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$12,000,000
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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
A truck crash in Los Angeles 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, the shop that serviced the brakes. 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 South Bay trial firm that handles truck cases 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.
If a truck hit you or someone you love in Los Angeles, 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 fender bender between two cars becomes a crushed cabin, a spinal injury, or a death when one vehicle 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, each with its own adjuster and lawyer working to keep the payout small. If you were hurt in a crash with an ordinary passenger vehicle, our Los Angeles car accident page covers that case; this page is about the crash where one of the vehicles was a commercial truck.
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, drug-and-alcohol testing programs, and the electronic logging device and engine control module that record what the truck was doing. 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 what separates a policy-limits offer from full compensation:
In Los Angeles the truck that hit you may be a drayage tractor hauling a container from the Port, a box truck or a moving van, a construction truck, or a van from one of the delivery fleets that cover every neighborhood of the city. Those companies are commercial carriers all the same, with the same records and insurance layers. A port drayage driver is often an owner-operator working under contract to a trucking company, and which company is legally responsible for that driver on that trip is one of the first things we establish.
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 maintenance file shows whether the brakes were checked. Dispatch records show whether the driver was pushed to make a delivery window or a terminal appointment and where the truck was supposed to be, which in Los Angeles also answers whether it belonged on the street where the crash happened at all. The qualification file and testing history show what the carrier knew about the driver.
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 crash report, which the Los Angeles Police Department writes for a crash on a city street and the California Highway Patrol writes for a crash on a freeway, and we move fast on any City traffic-signal, Port, transit or business security footage, because those recordings are overwritten on a schedule too.
Los Angeles is a port city. The Port of Los Angeles, a department of the City in San Pedro, Wilmington and Terminal Island, handled 10.2 million container units in 2025, the third-best year in its history, and by the Port’s own count 2025 was its 26th straight year as the nation’s busiest port. Nearly every one of those containers leaves or arrives on a truck. The Harbor Freeway, Interstate 110, and the Long Beach Freeway, Interstate 710, carry that cargo north to the rail yards and warehouses, the Terminal Island Freeway and the Vincent Thomas Bridge connect the terminals, and the arterials of the Harbor and South Los Angeles carry the trucks the rest of the way. That does not make any one place responsible for a crash. It does mean that a truck crash in this city often involves a port drayage carrier with its own paper trail: terminal appointment records, gate transactions and a chassis-pool contract, each of which can show where the truck was and when.
The City does not confine trucks to a short list of designated routes the way the smaller South Bay cities do. Instead it restricts vehicles over 6,000 pounds on the street segments listed in Los Angeles Municipal Code section 80.36.1, and the list grows by ordinance. Whether the street your crash happened on is one of them, and why the truck was there, is a question for the first week, because the carrier’s dispatch records will answer it one way or the other. The freeways themselves are the California Highway Patrol’s, so a crash on the 110, the 710, the 405 or the 10 gets a CHP report, and a dangerous-road claim there points at Caltrans rather than the City.
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, such as knowingly keeping an impaired driver on the road, 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 Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles for a city street, a signal or a City vehicle, Caltrans for a freeway or state highway, or the County of Los Angeles for a county road, a county facility or a Sheriff’s vehicle, 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. The City of Los Angeles accepts a claim only through the Office of the City Clerk, not the City Attorney. 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 truck accident 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.
Start with trial experience, because 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 Los Angeles County 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 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; for the City of Los Angeles that claim goes to the City Clerk.
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. The carrier’s records are the most valuable and the quickest to vanish, so preservation letters go out in the first week.
Possibly. The City restricts vehicles over 6,000 pounds on the street segments it lists in its municipal code, and a port drayage carrier’s dispatch and appointment records will show where that truck was supposed to be. A restriction violation is evidence of negligence, not an automatic finding of fault; the carrier will say the driver was making a pickup or taking the only open route, and its own records will show whether that is true. Wilmington is a place name here, not a cause. The LAPD report and the carrier’s records are where the answer usually sits.
Nothing upfront. We work on a contingency fee, paid only out of the recovery, 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 truck crash victims 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.
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.
