks after you have been hurt in a car accident, you may feel as if your life will never be the same. However, with the help of a California car accident lawyer, you can begin to pick up the pieces and fight for the compensation you need to be made whole again.
Hillstone Law Accident & Injury Attorneys has earned millions in settlements and trial verdicts on behalf of our clients. We have become a trusted law firm for car accident victims all across California, thanks in large part to our determination as well as our compassion toward our recuperating clients.
You and your family are depending on us to do everything we can to secure the compensation you need to move on from this unfortunate time in your life. We know this, which is why we aggressively fight against insurance companies and at-fault drivers on your behalf.
Call us today to schedule a free case review and learn more about how we have helped so many other people in your shoes. Schedule your free consultation now with a California car accident attorney by calling (855) 604-4641 or contacting us online.
