San Jose Personal Injury Lawyer

About 20% of California drivers are uninsured despite it being illegal. Your options:

Use your uninsured motorist (UM) coverage: This pays up to your policy limits. If you have $100,000 UM coverage, that’s your maximum recovery.

Sue the driver personally: Problem is most uninsured drivers have no assets. Winning a $150,000 judgment against someone with no job or property means you can’t actually collect the money.

Check if anyone else is liable: Was the uninsured driver working at the time? Their employer might have coverage. Was the car borrowed? The owner’s insurance might apply under permissive use.

Yes. California uses “pure comparative negligence”—you can recover damages even if you’re 99% at fault, but your award decreases by your fault percentage.

Example: You’re 30% at fault, other driver 70% at fault. Total damages are $100,000. You recover $70,000.

Insurance companies will try to inflate your fault percentage to pay less. They might claim you’re 70% at fault when it’s actually 30%. Fighting over that 40% difference means fighting for $40,000 in recovery.

Almost never. Settlements include a legal release waiving all future claims related to the accident. Once signed, it’s permanent—even if you discover worse injuries later.

Very rare exceptions: Insurance committed fraud (intentionally hid information), or your settlement specifically reserved rights for unknown future injuries. This is why we wait until you reach maximum medical improvement before settling.

For most accidents, California gives you two years from the date of injury to file a lawsuit (CCP § 335.1). But if your claim involves any government entity — the City of San Jose, Santa Clara County, VTA, or a public university — you have just six months from the incident date to file an administrative claim. That six-month deadline passes fast when you are dealing with injuries, medical appointments, and lost work. Call us immediately after any accident. Waiting is the most common and most costly mistake injured people make.

That depends entirely on the specifics of your situation — the severity of your injuries, how clear the liability is, how much insurance coverage exists, and what your life looks like long-term after the accident. Compensation can cover all medical costs past and future, lost wages, reduced earning capacity, vehicle damage, pain and suffering, emotional distress, and in serious cases, punitive damages. California does not cap these in most personal injury cases. Call us for a free evaluation. We will give you an honest answer based on actual facts, not a sales pitch.

You can still recover. California’s pure comparative fault rule means your award is reduced by your percentage of responsibility — not eliminated. If you are 30% at fault and your damages are $150,000, you recover $105,000. The problem is insurance companies push hard to inflate your fault percentage, because every point they add reduces what they owe. We know exactly how they do this, and we know how to counter it with evidence.