Filing a Car Accident Lawsuit in California

Someone rear-ends you on the 405 or drifts across the line on a two-lane road up near Redding. In California, the law lets you recover from the driver who caused it, and usually from that driver's insurer. California is a fault-based state. It is not a no-fault state, so you don't first draw from an injury pool of your own before you can look to the person who hit you. The state compels liability insurance, not personal injury protection (PIP).¹²

The general steps of a claim, and how the insurance back-and-forth works, are covered on the national hub. This page sticks to the parts that are true only in California: the exact deadlines, the fault rule, the coverage numbers, and the handful of statutes that can quietly sink an otherwise strong case.

The deadline that ends everything

You have two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit for injuries or for a wrongful death caused by another driver's negligence.³ That two-year clock, set by Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, is hard. File on day 731 and, absent a narrow exception, the court throws the case out no matter how badly you were hurt.

Damage to the car itself gets a longer window. Claims for injury to personal property, which includes your vehicle, run three years under Code of Civil Procedure section 338(c).⁴ So the property-damage and injury deadlines from a single collision can expire on different dates.

One trap catches people constantly. If a government vehicle or a public employee was involved, a city bus, a county truck, a state worker on the clock, you generally must present a written claim to that public entity within six months, not two years, under Government Code section 911.2.⁵ Miss the six-month claim deadline and your right to sue the agency is usually gone long before the two-year statute runs out.

How fault gets divided

California follows pure comparative negligence, which the state Supreme Court adopted in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804.⁶ Your recovery is reduced by your own share of fault, and that is the only thing your fault does. If a jury finds you 30 percent responsible, you still collect 70 percent of your damages. A driver found 99 percent at fault can recover the remaining 1 percent. Unlike the "modified" comparative states that cut you off at 50 or 51 percent, California never bars recovery just because you carry most of the blame.

That cuts both ways, so the other side's insurer has every reason to load as much fault onto you as it can. In a lot of California cases the percentages are the whole fight.

A California rule that can erase part of your award

Proposition 213, codified at Civil Code section 3333.4, is one people rarely see coming.⁷ If you owned the car you were in and it was not insured to the state's financial responsibility minimums, you cannot recover non-economic damages (pain, suffering, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life) even when the other driver was plainly at fault. The same bar hits a driver convicted of DUI for the crash. Economic losses like medical bills and lost wages still come through, but the pain-and-suffering piece, often the largest, is off the table. There is one carve-out: an uninsured owner keeps the right to non-economic damages if the driver who hit them was convicted of DUI.⁷

The insurance behind your claim

Since January 1, 2025, every California driver must carry at least 30/60/15: $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 per accident, and $15,000 for property damage (Vehicle Code section 16056).¹² That was a jump from the old 15/30/5 figures, and it climbs again to 50/100/25 on January 1, 2035.¹ These are floors, and many drivers carry only the minimum, which is why the coverage on the other side is often smaller than the harm done.

That gap is what uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage exists to close. California insurers must offer UM/UIM on every liability policy, and you can decline it only by signing a written waiver (Insurance Code section 11580.2).⁸ If you never signed one, you may be carrying UM/UIM protection you forgot you bought. Medical payments (MedPay) coverage is optional here, with no statutory deadline to use it, and there is no mandatory PIP.¹

What you can recover, and the cap that doesn't touch you

In an ordinary car-crash injury case, California puts no cap on compensatory damages. Not on medical costs, not on lost earnings, and not on pain and suffering. The one statutory cap people have heard of, MICRA, reaches only medical malpractice. Under Civil Code section 3333.2, as amended, that medical-malpractice cap on non-economic damages is $470,000 for an injury and $650,000 for a wrongful death in 2026, rising $40,000 and $50,000 a year toward $750,000 and $1,000,000 by 2033.⁹ It is worth naming only so you can set it aside: it does not limit what you collect from a negligent driver.

Punitive damages run on a separate track. They are available only on clear and convincing proof of malice, oppression, or fraud under Civil Code section 3294, a standard drunk-driving conduct can meet.¹⁰ Going after the bar or restaurant that overserved is much harder. California gives alcohol sellers broad immunity, with one narrow exception: a licensee who serves an obviously intoxicated minor can be liable when that sale is a proximate cause of the injury (Business and Professions Code sections 25602 and 25602.1).¹¹

Building the case California expects

Fault usually turns on evidence, and the state gives you several sources. The Traffic Collision Report is written by the responding officer; you request a copy on form CHP 190, for a fee that runs from $10 to $40 by page count.¹² Our California crash report page walks through how to pull yours.

State traffic law also supplies the standard the other driver broke. Holding and using a handheld phone or texting is banned, hands-free mounted use is allowed, and a first offense carries a base fine of $20 (Vehicle Code section 23123.5).¹³ A citation like that is useful proof of negligence. In motorcycle crashes, California's universal helmet law covers every rider and passenger (Vehicle Code section 27803), and California is the only state with a statute that expressly defines and permits lane splitting (Vehicle Code section 21658.1), which changes how fault gets argued.¹⁴¹⁵ Chain controls (R-1, R-2, R-3) are posted on Sierra passes in winter, so ignoring a Caltrans chain requirement can weigh on who was driving reasonably.¹⁶

If your car lost market value even after a clean repair, that is its own claim; see our California diminished value guide.

Getting help

Minimum-limits policies, comparative-fault fights, and the Proposition 213 bar are exactly where good representation pays for itself. You can find a California attorney through our legal directory.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. California Vehicle Code § 16056 (financial responsibility minimums; 2025 and 2035 amounts). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=16056.

2. California DMV, Insurance Requirements for Vehicle Registration. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-registration/insurance-requirements/

3. California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1 (two-year statute of limitations for injury and wrongful death). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=335.1&lawCode=CCP

4. California Code of Civil Procedure § 338(c) (three years, injury to or taking of personal property). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=338.&lawCode=CCP

5. California Government Code § 911.2 (six-month deadline to present a claim to a public entity). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&sectionNum=911.2.

6. Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 (adopting pure comparative negligence). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1139343/li-v-yellow-cab-co/

7. California Civil Code § 3333.4 (Proposition 213 bar on non-economic damages). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=3333.4.

8. California Insurance Code § 11580.2 (mandatory UM/UIM offer; written waiver). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=11580.2&lawCode=INS

9. California Civil Code § 3333.2 (MICRA non-economic cap, as amended by AB 35). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=3333.2.

10. California Civil Code § 3294 (punitive damages; malice, oppression, or fraud). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=3294.

11. California Business and Professions Code §§ 25602, 25602.1 (seller immunity and the obviously-intoxicated-minor exception). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&sectionNum=25602.1.

12. California Highway Patrol, Collision Report (CHP 190). https://www.chp.ca.gov/notify-chp/collision-report-chp-190/

13. California Vehicle Code § 23123.5 (handheld phone and texting ban; fines). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=23123.5.

14. California Vehicle Code § 27803 (universal motorcycle helmet requirement). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=27803.

15. California Vehicle Code § 21658.1 (lane splitting definition and CHP guidelines). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=21658.1.

16. Caltrans, Winter Driving Chain Requirements (R-1/R-2/R-3). https://dot.ca.gov/travel/winter-driving-tips/chain-requirements