California Injury Law Glossary

A city, county, or state agency can be sued when property it controls is in a condition that creates a substantial risk of injury when used with due care. Government Code section 835 requires proof that the condition caused the injury and that the entity either created it or knew about it long enough to have fixed it. Badly designed intersections, unlit stairwells, and long-unrepaired sidewalk breaks are typical claims.

Comes up in Premises Liability ·Pedestrian Accidents ·Bicycle Accidents

The legal obligation to act with reasonable care toward people your conduct could foreseeably harm. Civil Code section 1714 states the default: everyone is responsible for injury caused by their want of ordinary care. Whether a duty exists in an unusual situation is decided by the courts using the factors from Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, foreseeability of harm chief among them.

Comes up in Premises Liability ·Slip and Fall ·Professional Malpractice

When someone breaks a safety law and that violation causes the exact harm the law was written to prevent, the violation itself stands in for proof of carelessness. A driver who runs a red light does not need to be shown to have driven unreasonably — the Vehicle Code already says so. Evidence Code section 669 sets the four elements, and the presumption can be rebutted.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Truck Accidents ·Distracted Driving ·Hit and Run

Handing a vehicle to someone you knew, or should have known, was unfit to drive it. The owner is liable for their own carelessness in lending it out, separate from the driver's. It comes up when a parent gives keys to an unlicensed teenager, or a company assigns a truck to a driver with a documented history the employer never checked.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Truck Accidents ·DUI Accidents

California splits fault by percentage and reduces your recovery by your share of it. A jury that finds you 30% responsible for a crash awards you 70% of your damages. Unlike states that cut off recovery at 50%, California puts no ceiling on it — a plaintiff found 90% at fault still recovers 10%. The rule comes from Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, which replaced the older all-or-nothing bar.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Motorcycle Accidents ·Pedestrian Accidents ·Premises Liability

An employer answers for what its employees do on the job, even when the employer did nothing wrong. This is what puts a trucking company on the hook for its driver, or a delivery service for its courier. The test is whether the employee was acting within the scope of employment at the time — a personal errand on the way home usually falls outside it.

Comes up in Truck Accidents ·Rideshare Accidents ·Bus Accidents

A dog owner in California is liable for a bite whether or not the dog had ever bitten anyone before, and whether or not the owner knew the dog was dangerous. Civil Code section 3342 covers bites that happen in a public place or while the victim is lawfully on private property. California has no "one free bite" rule — the first bite counts.

Comes up in Dog Bites ·Premises Liability

A private substitute for trial. An arbitrator hears evidence and issues a decision that, when the agreement says binding, is enforceable like a judgment and very difficult to appeal. Arbitration usually arrives through a clause signed long before the dispute — in an employment contract, a nursing home admission packet, or a consumer agreement.

Comes up in Employment Law ·Nursing Home Abuse ·Business Litigation

Some injuries are not apparent when they happen. Where that is true, the limitations clock starts when the injured person discovered, or through reasonable diligence should have discovered, both the injury and that someone else caused it. The rule matters most in malpractice, toxic exposure, and cases where a defect stayed hidden for years.

Comes up in Professional Malpractice ·Legal Malpractice ·Nursing Home Abuse

Suing a public entity — a city, a transit agency, a school district, Caltrans — requires filing an administrative claim first, and the clock is far shorter than the usual two years. Government Code section 911.2 allows six months from the date of injury for personal injury claims. Once the entity rejects the claim, section 945.6 gives six months to file suit.

Comes up in Bus Accidents ·Pedestrian Accidents ·Premises Liability ·Bicycle Accidents

An examination by a physician the defense selects and pays for. Code of Civil Procedure section 2032.220 entitles a defendant in a personal injury case to one physical examination without a court order, subject to notice requirements and limits on its scope. The examining doctor is retained by the other side, and the report goes to them.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Brain Injury ·Soft Tissue Injury

A settlement negotiation run by a neutral third party, usually a retired judge or an experienced attorney. The mediator has no power to decide anything and cannot impose a result; the case settles only if both sides agree. Most California injury cases that resolve before trial resolve at mediation. What is said there is confidential and generally inadmissible later.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Business Litigation ·Employment Law

The framework governing medical malpractice claims in California. It sets its own deadline — Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5 allows one year from discovery or three years from the injury, whichever comes first — and caps noneconomic damages. Assembly Bill 35 replaced the long-frozen $250,000 cap in 2023 with limits that step up every January for a decade, reaching $750,000 in injury cases and $1 million in wrongful death.

Comes up in Professional Malpractice ·Wrongful Death

The deadline for filing a lawsuit. Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years from the date of injury for personal injury and wrongful death claims in California. Miss it and the claim is barred no matter how strong it is. Several situations shorten or extend that window, so the two-year figure is a starting point rather than the whole answer.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Wrongful Death ·Premises Liability ·Brain Injury

An outer time limit on construction-defect claims that runs from completion of the work rather than from the date anyone was hurt. Code of Civil Procedure section 337.1 allows four years for patent defects — the ones a reasonable inspection would catch. Section 337.15 allows ten years for latent defects. After that, the claim is gone whether or not the damage has surfaced.

Comes up in Unlicensed Contractors ·Premises Liability

The defendant does not get credit for benefits you arranged yourself. If your own health insurance paid the hospital, the person who hurt you cannot subtract that from what they owe — Helfend v. Southern Cal. Rapid Transit Dist. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 1. Howell v. Hamilton Meats (2011) 52 Cal.4th 541 narrowed the recovery for past medical expenses to the amount actually paid or still owed, rather than the sum originally billed.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Premises Liability ·Truck Accidents

A fee paid as a percentage of the recovery, with nothing owed if the case does not recover. Business and Professions Code section 6147 requires the agreement in writing, requires the percentage to be stated, and requires a statement that the rate is negotiable rather than fixed by law. A copy has to be given to the client when the contract is signed.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Personal Injury ·Wrongful Death

The losses that come with a number attached: medical bills, future treatment, lost wages, lost earning capacity, property damage, the cost of hiring help you used to do yourself. Civil Code section 1431.2 defines them as objectively verifiable monetary losses. They are proved with records and receipts rather than testimony about how the injury feels.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Truck Accidents ·Brain Injury ·Burn Injury

A claim belonging to the spouse or registered domestic partner of someone seriously injured, covering the loss of companionship, affection, and intimacy the injury caused. Rodriguez v. Bethlehem Steel Corp. (1974) 12 Cal.3d 382 established it in California. It is a separate claim with its own damages, brought alongside the injured person's case rather than folded into it.

Comes up in Loss of Consortium ·Brain Injury ·Burn Injury

A right to be repaid out of your settlement. It arises when a health plan, a hospital, or a treating provider covers care and claims reimbursement from the recovery. The Hospital Lien Act at Civil Code sections 3045.1 and following governs hospital liens, and Civil Code section 3040 limits what a health plan can take. Liens are frequently negotiable, and reducing them raises what actually reaches you.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Brain Injury ·Truck Accidents

Compensation for what an injury costs you that no invoice records: pain, physical impairment, disfigurement, anxiety, the loss of things you used to enjoy. Civil Code section 1431.2 defines them as subjective, non-monetary losses. California places no cap on them in ordinary injury cases; medical malpractice claims are the significant exception.

Comes up in Brain Injury ·Burn Injury ·Wrongful Death ·Car Accidents

A driver who was uninsured at the time of a crash cannot recover noneconomic damages, even from a driver who was entirely at fault. Insurance Code section 3333.4 leaves medical bills and lost earnings recoverable but takes pain and suffering off the table. Passengers are not affected, and there are exceptions — including where the at-fault driver was convicted of DUI.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Uninsured Motorist ·Motorcycle Accidents

When more than one defendant is at fault, Civil Code section 1431.2 treats the two damage categories differently. Economic damages remain joint and several — any liable defendant can be made to pay all of them. Noneconomic damages are several only, meaning each defendant pays strictly in proportion to their own share of fault. The practical effect is that an insolvent defendant's share of pain-and-suffering is not picked up by the others.

Comes up in Truck Accidents ·Premises Liability ·Unlicensed Contractors

An award aimed at punishing conduct rather than compensating loss. Civil Code section 3294 permits it only on clear and convincing evidence of oppression, fraud, or malice — a materially higher bar than the more-likely-than-not standard that governs the rest of a case. Ordinary carelessness, however serious the injury, does not reach it.

Comes up in DUI Accidents ·Nursing Home Abuse ·Business Litigation

The package sent to an insurer that sets out liability, the medical treatment and its cost, the wage loss, and the sum being asked for. It is usually assembled once treatment has finished or the medical picture has stabilized, because a demand sent before then understates what the injury actually cost. Most claims settle from this document without a lawsuit ever being filed.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Slip and Fall ·Premises Liability

An insurer's unreasonable handling of a claim under its own policy — denying without investigating, delaying without explanation, or refusing a reasonable settlement within limits. Every California policy carries an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and Gruenberg v. Aetna Ins. Co. (1973) 9 Cal.3d 566 made breaching it actionable. The claim belongs to the policyholder; an injured third party cannot sue the other side's insurer directly for it.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Uninsured Motorist ·Business Litigation

The most an insurer will pay under a policy, regardless of the size of the loss. California's required minimum for bodily injury is well below what a serious injury costs, which is why identifying every applicable policy matters. A demand within those limits, held open for a stated period, can expose the insurer to liability beyond them if it refuses unreasonably; Code of Civil Procedure section 999 sets requirements for those pre-litigation demands.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Truck Accidents ·Uninsured Motorist

Coverage on your own policy that pays when the driver who hurt you had no insurance, or had too little to cover the harm. Insurance Code section 11580.2 governs it. Underinsured coverage pays the gap between the at-fault driver's limits and yours, not the full amount over again. California insurers must offer it, though a policyholder can decline it in writing.

Comes up in Uninsured Motorist ·Hit and Run ·Car Accidents

What a plaintiff has to establish, and how convincingly. Civil cases run on a preponderance of the evidence — more likely true than not, which is anything past an even split. That is a far lower bar than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard in criminal court, which is why a defendant acquitted of a crime can still be held liable for the same conduct.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Premises Liability ·Employment Law

In a premises case, the property owner is generally liable only for hazards it knew about or should have caught. Actual notice means someone told them or they saw it. Constructive notice means the hazard sat there long enough that a reasonable inspection routine would have found it. How long the spill was on the floor is usually the decisive fact in a slip-and-fall.

Comes up in Premises Liability ·Slip and Fall ·Slip and Fall — Beverly Hills

Latin for "the thing speaks for itself." Some accidents do not ordinarily happen without negligence, and where the instrument was in the defendant's exclusive control, the accident itself supports an inference of carelessness. Evidence Code section 646 makes it a presumption in California. A surgical instrument left inside a patient is the standard illustration.

Comes up in Professional Malpractice ·Premises Liability

Destroying or losing evidence that a party knew was relevant — a trucking company overwriting its electronic logs, a store taping over surveillance footage. California does not treat it as a separate tort, following Cedars-Sinai Medical Center v. Superior Court (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1. The remedy is procedural: evidentiary sanctions and a jury instruction permitting the inference that the missing evidence was unfavorable.

Comes up in Truck Accidents ·Premises Liability ·Slip and Fall

Physical harm, neglect, or financial exploitation of someone 65 or older, or of a dependent adult. Welfare and Institutions Code section 15657 adds remedies an ordinary negligence claim does not carry — attorney's fees and, where the victim has died, pain-and-suffering damages that would otherwise be lost. It requires clear and convincing evidence of recklessness, oppression, fraud, or malice.

Comes up in Nursing Home Abuse ·Nursing Home Neglect ·Nursing Home Bedsores

The point at which a treating physician concludes that a condition has stabilized and further treatment is unlikely to improve it. It does not mean recovered — it means the picture is now clear enough to price. Settling before reaching it risks undervaluing care that has not been prescribed yet, which is why demands are usually held until a doctor makes that call.

Comes up in Car Accidents ·Soft Tissue Injury ·Brain Injury

The claim the deceased person would have had, continued by their estate. Code of Civil Procedure section 377.30 allows the personal representative to pursue it. It covers the losses sustained before death — medical bills and lost earnings — and is brought alongside the family's wrongful death claim, which covers a different set of losses entirely.

Comes up in Wrongful Death ·Nursing Home Abuse ·Wrongful Death — Beverly Hills

Damage to the brain from an external force — an impact, a violent jolt, or an object penetrating the skull. Severity ranges from a concussion that resolves in weeks to injuries that permanently change memory, mood, and executive function. Standard CT imaging often reads as normal after a mild TBI, so documentation frequently depends on neuropsychological testing and on accounts from people who knew the person beforehand.

Comes up in Brain Injury ·Brain Injury — Beverly Hills ·Motorcycle Accidents

A claim brought by surviving family members for their own losses after a death caused by someone else. Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 sets who may bring it — spouse, domestic partner, children, and in some circumstances others who were financially dependent. The damages belong to the survivors: lost financial support, lost services, and the loss of the relationship itself.

Comes up in Wrongful Death ·Wrongful Death — Beverly Hills ·Wrongful Death — Santa Monica