Hollywood Slip and Fall Lawyer

The Walk of Fame Is a Sidewalk

The stars run along Hollywood Boulevard from Gower Street to La Brea Avenue, about a mile and a third, and up Vine Street between Yucca and Sunset. The surface is built from three foot square terrazzo panels set at six foot intervals.

That construction is the point. A sidewalk assembled from thousands of separate panels has thousands of joints, each one a place where settling, tree roots or repair work can produce a height difference. Add a crowd that is looking down at the stars or up at the buildings rather than at the ground, and the exposure is obvious.

The stars themselves are administered by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, but the sidewalk is public property. The claim runs against the city.

How Bad Does the Defect Have to Be?

The city will argue the height difference was too trivial to be dangerous as a matter of law. It argues this in almost every case.

You will see a range quoted, three quarters of an inch to an inch and a half, as generally trivial. That language comes from a 2019 decision where it was not the holding, and in 2023 the Court of Appeal said directly that it exaggerates the accepted range, putting the point at around an inch. That same decision replaced the two-step test other courts use with a broader assessment, and a decision from another district in 2025 disagreed with part of it. The area is genuinely unsettled, so treat any fixed number offered as settled law with caution.

Size is only the first question in any event. Lighting, whether debris obscured the defect, whether the edge was jagged, the weather, whether you had reason to know the spot, and whether anyone else had fallen there all count.

Notice Is Where These Cases Are Won

A claim against a public entity requires a dangerous condition, causation, a foreseeable risk of that kind of injury, and either that a city employee created the condition or that the city knew about it with time to act.

If an employee created it, notice does not matter. Otherwise the case turns on what the city knew or should have known, which puts its inspection and complaint records at the center. A defect reported before your fall is the most direct evidence there is.

There is also a limit worth knowing about, because it is rarely mentioned. A public entity has a defense where its conduct was reasonable given the cost and practicality of doing more, and a separate immunity for injuries caused by an approved design. On a question of street or sidewalk geometry that second one is often decisive.

A hazard being obvious does not end a claim by itself. It can remove the duty to warn while leaving the duty to fix, particularly where people have no practical alternative to walking there, which on a boulevard like this one is usually the case.

Filing Against the City

The claim goes to the Los Angeles City Clerk at 200 North Spring Street, room 395, in City Hall. The city states that claims for death or injury to person or property must be filed no later than six months after the date of occurrence.

Two traps in the paperwork. If the claim exceeds ten thousand dollars you must not state a dollar amount at all. And the deadline to present a claim is not the deadline to sue: after a written rejection you generally have six months to file, but if the city never responds at all, no rejection notice is mailed and you have two years from accrual instead.

If the six months has already passed there is a late claim application, generally available within a year. It is an application decided by the city rather than a right.

One more distinction that matters here more than most places. A fall a few blocks west, in West Hollywood, is a claim against a different city entirely, filed with its own clerk at 8300 Santa Monica Boulevard. The two places read as one neighborhood and are not.

A Waiver Cannot Cover This

Occasionally an operator or venue will point at terms you accepted. In May 2025 the California Supreme Court held that an agreement exempting a party from future negligent violation of a statutory duty designed to protect public safety is against the policy of the law and unenforceable. The duty to keep public property in a reasonably safe condition is exactly such a duty.

Deadlines and Venue

Two years against a private business or landlord. Six months to present a claim against the city or the county. When you are unsure which, work to the six months, because that assumption is recoverable and the other is not.

Hollywood cases are filed downtown at the Stanley Mosk courthouse.

Legal Disclaimer

This page is provided by Etehad Law for general information only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. The attorney responsible for this communication is Simon P. Etehad, Esq. (California State Bar No. 186449), Etehad Law, Beverly Hills, California. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.