Car Accident

Long Beach Car Accident Lawyer


California traffic is infamous. Although according to federal data published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, California drivers generally engage in safe driving behaviors far more often than the national average, the sheer volume of traffic on California freeways, highways, and surface streets makes driving in The Golden State a particularly dangerous affair. Even when all motorists are on their best behavior, human errors, auto defects, poorly maintained roads, low visibility, challenging weather conditions, and a host of other negative influences conspire to ensure that accidents… happen.

If you’ve recently been injured in a car accident, you are not the first. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly three million Americans suffer non-fatal injuries as a result of motor vehicle crashes every single year. The costs associated with these crashes are staggering. The CDC reports that in 2017 alone, medical bills and lost productivity stemming from motor vehicle crashes cost Americans more than $75 billion. It is worth repeating that these costs arose as a result of motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. over the course of a single year.

If you haven’t yet started incurring financial consequences as a result of your collision, chances are good that you’ll begin experiencing this strain soon. Partially for this reason, it is important to be proactive when exploring your legal options. If you explore your legal options immediately in the wake of a crash, you’ll give our firm’s legal team enough time to preserve evidence that could be critical to the outcome of your case, protect your rights as an accident victim, negotiate successfully on your behalf with insurance providers, and file claims that may result in compensation awards before your family’s finances are significantly impacted by your crash.

Experienced Legal Guidance for Car Accident Victims

Our Southern California legal team has extensive experience representing the interests of car accident victims who have been injured as a result of virtually every kind of collision imaginable. From fender benders to multi-vehicle fatal pileups, we offer comprehensive legal services for accident injury victims facing cases marked by varying levels of complexity and damage. Therefore, please do not shy away from scheduling a free consultation with our team due to concerns that your case may either be too straightforward or too catastrophic for our firm to handle efficiently and effectively on your behalf.

Unlike some other law firms, our team does not prioritize handling a specific volume of cases. As a result, we invest the time, energy, resources, and dedication required to “get it right” for each of our clients. We do not treat our clients’ situations as if they are the same. When you work with our firm, you will never be treated like “just another client.” We strive to ensure that each of our clients and their cases are treated with the utmost respect, consideration, and attention required to secure the best possible outcomes under the circumstances.

What Should I Do after being involved in a Car Accident?

 After being involved in an auto accident, there are quite a few things that you should do to prepare to file your claim. The first thing that you should do is evaluate your injuries. If you are seriously hurt, seek medical attention immediately. Consider the following recommendations:


  • Photograph your injuries
  • Photograph the damage to the vehicles and the scene of the accident
  • Gather the driver's insurance information and vehicle information
  • Contact the police and file an accident report
  • Gather witness information
  • Contact your insurance company to report the accident
  • Seek medical attention
  • Evaluate your property damage
  • Seek legal assistance

Am I Entitled to Compensation?

Are you entitled to anything after being involved in a car accident? Depending on the specific details of your claim, you might be eligible to recover compensation. In general, compensation for auto accident claims is likely to consists of some of the following:


  • Medical expenses
  • Lost wages
  • Pain and suffering
  • Loss of consortium
  • Funeral and burial costs
  • Property damage
  • Punitive damages


Could you still recover compensation if you are involved in an accident with an uninsured motorist? You could still recover compensation - especially if you carry coverage for accidents with uninsured motorists. If you have doubts about your right to receive compensation, do not hesitate to contact our law firm as soon as possible.


Determining Liability for Auto Accidents

How is liability established? There is usually a clear cause of auto accidents. For example, a driver might have been speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, or tailgating you. If these reckless behaviors led to your accident, the driver could be found liable of the accident. You must remember the following:


  • All drivers owe other drivers (and other parties sharing the road) a duty of care to exercise caution in order to avoid accidents.
  • Exercising reckless behavior is a breach of this duty of care.
  • Breaches of duty could cause accidents.
  • Accidents could cause injuries.

If your injuries are directly caused by the breach of duty of another driver (or his or her negligent actions while driving), the driver will be at-fault. What if no other parties are involved in the accident? Without a doubt, single-vehicle auto accidents are common. Did the poor road conditions (due to negligent maintenance) cause your accident)? Did your rental vehicle suddenly malfunction and cause you to lose control and crash? Did a defect in your car cause your accident? Whatever the case, you can be certain that the experts at Long Beach Personal Injury Attorney Group are ready to help you establish liability for the harm that you suffered.


Dealing with Insurance Companies after a Car Accident

After being involved in an auto accident, it is essential that you report the accident to your insurance company to begin your accident claim. Should you consult with an insurance company after an accident? Yes, you should; however, you should never accept liability or accept a settlement offer before speaking to an attorney. Is it okay if you consult with insurance companies after an accident? Yes; however, you should always be cautious. Insurance companies don't really want to compensate you - and they are ready to do everything possible to deny or delay your claim.

Who Is at Fault When a Car Accident Occurs?


Before legal professionals can accurately assess whether an injury victim has a cause of action, they must objectively identify two primary crash-related influences: causation and fault. The causes of a car accident may or may not be legally actionable. For example, if you are driving at a safe speed along a well-maintained road and a wild animal darts into the road, you may need to swerve to avoid hitting the animal. If you crash as a result of this interaction, there will be no one to sue if you get hurt, as the accident wasn’t the result of human or corporate negligence, recklessness, or intentionally dangerous conduct. However, accidents caused by another’s intentionally dangerous, reckless, or negligent conduct may be legally actionable, provided that the conduct in question served as a substantial factor in the causation of your injuries.

That is the primary difference between causation and fault. Every accident occurs due to at least one cause. However, the only crashes that are legally actionable are those that occur due to another’s negligent, reckless, or intentionally dangerous fault. Note that the fault for an accident may be placed on businesses and government agencies as well as on to individuals. If a legal entity of any kind engaged in conduct that served as a substantial factor in the causation of your injuries, you may be able to hold them accountable in civil court.

Sometimes, the causes and fault assignments tied to a specific accident aren’t immediately obvious. As a result, it is important to refrain from assuming that you don’t have grounds to file a strong case until our team has been granted the opportunity to investigate the matter at hand.


What If Your Actions Contributed to the Causes of the Crash?


Oftentimes, car accident victims assume that if they were partially (or even mostly) to blame for the cause(s) of their collisions that they have no reason to explore their legal options. Thankfully, California is classified as a so-called “pure comparative negligence” state. This means that even if an injury victim is primarily at fault for the harm they’ve suffered, they remain entitled to seek damages from others that may be held legally liable for their negligent, reckless, or intentionally dangerous contributions to the cause of the crash in question. This approach differs from most other states. The majority of states either prohibit injury victims from seeking damages if they are partially at fault for their circumstances or they only allow victims to seek compensation if the victim’s share of the blame is less than 50 percent.

As a result of California’s model, you can seek damages from others according to the percentage of fault you’ve each been assigned. Say that you were involved in a two-car collision and you were assigned 30 percent of the blame, while the other motorist was assigned 70 percent of the blame. If your harm was valued at $100,000, you’d be entitled to seek $70,000 from the other driver. As this example illustrates, it is worth your time to explore your legal options, even if your conduct contributed to the cause(s) of your crash.

Speaking with Insurance Agents and Considering Settlements

It is important to work with an attorney in the wake of an injurious car accident even if you are uninterested in filing a lawsuit. Because you’ve been injured as a result of your crash, you’ll need to communicate with at least one insurance company representative. It is important to understand that whether you are communicating with your own insurance company or the insurance company of another party involved in the crash, their primary interest is not offering you a fair settlement – it’s protecting their bottom line. This is almost never a malicious reality, it’s simply a reflection of the fact that corporations have a fiduciary duty to make money on behalf of their stockholders. Even though it is not malicious, however, it is important that someone prioritizing your interests communicates with all insurance representatives assigned to your case.

Anything that you say to an insurance representative, however seemingly innocuous, may be used as a reason to devalue your claim, delay your payment, or reject your claim outright. Our experienced legal team understands how to communicate effectively with insurance representatives and how to spot all of the tricks of the trade they use to pay accident victims as little as possible under the circumstances. Allowing us to negotiate with these professionals on your behalf will better ensure positive results, due to both our experience handling such matters and the fact that – for better and for worse – insurance representatives tend to take lawyers more seriously than accident victims.


If Your Collision Occurred While You Were Working

According to analysis of data from the 2014 and 2018 American Community Surveys, Long Beach residents weather the tenth worst commute in the nation. Although the average Long Beach resident “only” drives 26 minutes one-way to and from their place of employment, more than one in 10 residents faces a commute that is 60 minutes or longer, one-way. Southern Californians spend a staggering amount of time in traffic generally and an eye-popping amount of time commuting to and from work, specifically.

Ordinarily, daily commutes are not considered to be “work-related activities” as defined by workers’ compensation statutes. However, if a commuter crashes while engaged in a work-related activity (such as picking up office supplies on the way to work at the request of their employer), that worker would be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits as a result of their injuries.

Any time employees eligible for workers’ compensation benefits are involved in traffic accidents while they are engaged in job-related activities, they are entitled to benefits. The only exceptions to this rule involve workers who are drunk or otherwise impaired by substances at the time of their crash, workers who instigate road rage incidents, and workers who crash on purpose with the aim of committing workers’ compensation fraud.

Note that if you’re eligible to file for workers’ comp benefits as a result of your crash, you’ll need to act fast. If you don’t formally report your injuries to your employer within 30 days and begin exploring your legal options within that timeframe, you may be barred from receiving a benefits award. Note also that if you’re eligible for workers’ compensation benefits, you can still sue others whose conduct contributed to the cause of your crash via a personal injury lawsuit. The only party that you cannot sue in this manner is your employer. Workers eligible for workers’ comp benefits can’t sue their employers directly when they suffer work-related injuries and/or occupational illnesses.

Contact Our Firm Today for a Free Case Evaluation

Too often, car accident victims fail to speak with an attorney about their situation because they assume that their crash was too minor or that their injuries are too insignificant to warrant taking any kind of legal action. It is important to avoid making assumptions about the potential value and the potential strength of your case before you have attended a free consultation with a knowledgeable car accident attorney.

California law is generous when it comes to protecting the rights of auto accident injury victims. Don’t allow yourself to be unnecessarily burdened by costs that should be covered by others responsible for causing you harm. Allow us to explore the potential strengths and overall compensation value of your case before you either commit to a plan of action or commit to the idea of taking no action whatsoever.

If you haven’t already done so, please schedule a free, no-risk, confidential case evaluation appointment with our firm today. Once we’ve explained your rights and clarified your options, we will provide you with whatever support you require as you seek any compensation to which you’re rightfully entitled. We look forward to speaking with you.

Share by: