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Gammill Law’s results include a $21.1 million wrongful death verdict, a $16 million school sexual abuse verdict, and a $12 million whistleblower retaliation verdict.
Reviewed by David Gammill, California trial attorney · Last reviewed: October 19, 2026
If a driver struck you or someone you love while you were walking in Los Angeles, California law is strongly on your side: drivers owe every pedestrian a duty of care, even a pedestrian who was outside a crosswalk. Gammill Law Accident & Injury Lawyers is a South Bay trial firm that represents pedestrians hit by cars across the City of Los Angeles. The firm has recovered more than $100 million for California clients across verdicts and settlements. Its results include a $21.1 million wrongful death verdict, a $16 million school sexual abuse verdict, and a $12 million whistleblower retaliation verdict; every case is different, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. What matters for your case is this: pedestrian claims are almost always injury-heavy and coverage-light, and the difference between a fair recovery and a fraction of one is finding every policy that applies and proving fault before the driver’s insurer rewrites the story.
Hit by a car while walking? Call 310-750-4149 and tell us what happened before the footage is overwritten. There is no fee unless we recover for you.
Los Angeles is a city where walking is dangerous out of proportion to how much of it people do. By LADOT’s 2024 safety study, pedestrians were involved in 38 percent of the collisions in which someone was killed or severely injured, while walking accounts for only 16 percent of trips in the city. The same study found that about 72 percent of pedestrian deaths and severe injuries happened on the pedestrian High Injury Network, the small share of city streets the City has mapped as the most dangerous for people on foot, and that about 30 percent of those pedestrian crashes were hit-and-runs. By the state crash database, pedestrian crashes were about 5 percent of all crashes recorded inside the city in 2024 and accounted for 155 of the 315 deaths that year.
The picture has not changed this year. By LAPD’s count, crashes between a vehicle and a pedestrian that killed someone or caused a suspected serious injury numbered 229 in the first four months of 2026, through May 2, and 42 of them were fatal; those are LAPD-reported crashes on city streets, not freeway crashes, which the Highway Patrol reports. A car protects its occupants with a steel frame, airbags, and seat belts. A pedestrian has none of that, which is why the same collision that leaves a driver shaken leaves a pedestrian with fractures, a brain injury, a spinal injury, or worse, and why the insurer on the other side starts looking for a reason to blame the person who was walking within hours of the crash.
In a crosswalk, marked or unmarked, the driver must yield. California’s pedestrian right-of-way law requires a driver to yield to a pedestrian crossing in a marked crosswalk, or in an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, and to slow down and take reasonable care for the pedestrian’s safety. Most people do not realize that an intersection without painted lines still has legal crosswalks. Our plain-English guide to Vehicle Code § 21950, California’s pedestrian right-of-way law, explains the rule and the exceptions.
Outside a crosswalk, the driver still owes you due care. Under Vehicle Code § 21954, a pedestrian crossing a roadway somewhere other than a crosswalk must yield to vehicles close enough to be an immediate hazard. Insurers quote that sentence constantly. They quote the next one far less often: the same section says it does not relieve a driver of the duty to exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian on the roadway. A driver who was speeding, texting, or simply not looking does not get a free pass because the person they hit was mid-block, and in Los Angeles mid-block crossings on a wide arterial with a quarter mile between signals are the ordinary case, not the exception.
Partial fault does not bar your claim. California follows pure comparative negligence (Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804): if a jury finds you partly at fault, your recovery is reduced by your percentage, never eliminated. Insurers push the pedestrian’s percentage as high as they can for exactly this reason. We push it back down with evidence.
California requires drivers to carry only minimum liability coverage of $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per accident, and $15,000 for property damage (Vehicle Code § 16451, for policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2025). A single ambulance ride, an emergency room visit, and one surgery can pass that limit before the first physical therapy appointment.
That is why a pedestrian case is really a search for coverage. The at-fault driver’s policy comes first. If the driver was working, an employer’s commercial policy may apply. If the driver was borrowing the car, the owner’s policy may apply. And here is the part most pedestrians never hear from an adjuster: your own auto insurance can pay you even though you were on foot. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your policy, or on a policy in your household, generally follows you as a person, not just your car. When the driver has no insurance or too little of it, that coverage can be the largest source of recovery in the case. Our Los Angeles car accident page walks through how those layers stack.
When the street itself contributed, a claim against the public entity may be available too. A crosswalk with a burned-out signal, a missing or obstructed crossing sign, an unlit intersection, or a crosswalk placed where sight lines make it a trap can be a dangerous condition of public property under Government Code § 835. In Los Angeles the City owns the local streets, signals and crosswalks, and Caltrans owns the freeways and state highways; what the entity knew about the crossing, and when, is part of the casework in a roadway case, never a conclusion drawn in advance.
Pedestrians are hit by fleeing drivers more often than anyone would like to believe. If the driver is never identified, your own uninsured motorist coverage usually pays, but Insurance Code § 11580.2 attaches strict conditions: the crash generally must be reported to police within 24 hours, and a sworn statement must be filed with your insurer within 30 days. Miss those and the coverage can be lost. Our guide to Vehicle Code § 20001, California’s hit-and-run law, explains what the fleeing driver faces and what victims can do. In this city the driver is found more often than people expect: City signal cameras, Metro bus cameras, storefront and doorbell footage, and the plate readers along the arterials all record, and they all overwrite on a schedule, which is why the first week matters.
Two years for most claims. Under CCP § 335.1, most California injury lawsuits must be filed within two years of the crash. Our guide to CCP § 335.1, California’s two-year statute of limitations, covers the rule and its exceptions.
Six months when the government is involved. If a City of Los Angeles vehicle, a Metro bus, a school district vehicle, or a dangerous public crosswalk or intersection is part of the case, you must present a written claim to the right entity within six months before you can sue, under Government Code § 911.2. The City of Los Angeles accepts a claim only through the Office of the City Clerk, not the City Attorney; Caltrans takes the claim for a state highway; LA Metro takes its own. Our guide to the California government claim deadline walks through the sequence. Pedestrian cases trip this deadline more than any other, because the road-design claim is often discovered only after the driver’s policy proves too small.
Short reporting windows apply too. A crash with injury or death must be reported in writing to the police or CHP within 24 hours (Vehicle Code § 20008). If you were struck and taken to the hospital, we handle the reporting as part of the case.
Where the case is heard. Most pedestrian injury lawsuits arising inside the City of Los Angeles are filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Central District and assigned to an independent calendar judge at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 North Hill Street, downtown; the court assigns the courthouse by where the crash happened, so a crash in the Harbor, the San Fernando Valley or the Westside can land in another district.
Pedestrian cases turn on seconds and feet: where you were, where the car was, how fast it was moving, and whether the driver was looking. The evidence that answers those questions disappears fast. Storefront and doorbell cameras overwrite footage within days. Metro buses carry cameras that capture crosswalks on their routes. The car itself records speed and braking in its event data recorder, and that data is lost the moment the vehicle is repaired or sold. We send preservation demands the same day we are retained, and in serious cases we bring in accident reconstruction to turn skid marks, damage patterns, and the point of impact into a physics-based account of what happened.
The police report matters, but it is a starting point, not a verdict. The Los Angeles Police Department writes the report for a crash on a city street and the Highway Patrol for a crash on a freeway; officers arrive after the crash, they often speak only to the driver because the pedestrian is in an ambulance, and their fault conclusions can be wrong or incomplete. When a report blames the pedestrian, we build the proof independently.
When a pedestrian crash takes a life, the case changes in kind, not just in degree. California gives specific family members the right to bring a wrongful death claim for their own losses, including lost financial support and the loss of companionship, and the deadlines have traps of their own. Our Los Angeles wrongful death page explains how we handle these cases, and our complete guide to the California wrongful death filing deadline covers the timing rules. We handle these cases with the care they demand, and the consultation is free.
A pedestrian who survives often carries the injury that defines the case. When the injury is to the head, our Los Angeles brain injury page explains how those cases are proven. If you were on a motorcycle rather than on foot, our Los Angeles motorcycle accident page covers the questions riders face.
Start with trial experience, because insurers settle a pedestrian claim fairly only with lawyers they expect to see in a courtroom. David Gammill has tried over 100 cases to verdict, first as a prosecutor during seven years as a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney and then as a trial lawyer for injured people. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Then ask two practical questions. Has this lawyer taken a pedestrian case to a jury, or only settled one? And who will actually handle my file day to day? The firm’s record is set out below.
Trial reputation is leverage in every negotiation. The firm’s results include a $21.1 million wrongful death verdict and a $16 million school sexual abuse verdict, each a real jury verdict in a specific case; outcomes always depend on the facts. Insurers price a claim differently when they know the lawyer on the other side will finish the fight in front of a jury. See our case results.
We work on a contingency fee: nothing upfront, no hourly bills, and a fee only out of the recovery, under a written contingency fee agreement that complies with California law.
Our phones are answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays. If you need treatment now, we connect clients with respected doctors who work on a lien basis, meaning they are paid from the recovery, not upfront. If you cannot travel, we come to you: the hospital, your home, or wherever your recovery requires. Our attorneys bring more than 40 years of combined legal experience to every case we take.
Economic damages cover documented losses: emergency care, hospital stays, surgery, therapy, medications, future treatment, lost wages, and reduced earning capacity. Pedestrian injuries often carry long recoveries and lasting limits, so future care is a major part of the claim.
Non-economic damages cover the human losses: physical pain, emotional distress, fear of crossing a street again, loss of enjoyment of life, permanent disability or disfigurement, and, for spouses, loss of consortium.
Punitive damages may be available where the driver’s conduct was malicious, oppressive, or fraudulent under Civil Code § 3294, most commonly when the driver was drunk.
Early offers routinely reflect only a fraction of a claim’s documented value, and in pedestrian cases the first offer often arrives while you are still in the hospital. Before you sign anything, use the free case evaluation to learn what your claim is actually worth.
Usually, yes. Vehicle Code § 21954 requires a pedestrian outside a crosswalk to yield to traffic that is an immediate hazard, but the same section says the driver still owes a duty of due care. If the driver was speeding, distracted, or not looking, fault can be shared or fall mostly on the driver. Under California’s comparative negligence rule, your share of fault reduces your recovery; it does not eliminate it.
No. That is the driver’s policy limit, not your claim’s value. Other policies may apply, including an employer’s or vehicle owner’s coverage, and your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage can pay you even though you were on foot. Where a dangerous crosswalk or intersection contributed, a government claim may add another source. Finding every layer is the core of the work.
Two years from the date of the crash for most claims, under CCP § 335.1. If a government vehicle or a dangerous public street or crosswalk is involved, a written claim is due within six months under Gov. Code § 911.2, and for the City of Los Angeles it goes to the City Clerk. Courts rarely excuse a missed deadline.
No. A police report is one officer’s early conclusion, often formed without hearing from the pedestrian at all. Camera footage, vehicle data, witness statements, and reconstruction regularly tell a different story. We build the proof independently and let the evidence decide fault.
We connect clients with doctors who treat on a lien, meaning they are paid from the recovery rather than upfront. Getting evaluated promptly protects your health and documents your injuries while the evidence is fresh.
Nothing upfront and nothing out of pocket. Our fee is a percentage of the recovery, collected only if we win, and the consultation is free. The written contingency fee agreement linked above sets out the arrangement in detail.
Our office is in Torrance, and we represent pedestrians hit by cars across the City of Los Angeles, from San Pedro, Wilmington and the Harbor through South Los Angeles and downtown to the Westside and the San Fernando Valley, and throughout the South Bay, including Torrance, Gardena, Inglewood, Carson, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Lomita, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. For every kind of injury case in the city, see our Los Angeles personal injury lawyer page.
Storefront cameras overwrite within days. Bus footage is retained for a limited window. The car gets repaired, and its data goes with it. The sooner we start, the more of your case we can preserve, and the filing deadlines run whether or not you are ready.
You were doing the most ordinary thing in the world, and a driver failed to do theirs. You should not have to negotiate with an insurance adjuster from a hospital bed. Your free case review includes a real evaluation with an experienced attorney, a clear explanation of your options, and an honest assessment of what your claim is worth. No obligation, and everything you share is confidential.
Get your free case evaluation or call 310-750-4149 now. There are no upfront legal fees; a fee is collected only if we win.
This page is attorney advertising and general information, not legal advice for any specific situation. Deadlines and outcomes are fact-specific; consult a licensed California attorney about your own circumstances. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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Left with few options
Stuck with bills you can’t pay
Anxious to put your injury behind you
Serving the South Bay and all of California.
My name is David Gammill. I am a California trial lawyer and the founder of Gammill Law Accident & Injury Lawyers. Our firm has recovered more than $100 million for California clients. Our results include a $21.1 million wrongful death verdict, a $16 million school sexual abuse verdict, and a $12 million whistleblower retaliation verdict. I learned to try cases in front of juries early in my career as a Deputy District Attorney, and trying cases remains the backbone of my practice.
