Encino Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyer

The minutes immediately after a car accident matter most for your claim. First, get yourself and others to safety and call 911 if anyone is injured or if the accident is blocking traffic. Even if injuries seem minor, request a police report so there is an official record. Photograph everything: vehicle damage, the scene, road conditions, license plates, and any visible identifiers on the other driver’s vehicle (USDOT numbers and company markings for commercial trucks). Exchange contact and insurance information with all other drivers involved, and collect witness contact details before they leave the scene. California law requires you to report any accident involving injury, death, or more than $1,000 in property damage to the California DMV within 10 days. Seek medical care promptly even if you feel uninjured, since whiplash and concussion symptoms can take 24 to 72 hours to fully appear. Then contact a Novik Law Group car accident attorney before giving any recorded statement to an insurance adjuster.

Talk to an attorney first. Initial consultations are free, and an attorney can help you avoid the common mistakes insurance adjusters use to minimize claims. When you talk to insurance first, the adjuster will ask questions designed to establish your partial fault, get you to downplay injuries, or extract recorded statements that can be used against you later. Insurance companies are not on your side, even your own insurance company in many scenarios. Their goal is to minimize the payout. By contacting a Novik Law Group attorney before talking to insurance, you ensure that the facts of your accident are properly documented, your auto accident or slip and fall claim is filed correctly, and you are not pressured into a low settlement before the full extent of your injuries is known.

It often is, even for accidents that seem minor at first. Many serious injuries from car accidents (whiplash, soft tissue damage, concussion, herniated discs) do not produce immediate symptoms and can emerge days or weeks after the crash. By the time symptoms develop, you may have already given recorded statements to insurance or accepted a quick settlement that does not cover ongoing medical care. An attorney consultation is free, so there is no risk in finding out whether your case has value. If your damages are truly small and a lawyer cannot add value, we will tell you. But if there is any meaningful injury or property damage involved, having an experienced personal injury attorney negotiate with the insurance company almost always produces a better outcome than handling it yourself.

We handle the full range of personal injury claims for Encino residents and Los Angeles area clients, including car accidents on the 101 and 405, commercial truck and big rig collisions, motorcycle accidents, pedestrian accidents, rideshare collisions, bicycle crashes, hit-and-run incidents, slip and fall and premises liability claims, dog bites, restaurant and supermarket injuries, workplace injuries, dangerous property conditions, and wrongful death cases. Car accidents make up the largest share of our Encino caseload because of the 101 and 405 traffic patterns and the density of Ventura Boulevard commercial activity, but every type of injury claim follows similar California legal principles around proving negligence, documenting damages, and negotiating with insurance companies.

California personal injury law allows recovery of both economic damages and non-economic damages. Economic damages include all of your financial losses caused by the accident: past and future medical bills, lost wages, loss of future earning capacity, property damage, rehabilitation costs, and transportation expenses related to medical care. Non-economic damages compensate you for losses that aren’t purely financial: pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, disfigurement, and loss of consortium for spouses. In wrongful death cases, surviving family members can also recover for the loss of financial support, companionship, and household services.

Catastrophic injuries (traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries with paralysis, severe burns, amputations, and other permanently disabling injuries) typically result in the largest damages awards because they involve lifetime medical care, total loss of earning capacity, and decades of pain and suffering. Calculating fair compensation for catastrophic injuries requires experienced legal and medical experts to project the lifetime costs of care. Punitive damages may also be available in cases involving particularly egregious conduct, such as drunk driving or intentional harm, but are not awarded in most California personal injury cases. The total value of any claim depends on the severity of injuries, total medical costs, lost income, and how the injury has affected your daily life and future.

California gives you two years from the date of your injury to file most personal injury and car accident lawsuits. Some claims involving government entities require a notice of claim within six months under the California Government Claims Act, such as a crash involving a Caltrans road defect on the 101 or 405, or a slip and fall on city, county, or state property. Wrongful death claims also must be filed within two years of the date of death. Because identifying the right defendant takes investigation and many Encino cases involve both private and public parties, contact a Novik Law Group attorney as soon as possible to protect every potential claim.

California follows a pure comparative negligence rule, which means you can still recover compensation even if you were partially at fault for the accident. Your recovery will be reduced by your percentage of fault. If you were 20 percent at fault and the other driver was 80 percent at fault, you can recover 80 percent of your damages. There is no minimum threshold of fault that bars recovery in California (unlike some states where being 50 percent or more at fault disqualifies you entirely). This means that even drivers who made some mistake in an accident still have a legitimate right to seek compensation from the more-responsible party. Insurance companies often try to assign you a higher percentage of fault than you actually deserve, which is why working with an experienced personal injury attorney who can push back on inflated fault allocations matters significantly to your final recovery.

Hiring a personal injury attorney costs you nothing upfront. Novik Law Group operates on a 100 percent contingency fee basis, meaning we are paid only if we recover compensation for you. Our case evaluation is free, and we never charge any client extra for the geographic distance between our Encino office and where your accident occurred. The standard contingency fee comes out of the settlement or verdict, not your pocket. If we do not recover, you owe us nothing. When necessary, we can also assist with transportation costs to medical appointments and court hearings, and we can help connect you with top medical specialists and settlement-funding options while your case is pending.

The majority of car accident and personal injury cases in California settle through negotiation between attorneys and insurance companies, never reaching a courtroom. The process typically involves a demand letter outlining injuries and damages, followed by negotiation with the insurance adjuster, counteroffers, and eventually a settlement that compensates the injured party. Cases that cannot settle through negotiation proceed to litigation, where they may settle later in the discovery phase, at mediation, or at trial. Having an experienced attorney willing to take a case to trial is what produces stronger settlement offers from insurance companies, because insurers treat firms that won’t try cases differently than firms that will. Most cases settle within 6 to 18 months from the date of injury, though serious injury, commercial truck, or wrongful death cases can take longer due to the complexity of damages and the higher policy limits involved.

Our Encino office is located at 16830 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 401, Encino, CA 91436, in the heart of the Encino commercial corridor between Balboa Boulevard and Hayvenhurst Avenue. We are minutes from the 101 freeway, easily reachable from Sherman Oaks, Tarzana, Van Nuys, and Woodland Hills, and a short drive from the Van Nuys Courthouse where most San Fernando Valley personal injury cases are heard. You can reach our Encino office at (818) 305-6041 for a free, no-obligation case evaluation. Attorney Erick Novik personally handles serious injury cases throughout the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles area.