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Reviewed by David Gammill, California trial attorney · Last reviewed: September 24, 2026
If you were hurt by someone else’s negligence in Manhattan Beach, California law lets you recover your medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering, and it puts a deadline on doing it. Gammill Law Accident & Injury Lawyers is a South Bay trial firm that represents injured people and families in Manhattan Beach and 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.
Manhattan Beach is a residential beach city of about 34,000 people, with the ocean, The Strand, and the Manhattan Beach Pier along its western edge. Its north-south spine is Sepulveda Boulevard, which is State Route 1 through the city, and its main east-west streets are Manhattan Beach Boulevard, Rosecrans Avenue, and Artesia Boulevard, with Highland Avenue running along the bluff above the beach. No freeway passes through the city; the 405 lies to the east. Caltrans’ 2024 traffic census counted about 58,000 vehicles a day on Sepulveda Boulevard just north of Manhattan Beach Boulevard and about 48,000 at Artesia Boulevard, both up from 2023. The reason a small city carries that much traffic is the coast: the beach, the pier, and the downtown blocks draw visitors from across the region on weekends, and the beach neighborhoods are laid out around walk streets, pedestrian streets where cars are not allowed, so the cars that do come funnel onto a few crowded corridors. That does not make any one place responsible for a crash.
The state’s numbers put 2022 as the recent peak. According to the Office of Traffic Safety’s crash rankings for Manhattan Beach, 86 people were killed or injured in the city’s crashes in 2018, 80 in 2019, 55 in 2020 during the pandemic, 97 in 2021, 114 in 2022, and 98 in 2023. The 2022 total placed Manhattan Beach 28th of 90 cities its size, and the 2023 total placed it 43rd of 93. The signature is Sepulveda. The City of Manhattan Beach’s own 2026 safety report on Sepulveda Boulevard between Artesia Boulevard and Rosecrans Avenue found an average of about 14 fatal and injury crashes a year from 2021 through September 2025, and an average fatal-crash rate of 0.084 per million vehicle miles, more than six times the statewide average of 0.013 for similar highways, even though the corridor’s overall fatal-and-injury crash rate (0.41 per million vehicle miles) was below the statewide figure (0.50). Sepulveda has a below-average injury-crash rate but a far-above-average fatality rate, and the report records fatal crashes on the corridor in 2024 and 2025. The rest of the 2022 picture, by the same state rankings: 17 pedestrians hurt or killed (10th of 90), 4 of them under 15 (3rd of 90); 22 bicyclists hurt or killed (4th of 90), 5 of them under 15 (6th of 90); and 26 alcohol-involved victims (7th of 90), a 2022 picture, not the present, and not about any one place. In 2023 those counts eased to 16 pedestrians (13th of 93), 8 bicyclists (33rd of 93), and 16 alcohol-involved victims (32nd of 93). California law gives a pedestrian in a marked or unmarked crosswalk the right of way under Vehicle Code § 21950, the rule that decides most crosswalk cases. Hit-and-run injury crashes ran the other way, from 7 in 2022 to 11 in 2023 (22nd of 93), a worse rank than the year before; a driver who leaves the scene of an injury crash commits a crime under Vehicle Code § 20001. Across 2018 through 2022 the South Bay Bicycle Coalition Plus counted 60 bicycle collisions in Manhattan Beach, a rate of 3.4 per 10,000 residents, the fourth-highest bicycle collision rate among the eleven South Bay cities it studied, and 47 pedestrian collisions, 2.7 per 10,000, seventh of eleven; the study concluded that Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Highland Avenue carry the city’s highest collision concentrations.
Manhattan Beach runs its own police force, and the crash report on city streets is written by the Manhattan Beach Police Department, 420 15th Street. The South Bay’s only Level I trauma center is Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, 1000 West Carson Street in West Carson, operated by Los Angeles County. Manhattan Beach has no hospital emergency room inside the city; the nearest emergency rooms are in Torrance, and the urgent care clinics in the city are not emergency rooms. The record the City keeps matters too. The City’s current capital plan funds intersection safety work at Manhattan Avenue and 36th Street, Valley Drive and Flournoy Road, and Highland Avenue and 40th Street, and the City and Caltrans have identified more than 40 candidate safety measures for Sepulveda; under Government Code § 835, a roadway that a public entity knew was dangerous can be part of an injury case, and a completed or planned project is evidence in both directions, including an immunity the entity may raise, which is why those cases need early investigation.
Most California injury claims must be filed within two years. Under CCP § 335.1, the clock starts the day of the injury, and courts rarely excuse a missed deadline. Our plain-English guide to CCP § 335.1, California’s two-year statute of limitations, covers the rule and its narrow exceptions.
Government cases move much faster. If a city vehicle, a malfunctioning signal, or a dangerous stretch of road played a role, Government Code § 911.2 requires a written claim to the right public entity within six months, before any lawsuit. In Manhattan Beach that entity is usually the City of Manhattan Beach for city streets, signals, the walk streets, or a City or police vehicle; a crash on Sepulveda Boulevard can point at Caltrans instead, because Sepulveda through Manhattan Beach is State Route 1 and part of the state highway system; the County of Los Angeles comes into it only where a county-run facility or county road is involved. Our guide to the California government claim deadline walks through the sequence, and we identify the correct entity and file on time.
Where the case is heard. Most Manhattan Beach injury lawsuits are filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Southwest District, at either the Torrance Courthouse or the Inglewood Courthouse; since 2022 the court has kept new personal injury cases in their local district courts from filing through trial. Manhattan Beach has no courthouse of its own.
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 emergency room visit can exceed the per-person minimum. The real work in a Manhattan Beach injury case is finding every source of coverage that legally applies: the at-fault driver’s policy, an employer’s policy if that driver was working, a rideshare company’s policy if the trip was on the app, and your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. That last policy matters here. A city of 34,000 residents with 58,000 vehicles a day on its state highway and a beach that draws the region is crashed into mostly by people who do not live there. When the other driver flees or carries only the minimum, the victim’s own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is often the policy that pays, and it has strict notice conditions, so get advice early.
Car Accidents. Rear-end, intersection, and left-turn collisions on Sepulveda Boulevard, Manhattan Beach Boulevard, Rosecrans Avenue, and the city’s other arterials, where we identify every applicable policy and prove fault with the police report, the physical evidence, and any video before it is overwritten.
Wrongful Death. When a crash or other negligence takes a life, California law lets the closest family members bring a claim for their loss, and it has its own rules and deadlines; on Sepulveda, the City’s own corridor report is where the recent fatal crashes are recorded.
Truck Accidents. Heavier commercial trucks in the city are confined to designated routes under the municipal code, Sepulveda is the state truck corridor, and a crash with a commercial truck brings federal safety rules, driver logs, and maintenance records into the case while the carrier’s insurer moves quickly to protect itself.
Dog Bites. A dog owner is strictly liable for a bite in a public place under California’s dog bite law, Civil Code § 3342, regardless of the dog’s history.
For other case types we handle across the South Bay, see our Torrance pages on pedestrian, bicycle, motorcycle, slip and fall, rideshare, catastrophic injury, and brain injury cases.
California law allows injured people to recover economic damages, meaning documented losses like emergency care, surgery, therapy, medications, future treatment, lost income, and vehicle repair or replacement, and non-economic damages, meaning the human losses: pain, anxiety, lost sleep, and the activities an injury takes away. Where a drunk or grossly reckless driver caused the harm, punitive damages may be available on clear and convincing proof under Civil Code § 3294; they are never guaranteed, but they change how an insurer values the case. When a crash or other negligence takes a life, the family’s claim is a wrongful death claim with its own rules, and our Manhattan Beach wrongful death page explains them.
Our office is in Torrance, on Del Amo Boulevard at Hawthorne Boulevard, a few miles inland, and our attorneys bring more than 40 years of combined legal experience to every case we take. We prepare every case for trial from the first meeting, because insurers price a claim differently when the lawyer across the table will finish the fight in front of a jury.
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.
Injured and unable to travel? We meet clients at the hospital, at home, or wherever recovery requires, and we can meet by phone or Zoom. Call 310-750-4149 any time, including nights, weekends, and holidays.
Start with trial experience, because the value an insurer puts on your claim depends on whether your lawyer is ready to try the case. David Gammill has tried over 100 cases to verdict. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Before that, he spent seven years as a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, so he knows how the other side prepares. Two practical questions cut through the rest: will the lawyer who signs you up be the one who handles your case, and can the firm point to real results in cases like yours? The firm’s record is set out above.
Two years from the injury for most claims, under CCP § 335.1. If a public entity may be responsible, a written claim is due to that entity within six months under Government Code § 911.2, and the two-year rule does not save a missed claim. Both guides are linked above.
It can. Sepulveda through Manhattan Beach is State Route 1, so a crash there can point at Caltrans as well as the driver, and a claim against Caltrans must be in writing within six months under Government Code § 911.2. The driver still had to yield to you in a marked or unmarked crosswalk and use due care under Vehicle Code § 21950, and you keep a duty of care too, so the Manhattan Beach Police Department report and any camera footage decide fault. The City’s own 2026 report on that stretch of Sepulveda, discussed above, is part of the record we gather; it does not decide who is responsible for your crash, and neither the City nor Caltrans is liable simply because the road is theirs. If the driver fled, your own auto policy’s uninsured motorist coverage may pay, and a prompt police report is usually a condition of that claim.
In the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Southwest District, at either the Torrance Courthouse or the Inglewood Courthouse, the two courthouses that hear cases arising in Manhattan Beach. The case stays in that district from start to finish, and we confirm the courthouse at the first meeting.
Nothing upfront and nothing unless we win. We work on a contingency fee, paid only out of the recovery. Our page on what a personal injury lawyer costs explains the arrangement in detail.
Gammill Law represents people injured in Manhattan Beach and throughout the South Bay, including Torrance, Gardena, Inglewood, Carson, Hawthorne, Lawndale, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Lomita, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. See every South Bay city we serve.
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.
