A car crash takes minutes. What happens in the weeks after it decides the next years of your life. The Vertanous Firm has recovered more than $60 Million for injured Californians, including a $22.6 Million jury verdict, and we handle every crash case the same way: build it for trial, and make the insurance company price it that way.
First Things First
The insurance company starts working your case the day of the crash. You should too. Here is the order of operations, whether the collision happened on the 210, on Colorado Boulevard, or in a parking lot on Lake Avenue.
Adrenaline masks injury. Gaps in treatment are the first thing adjusters use to discount a claim. Emergency room, urgent care, or your doctor: go, describe every symptom, and follow the plan.
A traffic collision report preserves the officer's diagram, the witnesses, and any citation. In Pasadena, request the report from the Pasadena Police Department or the CHP, depending on who responded.
Vehicle positions, damage to every car, skid marks, debris, the intersection, the signal, your visible injuries. Photographs end arguments that memories start.
Independent witnesses decide disputed-liability cases. They leave the scene in minutes and become unreachable in days.
Your policy requires prompt notice. Give the facts, not opinions about fault, and not a recorded statement to the other side. Before any adjuster records you, read what the recorded statement is actually for.
Early releases and quick checks are priced before your injuries are understood. Once you sign, the case is over, no matter what your MRI shows a month later.
Keep the vehicle, or at least ensure it is photographed and its event data recorder is downloaded before it is repaired or totaled out.
Two years feels like a long time. It is not, and if a public entity is involved, you may have six months. The consultation is free.
Hurt in a crash? Tell us what happened.
Free Case ReviewThe Crashes We See
Pasadena traffic has a shape. The 210 and the 134 carry commuters at freeway speed into sudden congestion. The 110 ends at Glenarm and dumps traffic onto surface streets. Colorado Boulevard, Lake Avenue, Fair Oaks Avenue, and Orange Grove carry heavy signal-to-signal traffic, and event days at the Rose Bowl flood residential streets with drivers who do not know them. The crash patterns follow:
The Injuries
Crash forces do not respect the size of the dent. We represent clients with whiplash and cervical injuries, herniated discs, fractures, shoulder and knee injuries requiring surgery, and the injury defense doctors love to dismiss: traumatic brain injury. Concussion, post-concussive syndrome, memory loss, personality change. If your family says you have not been the same since the crash, that observation is evidence, and we know how to develop it.
Tom Vertanous publishes on the medicine behind these cases and works with treating physicians, neurologists, and life-care planners to project what future care will actually cost. The demand the insurance company receives is not a form letter. It is the case they will face at trial.
Liability
Fault is a story proven with evidence, not an argument. We walk the jury through what happened: the speed, the signal, the seconds. Then the law does its work.
The law asks three questions, and we answer each one with proof. First, what did the driver owe you? Every driver on a California road owes everyone else ordinary care: a safe speed for conditions, a safe following distance, attention on the road. Second, what did the driver actually do? That is where the evidence lives. Third, did that choice cause your injury? The defense will fight all three, and a case built for trial answers all three before the first demand goes out.
California negligence law gives a crash victim real tools. When a driver violates a safety statute, such as the basic speed law of Vehicle Code section 22350 or the DUI statutes, the violation can establish negligence per se under Evidence Code section 669: the statute itself sets the standard of care, and breaking it is presumed negligence. The officer's citation matters. The Vehicle Code section on the traffic collision report matters. We build on both.
When the defense claims you were partly at fault, Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 means your recovery is reduced by your percentage, never erased. But understand what that fight is actually about: every percentage point is money. On a serious case, the difference between the 40 percent the adjuster argues and the 10 percent the evidence supports is the difference between a discounted file and a full recovery. Percentages are not assigned by the adjuster. They are decided by a jury, and adjusters price files based on what a jury would do with the evidence.
Example: A driver turns left across Colorado Boulevard and is hit by an oncoming car doing 42 in a 35. The turning driver violated Vehicle Code section 21801 by failing to yield. The oncoming driver was speeding. The carrier for the turning driver offers a settlement discounted 50 percent "because your client was speeding too."
Conclusion: The left-turn violation is the primary cause: the collision does not happen if the turn yields. Speed contributes something, but nothing close to half. With an event data recorder download proving the actual speed, an intersection timing analysis, and a reconstruction, that 50 percent argument shrinks to a number a jury would actually assign. That is why the evidence is preserved in week one, not month six.
The evidence is where cases are won: collision reports, intersection camera footage, event data recorder downloads, cell phone records, vehicle damage analysis, and accident reconstruction. Camera footage from businesses and doorbells is often overwritten within days, which is why preservation letters go out immediately. And when the dangerous element was the roadway itself, a missing signal, a broken streetlight, a defective design, Government Code section 835 reaches the public entity that created or ignored it. We wrote the guide on those cases: dangerous condition of public property, and the crash-specific version: crashes involving government vehicles and dangerous roads.
Damages
No honest lawyer quotes a number at the first call. But the components are settled, and building each one correctly is the job:
One warning California drivers deserve to hear early: Proposition 213, codified at Civil Code section 3333.4, generally bars the uninsured owner or driver of a vehicle from recovering human damages, even when the other driver was entirely at fault. The economic damages survive; the pain and suffering claim usually does not. If you were uninsured at the time of the crash, tell us at the first call, because it changes the strategy, and there are exceptions worth examining.
Example: Two claimants suffer the same disc herniation in the same kind of crash. The first treats sporadically, gives the adjuster a recorded statement, and submits the bills with a two-paragraph demand. The second treats consistently, documents symptoms, undergoes the recommended imaging, and serves a demand supported by the treating surgeon's future-care opinion and a day-in-the-life account.
Conclusion: The carrier's evaluation software scores the second file multiples higher, because every input the software rewards has been built. Same injury, different case value. Preparation is not decoration. It is the price.
Our own motor vehicle results include a $2.5 Million mediation settlement ranked among TopVerdict's Top 20 Los Angeles motor vehicle accident settlements of 2025. The difference between a discounted settlement and full value is rarely luck. It is preparation the carrier can see. The full breakdown, including the multiplier myth and how claim software actually prices files, is here: what your case is actually worth.
Find out what your case is actually worth.
Free Case ReviewThe Other Side
The adjuster is friendly, and the adjuster is not on your side. Carriers price claims with software, and the inputs are set in the first weeks: the recorded statement you gave before you knew your diagnosis, the treatment gap from the month you tried to tough it out, the quick settlement offered before your MRI. None of that is accidental. It is how claims are discounted at scale.
Here is how the machine actually works. Your medical records are coded into valuation software, and the software produces a range. The adjuster's settlement authority is capped at a number tied to that range, and moving above it requires supervisor and committee approval that the adjuster will not seek for a file that looks easy to close. Low-property-damage crashes get routed into a separate track built on the argument that a small dent cannot produce a real injury, an argument medicine does not support and juries reject when the case is presented properly. Every early tactic, the quick check, the recorded statement, the request for a blanket medical authorization reaching your entire history, exists to set the software's inputs low and keep the file in the cheap track.
What moves a carrier off its number is not a louder phone call. It is a file whose inputs the software cannot discount: consistent treatment, documented symptoms, a supported future-care opinion, clean liability proof, and a firm the carrier knows will file and try the case. Adjusters keep score on which lawyers try cases and which lawyers fold. That reputation is priced into every offer, which is why the same injury is worth more in trial-ready hands.
We know how adjusters evaluate files, how authority levels work, and what moves a carrier off its number: a case that is documented, credible, and visibly ready for trial. That is the case we build from day one. Carriers read the signals. So do juries.
Deadlines
Three deadlines matter in every California crash case. First, the general statute of limitations: two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Second, the government claim deadline: if a city, county, or state vehicle or roadway is involved, a written claim must be presented within six months under Government Code section 911.2, long before any lawsuit. Third, your own policy's deadlines for uninsured motorist claims, which are contractual and unforgiving.
Evidence has a clock too. Camera footage is overwritten in days. Vehicles are repaired. Witnesses move. The earlier we start, the stronger the case.
If we don't win, you don't pay.
The consultation is free. The representation is on contingency. If there is no recovery, you owe no attorney fee.
Questions We Hear Every Week
No honest lawyer can give you a number at the first call. Value turns on liability, the medicine, the available insurance, and how well the case is built. What we can tell you is what drives the number: medical expenses past and future, lost earnings, and the human damages a jury is allowed to award for pain, disability, and loss of enjoyment of life. Build those correctly and the number follows.
Often, yes. If your own policy includes uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage under Insurance Code section 11580.2, you can recover from your own carrier. There may also be other responsible parties: an employer, a vehicle owner, or a public entity responsible for the roadway.
No. California follows pure comparative negligence under Li v. Yellow Cab Co. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, not eliminated by it. A driver found 30 percent at fault still recovers 70 percent of their damages. Adjusters use fault arguments to discount claims; juries decide percentages, and the percentage is worth fighting over.
Generally two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. But if a public entity is involved, such as a city vehicle or a dangerous roadway condition, you must present a government claim within six months under Government Code section 911.2. Miss that deadline and the case can die before it starts. Call before you assume you have time.
Not before speaking with a lawyer. You are required to cooperate with your own carrier, but the other driver's insurer records statements to lock in helpful answers before you know the full extent of your injuries. Politely decline, take their information, and get counsel first. The consultation is free.
Nothing out of pocket. We work on contingency: the consultation is free, we advance the costs, and if there is no recovery you owe no attorney fee.
No, but it helps. A traffic collision report preserves the officer's diagram, witness information, and any citation issued. If police did not respond, the case can still be proven with photographs, vehicle damage, event data recorder downloads, and witness testimony. Bring us what you have and we will build the rest.
Client Reviews
Ani A., Glendalevia Yelp"The guy who hit me had a low max coverage. I don't know what magic Vertanous Firm worked, but I got paid for my damages less than a year out from my accident, and was paid three times more than the policy limit."
Tony K., Burbankvia Yelp"Tom is the absolute best. He knows the law and he also knows medicine. One meeting with Tom and he was able to understand the medicine behind my condition and find the appropriate doctors."
Bobby S., Los Angelesvia Yelp"Tom is a straight shooter and he's whip-smart. He treated my case as though it were his own. He has a gift for compassion that sets him apart from other legal professionals."
Where We Work
From our office at 301 N. Lake Ave in Pasadena, we represent crash victims across the San Gabriel Valley and all of Los Angeles County, in English, Armenian, and Farsi.
Contact
Call, text, email, or send a brief message. We respond the same day. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.
