Newport Beach Car Accident Lawyer

California is a pure comparative negligence state. Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 threw out the old all-or-nothing rule and held that a plaintiff's own negligence "shall not bar recovery, but the damages awarded shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to the person recovering." A driver found 90% responsible for a crash can still collect the remaining 10% of their damages.

Most states are less forgiving. Under a modified comparative negligence rule, a plaintiff who carries more than half the fault recovers nothing at all. California draws no such line, which changes the math in exactly the cases where blame is genuinely shared: an unprotected left turn, a lane change into a car that was speeding, a four-way stop where both drivers rolled through.

California is also not a no-fault state, a point worth clearing up because so many people arrive at this page believing otherwise. It is an at-fault, or tort, state, so the insurer for the driver who caused the crash pays for the resulting injuries and damage instead of each driver turning to their own policy first.

Because a fault percentage comes directly off a payout, an adjuster has an obvious financial reason to assign as much of it to you as the file will bear. A recorded statement in the first week is one way that can happen. A casual answer about how fast you were going can become a comparative fault argument months later, and our personal injury FAQ covers more of what to expect once an adjuster starts building that record.

Two years from the date of the crash, in most cases. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 sets that deadline for any action for "injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another."

If a government entity may share responsibility, the clock is dramatically shorter. Cal. Gov. Code § 911.2 requires a claim for death or injury to be presented to the entity no later than six months after the cause of action accrues, and that presentation has to happen before a lawsuit can be filed at all.

Presenting that claim is not the end of the analysis. If the agency rejects it, Cal. Gov. Code § 945.6 generally allows six months from the date the rejection notice is mailed or delivered to file suit. A crash caused by a malfunctioning signal, an unmaintained road surface, or a city vehicle falls into this category, and the statute of limitations for claims against a government entity runs through the procedure in full.

Other clocks exist. Property damage claims run on a different limitation period than injury claims, and a claim brought on behalf of an injured child is generally tolled until the child turns 18. Both are worth confirming against your own facts.

The first days after a crash are when evidence disappears, medical records begin, and California's reporting requirements come due. The order below covers all three.

Get Medical Care First

If you are hurt, or symptoms show up in the days afterward, get medical care promptly. Adrenaline can mask injury for hours, and soft tissue damage and concussion symptoms often surface a day or two later. A long gap between the crash date and the first medical record gives an adjuster room to argue the injury came from something else.

Call the Police and Get a Report Number

If anyone is injured or the crash creates an immediate safety hazard, call 911. Otherwise, report the collision to the law enforcement agency with jurisdiction where it happened, and get the report number before you leave. A police report creates an independent record of vehicle position, driver statements, and any citation issued. Which agency holds it depends on where the crash happened, and requesting an accident report in Orange County covers CHP and Sheriff's Department requests.

California adds a separate filing that many drivers have never heard of. Cal. Veh. Code § 16000 requires the driver to report a crash to the DMV within 10 days whenever anyone was injured or property damage exceeds $1,000, using the DMV's SR-1 form, and the form's own instructions state that the driver must file it regardless of fault.

The consequence is concrete: under Cal. Veh. Code § 16004, the DMV suspends the driving privilege of anyone who fails to file the report, on a track entirely separate from the injury claim.

Document the Scene and Exchange Information

Photograph more than the damage: both vehicles where they came to rest, license plates, skid marks, and signal and sign placement. Get a phone number from any witness who stops, since a witness who drives off is hard to track down later. Our guide to getting the other driver's insurance information covers what to do if they refuse to hand it over.

Be Careful What You Say to the Insurance Company

Report the crash to your own insurer promptly, and keep it to the facts you are certain of. You are not required to give the other driver's insurer a recorded statement, sign a blanket medical authorization, or accept an early offer, and our guide to an insurance adjuster who keeps calling covers how to handle the contact. "I'm fine" at the scene gets quoted back months into treatment.

The injuries that recur in these cases are whiplash and other soft tissue strains, concussions, and more serious traumatic brain injuries, fractures, spinal cord damage, and internal injuries. Which one you have changes what the claim has to prove, how long it takes to resolve, and where the value in it actually sits.

Soft tissue injuries are hard to see on standard imaging, so those claims get argued on causation and on whether the treatment was reasonable. Documentation carries the case: the first medical record, the treating provider's notes, and a consistent account of symptoms from the beginning.

A spinal cord injury is argued on different grounds. The injury is visible and difficult to dispute, so the contest moves to future medical care, assistive equipment, home modification, and earning capacity across a working lifetime. That is why a catastrophic claim can be worth many times the cost of the initial hospitalization.

Severity also sets the timeline. A claim settled before a doctor determines you have reached maximum medical improvement is a claim settled without knowing the cost of the care still ahead, and a signed release cannot be reopened when that cost arrives. Where a restraint or airbag failed and made an injury worse, a seat belt injury can also support a product claim against the manufacturer alongside the claim against the driver.

Damages fall into two categories. Economic damages cover documented losses: emergency and ongoing medical bills, future medical care, lost wages, reduced earning capacity, and vehicle repair or replacement. Non-economic damages cover the part of the injury with no invoice attached, including physical pain, emotional distress, and the loss of activities you can no longer do.

What you can actually collect depends on available coverage, and California's floor sits low. Minimum liability limits rose on January 1, 2025, under Cal. Veh. Code § 16056, from $15,000 per person, $30,000 per accident, and $5,000 in property damage to $30,000, $60,000, and $15,000. The same statute schedules a second increase for 2035, to $50,000, $100,000, and $25,000.

Even at current limits, a serious injury can exhaust a $30,000 policy well before all medical treatment and other losses are accounted for. Our breakdown of what the expanded minimum insurance limits mean for you explains the change and who it does and does not help.

When the at-fault driver's coverage runs out, or there was none to begin with, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy is the backstop. Cal. Ins. Code § 11580.2 requires insurers to include that coverage unless the policyholder deletes it in writing, so a great many drivers carry it without knowing they do. The California uninsured motorist claims process runs on deadlines set by your policy rather than by statute, which catches people out.

Not every claim that starts on this page involves two cars. People struck while walking, riders thrown from a motorcycle, and cyclists hit by a turning driver all bring different questions about right of way, visibility, and injury severity. So do drivers who hit someone outside a vehicle and find themselves facing a claim of their own. The firm handles pedestrian accident cases, motorcycle accident cases, and bicycle accident cases across Orange County.

The figures below come from past Orange County motor vehicle cases. No past result predicts what another case will do.

• $1,500,000 for a client who struck a disabled tractor-trailer on the freeway, in a case that turned on a vehicle defect.
• $1,250,000 for a student who lost control of a vehicle driving home from school.
• $390,000 against a city after a vehicle overturned on improperly installed construction plates, leaving the driver with a spinal injury.
• $325,000 for a driver who suffered a broken ankle in a collision.

The $390,000 result is the public-entity theory from earlier on this page in practice, resolved against a city rather than another driver. Full case results cover the rest of the firm's record across practice areas.

Leslie Law Firm has been handling Orange County car accident claims since 1974, and the firm advances the costs of building a case so that an injured client is never asked to fund the investigation. Consultations are free, and there is no fee unless we win.

If you were hurt in a crash in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Irvine, or anywhere else in Orange County, call (949) 752-7474 or contact our Newport Beach office to schedule a free case review.