If you were injured in San Bernardino because of someone else’s negligence, you may have the right to pursue compensation for your medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and any other losses you have suffered. However, insurance companies do not automatically pay an injury victim what a claim is worth and make the recovery process more difficult than it needs to be.
At West Coast Trial Lawyers, our firm has recovered more than $2 billion on our clients behalf and our local team of personal injury lawyers are prepared to handle your case with the utmost care that it deserves. Our team combines the resources of a large personal injury firm with direct attorney access and an in-house trial team prepared to take cases further when an insurance company refuses to make a fair offer.
On top of it all, when you hire us there are no upfront attorney fees. If we take your personal injury case, we do so on a contingency fee basis, meaning you do not pay attorney fees unless we recover compensation for you.
Call us today at (909) 787-2178 or fill out our online contact form for a free case consultation!
Why Hire a San Bernardino Personal Injury Lawyer?
After an accident, the insurance company may begin investigating the claim before you have even had time to understand the extent of your injuries. An adjuster may request a recorded statement, dispute how an accident happened, or claim you were partially responsible. These decisions can directly affect how much the insurer is ultimately willing to pay.
Having a personal injury attorney gives you someone responsible for protecting the legal side of your recovery. The goal is not simply to submit an insurance claim. It is to build enough evidence to show what happened, who was responsible, how badly you were hurt, and what the injury has cost you.
Why Choose West Coast Trial Lawyers for a San Bernardino Personal Injury Case?
Choosing a personal injury law firm is about more than hiring someone to complete paperwork. The attorney handling the claim may need to challenge a major insurance company, corporation, trucking company, property owner, rideshare company, or government entity.
When you choose West Coast Trial Lawyers, you are choosing a law firm that has handled thousands of personal injury claims throughout the West Coast and a team of attorneys who are committed to giving you the legal guidance that you need.
What You Get When You Hire West Coast Trial Lawyers
- An In-House Trial Team– Our attorneys investigate and develop cases with litigation in mind, so if the negligent party does not provide proper compensation, our team is ready for court..
- Direct Access to Your Legal Team– Our team keeps clients informed throughout the claims process and provides access to the legal professionals handling their case.
- Experience Taking on Powerful Defendants- West Coast Trial Lawyers has experience pursuing claims against major insurance carriers and companies and has built a legal team capable of handling complex personal injury litigation.
- A Local San Bernardino Office– Our office at 1762 North Waterman Avenue gives injured residents access to our team here in San Bernardino.
Personal Injury Cases We Handle in San Bernardino
Personal injury law encompasses many different accidents and forms of negligence. Each type of case presents different questions about liability, available insurance, evidence, and damages.
- San Bernardino Premises Liability Attorney
- San Bernardino Bicycle Accident Attorney
- San Bernardino Car Accident Attorney
- San Bernardino Burn Injury Attorney
- San Bernardino Uber and Lyft Accident Attorney
- San Bernardino Wrongful Death Attorney
- San Bernardino Scooter Accident Attorney
- San Bernardino Spinal Cord Injury Attorney
- San Bernardino Dog Bite Attorney
- San Bernardino Food Delivery Accident Attorney
- San Bernardino Pedestrian Accident Attorney
- San Bernardino Brain Injury Attorney
- San Bernardino Truck Accident Attorney
- San Bernardino Motorcycle Accident Attorney
- San Bernardino Bus Accident Attorney
What Should You Do After an Accident in San Bernardino?
No matter what happens in an accident, your health should come first after an accident. Seek appropriate medical attention and follow the treatment recommendations given to you by your healthcare providers.
If you are physically able, start documenting what happened because it will be important later on when you file a claim. As such, any evidence like photographs of the accident scene, damaged vehicles, hazards, injuries, and road conditions may help establish facts that are difficult to reconstruct months later.
You should also be cautious when discussing the accident with the other party’s insurance company. While a basic statement may seem harmless when given shortly after an accident, to many people’s surprise, it can later be used in a dispute over liability or the severity of an injury.
How Do You Prove a Personal Injury Claim in California?
Most personal injury claims are based on proving negligence, because an injured person must establish that the defendant owed them a legal duty, failed to act with reasonable care, caused the accident or injury, and caused compensable damages as a result.
What proves those elements depends heavily on the type of case. For example, a car accident may require vehicle photographs and collision reports, while a premises liability claim may depend on surveillance footage and maintenance records
As a result, the strength of a personal injury case depends more than the severity of the injury, but also the evidence connecting the defendant’s conduct to the harm suffered.
What If I Didn’t Feel Injured Until Days After My Accident?
Not every injury is immediately obvious after an accident. Pain, stiffness, headaches, dizziness, and other symptoms may become more noticeable after the adrenaline and stress of the accident have subsided.
If new symptoms develop after an accident, seeking appropriate medical attention can be important for both your health and your personal injury claim. Medical records can help document when symptoms appeared, how they progressed, and whether a healthcare provider believes they are related to the accident.
Who Pays My Medical Bills While My Personal Injury Claim Is Still Pending?
A personal injury settlement usually does not arrive immediately after an accident and this can make dealing with medical bills quite troublesome especially if the injury is quite severe. Depending on the circumstances, treatment may initially be paid through health insurance, applicable automobile medical-payment coverage, or an arrangement with a healthcare provider.
However, the responsible party’s liability insurer does not function like health insurance by paying every medical bill as treatment occurs. Instead, medical expenses are typically considered as part of the overall injury claim.
What Is a Medical Lien in a Personal Injury Case?
A medical lien is a legal claim that gives hospitals, insurance companies, and doctors the right to be repaid at a later time for the services they provide in the event an injury victim does not have enough money for treatment. This claim is designed so that accident victims get the medical treatment they need when immediate payment is difficult.
In many cases, healthcare providers may agree to provide treatment and defer the payment until the personal injury case is resolved and the accident victim recovers compensation for the accident. This type of arrangement can create another type of reimbursement obligation toward the eventual recovery but the amount owed can affect how much money the injured person ultimately receives from a settlement.
How Often Do Accidents Happen in San Bernardino?
Traffic collisions are a significant safety issue in San Bernardino, because according to the California Office of Traffic Safety’s 2023 rankings, 1,475 people were killed or injured in traffic collisions in the City of San Bernardino during 2023.
The data also reported that San Bernardino ranked 3rd out of 62 similarly sized California cities for motorcycle victims who were killed or injured. While these numbers do not determine whether any individual has a personal injury claim, they illustrate why serious vehicle, pedestrian, and motorcycle accidents remain an important concern for people traveling throughout the city.
Where Are San Bernardino Personal Injury Lawsuits Filed?
Personal injury lawsuits arising in San Bernardino County generally proceed through the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino when California state court is the appropriate forum. Under the court’s current filing procedures, limited and unlimited civil cases throughout San Bernardino County are filed and heard at the San Bernardino Justice Center.
Additionally, hiring an attorney does not mean that your case will automatically go to trial. Many personal injury cases resolve through insurance negotiations, litigation, mediation, or settlement discussions before a trial becomes necessary. But when an insurer will not agree to reasonable compensation, filing a lawsuit can provide additional tools for obtaining evidence and pursuing the claim.
What Compensation Can You Recover After a Personal Injury?
In most personal injury claims, California personal injury victims may be able to pursue both economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages are designed to compensate accident victims for measurable financial losses such as medical expenses, future medical treatment, lost wages, diminished earning capacity, rehabilitation expenses, property damage, and other accident-related costs.
Non-economic damages, on the other hand, is designed to compensate for losses that do not come with a bill like physical pain, emotional distress, disability, inconvenience, and loss of enjoyment of life.
Due to the nature of personal injury claims, the exact damages available depend on the facts of the case and while personal injury calculators can provide an estimation of what you can recover, a personal injury lawyer can give a more accurate estimation for your claim.
How Much Is a San Bernardino Personal Injury Case Worth?
There is no reliable average settlement that can tell you what an individual personal injury claim is worth. Two people can be involved in similar accidents and have dramatically different claims.
Important factors can include the severity and permanence of the injury, cost of past and future treatment, amount of income lost, future effect on earning capacity, available insurance coverage, strength of the liability evidence, whether multiple parties are responsible, degree of comparative fault, and how the injury affects the person’s everyday life.
What If You Were Partially Responsible for the Accident?
Being partially responsible for an accident does not automatically prevent you from recovering compensation in California. California uses a pure comparative negligence system for incidents where liability is disputed. Under this rule, if the injured party is responsible for causing the accident, their awarded compensation will be reduced according to their percentage of responsibility.
For example, if a person’s damages were valued at $100,000 but the evidence showed that they were 20% responsible for causing the accident, their recovery could be reduced to $80,000. This makes disputes over fault particularly important, because insurance companies have a financial incentive to assign an injured person a larger percentage of responsibility because doing so can reduce what the insurer has to pay.
How Long Do You Have to File a Personal Injury Lawsuit in San Bernardino?
Under California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1, most lawsuits involving injury or death caused by another person’s wrongful act or negligence must be filed within two years. Any failure to do so will result in the state’s statute of limitations taking into effect and injury victims will no longer be able to file a claim.
However, this is not a universal deadline for every claim. Cases involving public entities can have substantially shorter requirements. Under California’s Government Claims Act, many claims involving injury caused by a public entity must first be presented to the appropriate government entity within six months. Other exceptions and special rules can affect the deadline depending on the circumstances, but accident victims should not assume they have two full years in every situation.
How Much Does a San Bernardino Personal Injury Lawyer Cost?
West Coast Trial Lawyers handles personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis. That means eligible clients do not pay an upfront attorney fee to hire the firm. Instead, the attorney fee is based on an agreed-upon percentage of the compensation recovered in the case.
California law requires contingency fee agreements to be in writing and contain specific information about how attorney fees and case-related costs will be handled. Your attorney should explain the agreement before you sign it so that you understand the fee structure and any responsibility for litigation costs or expenses.
Speak With a San Bernardino Personal Injury Lawyer
An accident can create problems that extend far beyond the initial injury, but you do not have to figure out the legal process by yourself. At West Coast Trial Lawyers, our attorneys can investigate what happened, explain your options, and deal with the insurance companies while you can focus on recovering. With over $2 billion of financial compensation recovered on behalf of our clients, our attorneys are committed to giving you the legal guidance and support you need.
Call us today at (909) 787-2178 or fill out our online contact form for a free case consultation!
Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions About San Bernardino Personal Injury Claims
Can I Still Recover Compensation if the Accident Made a Pre-Existing Injury Worse?
A pre-existing medical condition does not automatically prevent you from recovering compensation in California. If another person’s negligence aggravated an existing injury or condition, damages may be available for the additional harm caused by the accident. California’s civil jury instructions specifically recognize compensation for the worsening of a pre-existing physical or emotional condition.
What Happens if My Medical Bills Are Higher Than the At-Fault Party’s Insurance Limits?
The at-fault party’s liability policy may not always provide enough coverage to compensate you fully, particularly after a catastrophic injury. If that happens, your attorney may investigate other possible sources of compensation, including your own underinsured motorist coverage, additional insurance policies, or other parties who may share responsibility.
For example, an employer, vehicle owner, business, property owner, contractor, or manufacturer could potentially be involved depending on how the accident occurred. The amount of available insurance is therefore an important part of investigating a serious personal injury claim.
Can I File a Claim if the Person Who Injured Me Was Working at the Time of the Accident?
If the person who caused your injuries was acting within the scope of their employment, their employer may also be legally responsible under California’s respondeat superior rules. In such scenarios, California courts generally look at whether the employee’s conduct was reasonably related to their job duties or reasonably foreseeable in light of the employer’s business and the employee’s responsibilities.
This can be especially important in accidents involving delivery drivers, commercial drivers, construction workers, sales representatives, or other employees because the employer may carry additional insurance coverage.
What if Two Different Drivers Are Blaming Each Other for My Injuries?
You do not necessarily have to choose one driver to pursue while ignoring the other, depending on the nature and severity of the accident, more than one person can share responsibility for the same accident. California follows a comparative-fault system that allows responsibility to be divided among the parties according to their contribution to the accident.
Can Surveillance or Traffic Camera Footage Be Used in My San Bernardino Personal Injury Claim?
Video footage can be valuable evidence when the parties disagree about how an accident occurred. Depending on the location, evidence could come from nearby businesses, residential security cameras, doorbell cameras, dashcams, parking facilities, buses, or government-operated systems.
However, simply seeing a traffic camera near an intersection does not necessarily mean that usable footage exists or is permanently recorded. Private surveillance systems may also automatically overwrite recordings. Because video evidence can disappear, identifying possible cameras and requesting preservation of relevant footage can be an important part of an early accident investigation.
What Happens if the At-Fault Driver Dies in the Same Accident?
The death of the person who allegedly caused the accident does not necessarily eliminate your personal injury claim, because California Code of Civil Procedure § 377.40 allows certain surviving causes of action against a deceased person to be pursued against the decedent’s personal representative or, when permitted, a successor in interest. Because these cases involve additional procedural requirements, identifying the available insurance and the proper party against whom to pursue the claim can be particularly important.
Can a Dangerous San Bernardino Road, Intersection, or Traffic Signal Make a Government Agency Liable?
California Government Code § 835 allows a public entity to be held responsible in certain circumstances when a dangerous condition of public property causes an injury. Among other requirements, the injured person generally must show that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk and that the government entity either created the condition through an employee’s wrongful act or had sufficient notice of it to take protective measures.
What if I Already Gave the Insurance Company a Recorded Statement Before Hiring a Lawyer?
Giving a recorded statement does not automatically ruin your claim. However, the insurance company may compare what you said with later medical records, testimony, photographs, accident reports, or other evidence.
If you already provided a statement, tell your attorney about it and describe what was discussed. Avoid trying to “fix” the earlier statement by repeatedly contacting the adjuster, since additional statements can create further inconsistencies.
What Happens if My Injuries Get Worse After I Accept a Personal Injury Settlement?
This can be a serious problem because personal injury settlements commonly require the injured person to release the defendant from further liability arising from the accident. Once a claim has been fully settled and an enforceable release has been signed, discovering that an injury is more serious than expected generally does not mean you can simply demand additional compensation.