News & Articles

California law requires every motorcycle rider and passenger to wear a safety helmet that meets federal standards. Riding without a compliant helmet does not bar an injury claim, and it does not reduce overall damages across the board. Under California’s pure comparative fault system, a helmet defense is a targeted argument: the at-fault party can […]

Short answer: Whether you must give a recorded statement in California depends entirely on which insurer is asking. The at-fault driver’s insurance company has no contractual authority over you; you are not their policyholder, and you are not required to give them a recorded statement. Your own insurer is different. California auto policies nearly always […]

A deposition is a formal, sworn, out-of-court proceeding in which a witness answers questions from attorneys while a court reporter creates a verbatim transcript. In a California personal injury case, depositions are authorized by the Civil Discovery Act, specifically California Code of Civil Procedure sections 2025.010 through 2025.620. [1] The testimony carries the same legal […]

A time-limited demand in California is a pre-litigation offer to settle a personal injury, property damage, bodily injury, or wrongful death claim against a tortfeasor within the insurer’s available policy limits, conditioned on acceptance within a specified deadline. Under Code of Civil Procedure sections 999 through 999.5, effective January 1, 2023, a claimant who sends a […]

When a commercial truck crash seriously injures someone on I-405 or SR-73 near Irvine, the first question at the scene is “who is responsible.” The more financially significant question quickly becomes “which insurance policy, or policies, actually fund a recovery, and up to how much?” Federal law sets minimum financial responsibility levels for interstate motor […]

No. A traffic citation issued at the scene and the fault opinion written into a CHP 555 collision report are generally not admissible in a California civil trial to prove negligence. The officer did not witness most crashes, and California law treats the officer’s lay conclusions about who caused the collision as inadmissible opinion evidence. […]

Under California law, a pavement crack, raised slab, or pothole is not automatically dangerous just because someone tripped on it. California Government Code section 830.2 allows a court to decide, as a matter of law, that a defect is so minor, trivial, or insignificant that no reasonable person would consider it a substantial risk of […]

In California, fault in a chain-reaction collision is not assigned automatically to the driver who struck first. Instead, every driver whose negligence contributed to the crash may bear a percentage of responsibility for the harm caused. California follows a system of pure comparative fault, which means a jury or insurer must examine the conduct of each […]

Proving that the other driver was distracted at the moment of a crash in California is not a simple matter of pointing to a phone. The law sets specific prohibitions, but a citation alone rarely settles a civil case. What actually decides liability is the evidence a party is able to preserve, subpoena, and present. […]

Yes. Under California law, diminished value is a recognized element of property damage and is pursued as a claim separate from any bodily injury claim arising from the same collision. The two claims involve different evidence, different valuation methods, and different releases. Settling one does not automatically settle the other, but signing the wrong release […]