GET A FREE CONSULTATION
310-750-4149
Reviewed by David Gammill, California trial attorney · Last reviewed: September 24, 2026
A truck crash in Hermosa Beach is decided by the carrier’s records and by who else stands behind the driver: the company that hired the driver, the company that loaded the trailer, and the contractor that was supposed to keep the brakes working. California law gives you two years to file suit, and only six months to file a written claim if a public entity is involved. Gammill Law Accident & Injury Lawyers is a Torrance trial firm that handles truck cases across the South Bay. 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.
If a truck hit you or someone you love in Hermosa Beach, call 310-750-4149 and tell us what happened before the carrier’s records start to disappear.
A loaded commercial truck can weigh twenty times what a passenger car weighs, and the physics decide the injuries. A collision that would be a fender bender between two cars becomes a crushed cabin, a spinal injury, or a death when one of the vehicles is a delivery truck or a tractor-trailer. The second difference is money: commercial carriers insure in layers, a primary policy and often excess policies above it, and each layer has its own adjuster and lawyer working to keep the payout small.
The third difference is the rulebook. Commercial trucking runs under federal safety rules that ordinary drivers never face: limits on how many hours a driver may be behind the wheel, qualification files the carrier must keep on every driver, inspection and maintenance records for every vehicle, and drug-and-alcohol testing programs. Electronic logging devices record driving time automatically. Every one of those rules creates a record, and every record is a place where a careless carrier can be caught, if your lawyer knows to ask for it.
The driver is rarely the only defendant, and often not the one who can pay. Finding every responsible party is the difference between a policy-limits offer and full compensation:
In Hermosa Beach, the truck that hit you is more likely to be a box truck or a van from one of the delivery fleets that serve the city’s homes and downtown than a long-haul rig. Those companies are commercial carriers all the same, with the same records and the same insurance layers.
The carrier knows what its records show before you do, and it has no duty to volunteer them. The electronic logging device and the engine control module record speed, braking, and hours in the minutes before the crash. The inspection and maintenance file shows whether the brakes were checked. Dispatch records show whether the driver was pushed to make a delivery window. The driver qualification file shows whether the carrier knew about prior violations, and the testing history shows whether the driver was ever flagged for drugs or alcohol.
Retention windows for some of these records are short, and a carrier that expects a claim has every incentive to let them expire. A written preservation letter in the first week puts the carrier on notice that destroying records will be held against it. We also obtain the Hermosa Beach Police Department report and move fast on any City traffic-camera or business security footage that caught the crash, because those recordings are overwritten on a schedule too.
Hermosa Beach is a small residential beach city with no freeway inside it, so a truck case here usually arises from delivery, service, construction, and refuse vehicles serving homes and the downtown, moving on Pacific Coast Highway (State Route 1), the city’s only through arterial, and on the streets that feed it: Aviation Boulevard, Artesia Boulevard, Pier Avenue, and Hermosa Avenue. PCH carried about 63,000 vehicles a day at Aviation Boulevard in 2024 according to the Caltrans traffic census, and that is an all-vehicle count, not a truck count. The Pier and the downtown blocks around Pier Plaza draw a steady stream of deliveries into narrow streets shared with pedestrians and cyclists, which is where a box truck backing up or turning across a crosswalk becomes a case. Whatever the road, the Hermosa Beach Police Department writes the report.
California law allows two kinds of damages. Economic damages are the losses with a receipt: medical bills, future care, lost wages, and lost earning capacity. Non-economic damages are the losses without one: pain, disability, disfigurement, and the loss of the life you had. Where a carrier’s conduct went beyond carelessness, for example knowingly keeping a driver on the road with a history of impairment, Civil Code § 3294 allows punitive damages on clear and convincing proof of malice, oppression, or fraud; they are never guaranteed, and we evaluate them case by case. When a truck crash takes a life, the family’s claim is a wrongful death case, and our Hermosa Beach wrongful death page explains who can bring it and what it covers.
Most California truck accident lawsuits must be filed within two years of the crash. Our plain-English guide to CCP § 335.1, California’s two-year statute of limitations, covers the rule and its narrow exceptions. If a public entity may be liable, whether the City of Hermosa Beach for a local street or signal or Caltrans for Pacific Coast Highway, a written claim must be presented to that entity within six months under Government Code § 911.2, before any lawsuit can be filed; the two-year rule does not rescue a missed claim. Once the entity rejects the claim, Government Code § 945.6 gives six months from the rejection notice to file suit. Our guide to the California government claim deadline walks through the sequence. Most Hermosa Beach truck accident lawsuits are filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Southwest District, at either the Torrance Courthouse or the Inglewood Courthouse.
Start with trial experience, because trucking carriers and their insurers settle fairly only with lawyers they expect to see in a courtroom. David Gammill has tried over 100 cases to verdict. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Before founding the firm he spent seven years as a Deputy District Attorney, which is where he learned to put a case in front of twelve strangers and win it. Then ask two practical questions. Has this lawyer taken a trucking carrier to verdict, or only settled with one? And who will actually handle my file day to day? The answers tell you more than any advertisement. The firm’s record is set out below.
The firm has recovered more than $100 million for California clients across verdicts and settlements. Separately, its trial results include a $21.1 million wrongful death verdict in a roadway-danger case against a public entity; that case turned on its own facts, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. See our case results.
Truck cases are won in the records. We send preservation letters early, subpoena the logging and maintenance data, and put carrier witnesses under oath about what their own files show. When a carrier says a record does not exist, we know which rule required it to.
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.
You will know the attorney handling your case, and our attorneys bring more than 40 years of combined legal experience to every case we take. Our phones are answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An initial consultation can be held by Zoom video, and if you are injured and cannot travel, we meet clients at the hospital, at home, or wherever recovery requires.
Two years from the crash for a claim against a private driver or carrier, under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. If a public entity is involved, a written claim is due within six months, and missing it usually ends the case against that entity.
The motor carrier, the shipper or loader responsible for the cargo, any maintenance contractor whose work failed, the manufacturer of a defective part, and a public entity whose roadway condition contributed. We investigate every one before deciding whom to name.
Partial fault does not bar your claim. California follows a pure comparative negligence rule: your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, never eliminated by it. Insurers exaggerate your share for exactly that reason, and we push back with evidence.
The electronic logging data and engine control module readout, the maintenance and inspection file, dispatch records, the driver qualification file, and the police report. Photographs and witness names matter too. The carrier’s records are the most valuable and the quickest to vanish, so preservation letters go out in the first week.
Nothing upfront. We work on a contingency fee, paid only out of the recovery, and the consultation is free. Our page on what a personal injury lawyer costs explains how the fee works and what it covers.
Our office is in Torrance, and we represent truck crash victims from Hermosa Beach and across the South Bay: Torrance, Gardena, Inglewood, Carson, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Lomita, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. For every kind of injury case in the city, see our Hermosa Beach personal injury page; for the trucking-law material in more depth, see our Torrance truck accident page.
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.
