315 S. Beverly Dr. Suite 320,
Beverly Hills, California, 90212
Phone Number: (310) 919-5962
When you have suffered critical injuries through the negligence of another, you may be wondering how you can make the liable party pay. The personal injury claims process can be intimidating, but with help from a dedicated Beverly Hills personal injury lawyer at West Coast Trial Lawyers, you can breathe easier.
With our firm advocating for your right to maximum compensation, you can focus on recuperating from your injuries while we fight for justice in your case. Contact our Beverly Hills office by calling (310) 919-5962 or filling out our quick contact form to schedule a free consultation and to learn more about what your personal injury claim could be worth.
The personal injury attorneys at West Coast Trial Lawyers are prepared to handle every type of personal injury claim imaginable. Below is a list of accidents that we use our legal expertise in to help clients get the justice they deserve.
Motorcycle Accidents
Due to its layout, Beverly Hills has proven to be dangerous for a motorcyclist. In March of 2019, a man was pronounced dead after being involved in a motorcycle accident at an intersection located on Santa Monica Boulevard and Hillcrest Road. This isn’t the only fatal motorcycle accident in the area in recent years, as two other motorcyclists lost their lives the previous year after being cut off by a negligent driver. Victims of a motorcycle accident are encouraged to reach out to a personal injury attorney to recover damages. West Coast Trial Lawyers is readily available to assist those who need legal guidance to win their case.
Truck Accidents
Due to their sheer size and power, commercial trucks always have the potential to cause significant injuries and property loss. Truck drivers and commercial trucking companies are required to abide by the highest safety standards. Furthermore, commercial trucks have different insurance policies than standard vehicles. If you have suffered injuries after a truck accident, an experienced Beverly Hills truck accident attorney is always here to help. We understand commercial trucking accident insurance policies and safety regulations. We will recover all the compensation you are entitled to.
Premises Liability
Was your car broken into because of inadequate security in a private parking structure? Did a loved one suffer a slip and fall while shopping on Rodeo Drive? Premises liability claims are very diverse. Please consult with an experienced Beverly Hills premises liability attorney as soon as possible to discuss whether you are entitled to file a claim for the recovery of damages.
Bus Accidents
Fortunately, bus accidents are not as common as car accidents, but when they do occur, they have the potential to be more horrific. For example, 8 people were seriously injured after a tour bus accident in June of 2019. The incident took place on Coldwater Canyon and the tour bus driver was later arrested on suspicion of driving while under the influence. Bus drivers are common carriers, which means they are legally required to be extra careful because they are transporting passengers for profit. However, if you wish to file a bus accident claim, be aware that these claims have unique time limits. A bus accident attorney at our firm can answer any questions you may have about bus accident claims in Beverly Hills.
Bicycle Accidents
Based on data from 2007 to 2017, Beverly Hills was deemed as one of the most dangerous cities for a bicyclist in the state of California by the Office of Traffic Safety. Injuries were up 40 percent from the previous decade, and many are wondering if street design is partially responsible for this tragic trend. Bicycle accident victims can be entitled to receive compensation for damages. Our Beverly Hills bicycle accident attorneys are available 24/7 to discuss your case and determine whether you may have a case on your hands.
Car Accidents
Beverly Hills is well known for congested streets and aggressive drivers. 2017 was the most dangerous year for drivers, as near record highs were established for injuries and fatalities. 422 people were injured that year and data suggests this trend will only worsen. If you or a loved one suffered injuries in a car accident due to another party’s negligence, a Beverly Hills car accident attorney at our firm will recover all the compensation you are entitled to for your losses.
Burn Injury
Wildfires can cause widespread destruction in an instant, but the majority of burn accidents are caused by daily activities, such as cigarette smoking and cooking accidents. Furthermore, many serious burn accidents are caused by defective products. If you have suffered burn injuries because of a faulty product or due to someone’s negligent or deliberately harmful acts, please contact a Beverly Hills burn injury attorney as soon as possible.
Uber and Lyft Accidents
Sexual assault, intoxicated drivers, and countless instances of physical violence have all become synonymous with these ridesharing giants. Until recently, Uber and Lyft were not legally responsible for the criminal or negligent acts of their drivers. However, with the passing of California Senate Bill AB5 and Prop 22, the rules and regulations affecting how ridesharing claims are handled will change drastically. A Beverly Hills rideshare accident attorney at our firm understands these laws and is available to successfully handle your Uber or Lyft accident claim.
Wrongful Death
Please accept our condolences if you have lost a loved one due to negligence or deliberate acts of malice. Our team of wrongful death attorneys will handle your wrongful death claim with dignity and respect. We will make sure that justice is served on your loved one’s behalf, and we will recover all the damages you and your family are entitled to.
Scooter Accidents
Shared scooter services are cheap, quick, and convenient. However, they are stirring up a fair amount of controversy due to how dangerous they can be. In fact, thousands of people suffered broken bones, concussions, and other serious injuries in the last few years alone. Beverly Hills is one of the most vocal, anti-scooter cities in the state of California. As of now, scooters have been banned in the city. If you have suffered injuries in Beverly Hills after a scooter accident, you have a right to hold the guilty party responsible for your injuries.
Spinal Cord Injury
It goes without saying that a spinal cord injury is physically, emotionally, and financially devastating. These injuries have the potential to cause lifelong changes in strength, tactile sensation, and other crucial bodily functions. For the most part, spinal cord injuries are caused by severe acts of negligence. Due to the costly medical care and permanent changes associated with spinal cord injuries, damages may be much higher than other types of personal injury claims. If you or a loved one has suffered a spinal cord injury, the team of Beverly Hills spinal cord injury attorneys will recover all the compensation owed to you.
Dog Bites
Beverly Hills has very strict laws regarding liability for dog owners whose animals bite someone. In short, as long as you were bitten in a public place or while lawfully on someone’s private property, the dog owner will be responsible for any injuries caused to you. If you or a loved one were a victim of a dog attack, a dog bite attorney at our firm is here to seek justice and compensation on your behalf.
Food Delivery Accidents
Food delivery drivers are treated as independent contractors. This means, among other things, that employers could avoid liability for the negligent actions of their delivery drivers. If you were involved in an accident with a food delivery driver, you need to contact an experienced Beverly Hills food delivery accident attorney as soon as possible.
Brain Injury
Brain injuries may be caused by car accidents, physical altercations, medical malpractice, and more. However, the effects on a victim are unpredictable, lifelong, and will always involve costly medical treatment. Furthermore, due to the delicate and mysterious nature of the human brain, most brain injury victims will literally never be the same after suffering this type of injury.
Pedestrian Accidents
As mentioned, Beverly Hills has struggled with car and bicycle accidents in recent years. Unfortunately, pedestrians have also been affected. Between 2007 to 2017, 8 pedestrians were killed and almost 800 more were injured. Data suggests that the most dangerous areas for pedestrians are the Wilshire, Olympic, and Santa Monica corridors. If you were involved in a pedestrian accident and would like to seek compensation for damages, our Beverly Hills personal injury attorneys at West Coast Trial Lawyers are available 24/7 to provide you with legal assistance.
Who is responsible for my accident? Am I entitled to compensation for my injuries? Who do I turn to for help? These are important questions. If you have suffered any type of personal injury, please accept our heartfelt condolences. No one expects to be involved in an accident, or worse, suffer serious injuries as a result. The road to recovery can be long and difficult. And unless you seek professional legal help, you may have to pay out-of-pocket for your costly medical bills.
Attempting to handle a personal injury claim without legal representation can be very stressful. If you have sustained any injuries or damages in an accident, our team of personal injury attorneys at West Coast Trial Lawyers have over six decades of collective expertise in helping victims seek justice and compensation for their losses.
We have Havard educated attorneys, former federal prosecutors, and insurance adjusters who know how insurance companies operate. We truly understand the difficulties you are facing and we are proud to have recovered over $1 billion in damages for our clients.
Whether you were involved in a car accident on the 405, suffered a slip and fall in one of your favorite boutiques on Rodeo Drive, or lost a loved one due to negligence, our Beverly Hills personal injury attorneys will take care of everything.
It may not always be clear whether you have the right to pursue compensation through a personal injury claim in Beverly Hills. You may be wondering whether your injuries are severe enough to warrant the pursuit of an insurance or civil claim. However, it is important to know that the type of injury you are diagnosed with will not determine whether you have the right to be awarded compensation for your damages. What matters is the extent your injuries have had on your life.
With that being said, if you hope to win your personal injury claim, your attorney will have to prove that someone else caused the injuries you sustained. After all, you should not be expected to cover the costs when another party’s negligence adversely affects your life.
Furthermore, your injuries must have had a significant impact. You may have the right to recover both economic and non-economic damages. As long as your injuries have considerably affected you financially, emotionally, or physically, and someone else is responsible, you may pursue compensation through a Beverly Hills personal injury case.
The personal injury claims process can often be complex. Many injury victims hesitate to contact a lawyer for help because they do not understand how the personal injury claims process works or what to expect from their case.
Every personal injury claim is different. The way in which your attorney approaches your claim may be completely different from someone else who has been involved in a similar accident. However, generally, the personal injury claims process involves one or more of the following steps:
Generally, if you are unable to secure the compensation you need through an insurance company, for whatever reason, your best option for recovering the restitution that is rightfully yours may be to file your claim in civil court. Your attorney can give you a better idea about what path your personal injury claim could take after reviewing the circumstances of your case.
Personal injury claims are notoriously diverse and encompass many types of accidents. Determining liability after any type of accident is a complex process, especially when multiple parties are involved. However, two important considerations a Beverly Hills personal injury attorney will assess are whether you suffered injuries and if your injuries were caused by negligence. In order to recover compensation, you must have been injured and your injuries must have been caused by negligence.
For the most part, liability is based on negligence. This means that any individual, entity, or group who caused you to suffer injuries will generally be held responsible for your injuries and the resulting damages.
Negligence, in the broadest sense, is a form of careless or reckless behavior. What exactly does that mean? Let’s use motor vehicle accidents as an example.
A few common examples of driver negligence include behaviors, such as:
Negligent behavior, whether it was committed by a truck driver, bus driver, or a rideshare driver, is always unacceptable. All drivers must drive safely. Every driver has a duty of care while behind the wheel. This means that all drivers are legally responsible for using reasonable care while operating a vehicle. In other words, they must obey traffic laws, signals, and focus on the road. Let’s continue with truck accidents as an example. If you were injured by a truck driver, you must be able to show that their negligence was the direct cause of your injuries.
The legal standard for negligence in California will consider the following elements when determining liability:
Many individuals are legally bound to be careful. Bus drivers, for example, have a duty of care to other drivers, as well as the passengers they are transporting. Property owners are also required to maintain reasonably safe conditions on their premises.
If you are moving forward with your personal injury claim in Beverly Hills, there are multiple personal injury laws you will need to adhere to. Depending on the type of accident you were involved in, there may be specific laws that could influence the outcome of your case. For example, if you were involved in a slip and fall accident, the state’s open and obvious doctrine may apply.
With that being said, there are a few personal injury laws in California that could impact the outcome of a personal injury accident. These include:
These are just a few of the more common personal injury laws that could influence the outcome of your insurance and civil claims. You can get a better idea of whether there are more accident-specific laws that could influence your case when you talk with your attorney.
This is one of the most difficult questions for any personal injury attorney to answer. The short answer is that there is no such thing as a predictable or guaranteed settlement amount. Compensation will depend largely on the circumstances of your accident. In other words, the seriousness of your injuries and the way your injuries were caused will all be taken into consideration.
For the most part, the more severe your injuries are, the higher your damages will be. Furthermore, if the party that injured you was especially negligent or deliberately caused you harm, you will likely be entitled to additional compensation.
Compensatory damages are meant to compensate an injury victim for any injuries and losses sustained after filing a personal injury claim. In general, you must prove that you were injured in order to be entitled to compensation. If you did not sustain any injuries, there will typically be no need for any damages. Compensatory damages are generally divided into economic damages and non-economic damages.
Economic damages include compensation for tangible losses, such as property loss, lost wages, and medical bills. This is intended to compensate a victim for losses a dollar amount can readily be attached to. Economic damages are calculated by determining the amount of out-of-pocket losses an injury victim has or will expect to incur as a result of their injuries.
Non-economic damages include intangible losses, such as emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and pain and suffering. This covers losses that are thought of as subjective and will not necessarily cover out-of-pocket losses.
Punitive damages is separate from compensatory damages and is intended to punish a wrongdoer for negligent or deliberately harmful behavior. Depending on the circumstances, a California court may award punitive damages. Punitive damages are a form of punishment and are only awarded when a defendant’s behavior is especially harmful or deliberate in nature.
Punitive damages are rare and only incorporate about 5 percent of verdicts. Furthermore, there is no set standard for calculating or awarding punitive damages. It is awarded at the court’s discretion and will depend entirely on the specific circumstances of your claim.
In the vast majority of personal injury cases, the liable party is represented by some type of insurance provider. For example, if you were involved in a slip and fall accident on someone else’s property, that property owner may have homeowners insurance. If you were involved in a motor vehicle accident, the driver who hit you should be protected by some type of auto insurance policy.
Generally, this means you may have an opportunity to recover some of your damages through an insurance claim. However, dealing with the insurance company is never easy. In fact, you may be surprised to learn just how the insurance claims process works and how the insurance company may handle your case.
Advantageous Insurance Adjusters
Insurance companies lose money when they pay out on a personal injury victim’s claim. Insurance companies make their money by paying out less in claims than they do bringing in new policies and in premium payments. You can expect the insurance company to look for every opportunity they can find to reduce or deny you the benefits that you may otherwise be entitled to.
There are several ways in which insurance companies go without accomplishing this goal. Several are unscrupulous. For example, the insurance adjuster may ask you to give them a statement as to how the accident occurred. This may seem innocuous enough, as the insurance company needs to know how the accident happened before they can pay out your claim. However, anything you say to the insurance adjuster could then be manipulated and used against you.
Insurance adjusters have been known to twist statements given to them by well-intentioned claimants. They make it seem as though you may have admitted fault for causing the accident or are guilty in some way. If they can show that you are partially at-fault, the amount of compensation they will have to pay out could be reduced under California’s pure comparative negligence laws.
Insurance adjusters have also been known to take advantage of personal injury victims in Beverly Hills by making insultingly low offers fast. When the insurance company makes you an offer at a time when you desperately need money coming in, you may be tempted to accept less than you deserve. You may not even be aware that you are being presented with an offer that is considerably less than your damages are worth. If you want to avoid being taken advantage of by profit-driven insurance companies, your best option may be to get your personal injury lawyer in Beverly Hills to step in and handle the negotiations and claims process for you.
How Injury Settlements Work
As if dealing with greedy insurance companies was not difficult enough, the actual settlement from the insurance company can also be confusing. Many people assume that insurance companies are required to cover your damages in full. However, this is not the case. In fact, insurance companies are only required to pay out up to the maximum limits of the policyholder‘s policy.
California is a fault state. This means someone else’s insurance policy is going to be in place. If they carry the bare minimum amount of coverage, you could find yourself dealing with damages that exceed this limit. The insurance company will not be required to pay out beyond the limits of the policyholder‘s policy. This means you may need to be prepared to bring your case before a judge if you hope to recover the remaining losses.
Insurance companies also only cover certain types of economic damages. This might include coverage of your medical expenses as they relate to your injuries, property damages, and in some cases, your loss of income. However, other types of economic damages, and your non-economic damages, will not be covered by the insurance company. For this reason, bringing your case to court may be the only way to recover total compensation for your suffering.
The personal injury claims process is often confusing in Beverly Hills. When you have already been through so much, dealing with a difficult litigation process can be overwhelming. However, the more prepared you are, the more confidence you will have in your decision to move forward with your case.
With that in mind, we have answered some of the most frequently asked questions regarding Beverly Hills personal injury claims below. If you have additional questions that we did not address here, be sure to contact our office for a free consultation so we can discuss your specific concerns in greater detail.
Will I Have to Go to Court?
It is very possible that your case will need to go to court. Your lawyer will need to carefully examine the details of your case to determine whether you can secure a settlement that meets your needs through the insurance company or will need to pursue legal action to recover your damages in full.
What Does It Cost to Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer?
The majority of reputable personal injury lawyers in Beverly Hills will work with you on contingency. This means you will not be expected to cover any out-of-pocket expenses. You will not need to cover any attorneys fees unless or until we produce a recovery in your case. Then, you compensate your attorney with a percentage of your injury settlement. The specific details of your contingency agreement can be discussed during your free consultation.
Can I File a Claim for My Injured Child?
Absolutely. Children who suffer injuries caused by someone else’s negligence have the same right to compensation as anyone else would. In fact, a child’s injuries should be taken far more seriously, as they can suffer far more debilitating physical and psychological trauma as a result of their injuries. If you have a child or are the legal guardian of a minor who has suffered injuries caused by someone else’s negligent actions or misconduct, you can help them get justice by contacting a personal injury attorney in Beverly Hills for help.
If you have sustained injuries as a result of someone’s negligence or deliberate acts of malice, you have the right to hold the guilty party responsible for your losses. A Beverly Hills personal injury attorney at West Coast Trial Lawyers can recover compensation for the losses you have suffered.
Call us today at (310) 919-5962 or fill out our contact form to schedule a free consultation with our experienced, caring, and compassionate legal team today.
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