Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyers

One Superior Court Hears Injury Lawsuits From Lancaster to San Pedro

An injury claim from anywhere in Los Angeles County, from Long Beach to the San Fernando Valley, is decided under California law in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Since January 8, 2024, injury cases filed in the court's Central District go to independent calendar judges at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, where one judge handles the case through trial.

The county's court takes in about 44 percent of California's injury and wrongful death filings.

A claim against the City of Los Angeles, the County, or Metro needs a written government claim within six months, and each takes claims at its own address.

Long Beach ranked worst of California's 15 largest cities for people killed and injured in crashes in 2023.

Most other claims carry a two-year filing deadline.

If you were hurt in Los Angeles County and have questions about a claim, call (888) 713-6653.

Our California office: 808 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 200, Santa Monica, CA 90401, by appointment only.

Since January 2024, Downtown Injury Cases Stay With One Stanley Mosk Judge

Los Angeles County has one trial court, the Los Angeles Superior Court, with courthouses across the county. Where an injury case lands inside that court decides which judge runs it.

Independent calendar judges at Stanley Mosk

Injury cases filed in the Central District on or after January 8, 2024 are assigned to independent calendar departments at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse instead of the Personal Injury Hub at the Spring Street Courthouse. Cases already pending in the hub stay there until they are resolved or reassigned. The court described the change as completing a transition it began in 2022.^[1]

One judge from filing to trial

On an independent calendar, the same judge handles the case for all purposes: the early scheduling, the motions, any settlement conference, and the trial.

A single court for close to half the state's filings

The court received 48,117 of the state's 108,403 unlimited civil filings for personal injury, property damage, and wrongful death in fiscal year 2024-25, about 44 percent of the statewide total.^[2]

Because one judge keeps the case from filing to trial, that judge's scheduling order sets the pace of the whole case.

The City, the County, and Metro Each Take Claims at a Different Office

Government Code § 911.2 gives six months from the injury to present a written claim to a California public entity.^[3] In Los Angeles County, the three most common public defendants each take claims at a different office.

• City of Los Angeles: the Office of the City Clerk, through its online claims portal or by mail or in person at City Hall, 200 North Spring Street, Room 395; no email or fax, and the City Attorney's office does not take new claims
• County of Los Angeles: the Executive Officer of the Board of Supervisors, Attention: Claims, Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, 500 West Temple Street, Room 383, in person or by mail, for the Sheriff's Department, county roads, and county hospitals
• Metro buses and Metro Rail: Metro's Office of Board Administration, Legal Services, at One Gateway Plaza, in person or by mail only

Each of the county's 88 cities is its own public entity, so a fall on a Long Beach or Pasadena sidewalk goes to that city. Metrolink, DASH, Long Beach Transit, Big Blue Bus, and Foothill Transit are separate from Metro, and a claim filed with the wrong agency does not protect the claim against the right one.

LAUSD, Caltrans District 7, LADWP, the Port of Los Angeles, LAX, and the housing authorities are covered on our page about filing a claim against a California public agency.

Who Owns the Port Truck, the Chassis, and the Load on the 710

Metro's corridor planning studies count about 39,000 trucks a day on the 710 south of the 405, 85 percent of them serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.^[6] Many of the trucks that haul containers out of the terminals are driven by owner-operators classified as independent contractors, and the container chassis can belong to a different company than the tractor.

A crash with a port truck can involve the driver, the motor carrier whose authority the truck ran under, the chassis owner, and the company that arranged the load, each with its own insurance, as our page on truck accident claims in Los Angeles explains.

Los Angeles Traffic Crashes Killed More People Than Homicides in 2024 and 2025

LAPD collision data counted 302 traffic deaths in the city in 2024, including about 170 pedestrians, against 268 homicides through late December.^[7] In 2025 the count was 290 traffic deaths against about 230 homicides.^[8]

Hit-and-runs add their own problem. Los Angeles records more than 7,500 injury hit-and-runs a year, and about 1 percent end in an arrest.^[9]

The driver who ran is rarely the one who pays. You work to identify the driver who ran, and hope they are insured. More often than not, after a hit-and-run in Los Angeles the claim usually turns into one against your own insurer and your uninsured motorist limit on your policy for recovery.

That coverage pays only if the unknown car made contact, the crash was reported to police within 24 hours, and a sworn statement went to your insurer within 30 days, as our page on uninsured motorist and hit-and-run claims explains.

When a crash takes a life, the family's claim and its deadlines are on our page about wrongful death claims in Los Angeles.

A Hospital With UCLA in Its Name May Still Be a County Hospital

Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Olive View-UCLA Medical Center belong to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services despite the UCLA in their names, and that decides the first step in a malpractice claim.

• County hospitals (Los Angeles General, Harbor-UCLA, Olive View-UCLA, and Rancho Los Amigos) need a six-month claim to the County first
• UCLA Health's hospitals (Ronald Reagan UCLA, UCLA Santa Monica, and UCLA West Valley since March 28, 2024) belong to the UC Regents, which Government Code § 905.6 exempts from the claim requirement
• Private hospitals such as Cedars-Sinai, Keck Hospital of USC, and Children's Hospital Los Angeles start with the 90-day notice of intent to sue
• Kaiser members generally take malpractice claims to binding arbitration

How each of those rules works with MICRA's 2026 limits is set out on our page about medical malpractice claims in Los Angeles.

How Much Is a Los Angeles Personal Injury Claim Worth?

Three things set what a Los Angeles injury claim can recover: how serious and lasting the injury is, how much of the fault belongs to someone else, and how much insurance stands behind them.

• The injury and the care it will need, including surgery, therapy, and lasting limits on work
• The coverage behind the defendant, from a $30,000 minimum policy to a trucking company's $750,000 floor and excess layers
• Your own underinsured motorist coverage, when the at-fault driver's policy is too small for the harm
• Your own insurance status, since Proposition 213 bars pain-and-suffering damages for a driver who was uninsured

Hospital and Medi-Cal liens come out of the recovery, and California law caps what each can take, as our page on hospital and Medi-Cal liens explains.

California caps pain and suffering only in medical malpractice cases.

Metro, LAUSD, and City Claims Are Due Long Before the Two-Year Deadline

The general deadline for an injury lawsuit is two years, under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1.^[10]

• Six months for a written claim against the City, the County, Metro, LAUSD, or any of the county's 88 cities
• One year from discovering a medical injury, for most malpractice claims, and no more than three years
• Two years to settle, sue, or start arbitration on your own uninsured motorist claim
• Two years from the date of death for a wrongful death lawsuit

The rest of California's filing deadlines, and what pauses them, are on our page with the full list of California filing deadlines.