California Personal Injury Law Reference
This page collects the California authorities that most often decide the value and direction of a personal injury case.
Liability Foundations
Rowland v. Christian
(1968) 69 Cal.2d 108 [Supreme Court of California; Peters, J.]
California’s foundational duty decision. Everyone is responsible for injuries caused by a failure to use ordinary care in the management of property or person, and any departure from that duty must be justified by balancing the now-familiar factors: foreseeability of harm, certainty of injury, closeness of the connection between conduct and injury, moral blame, the policy of preventing future harm, the burden on the defendant and community, and the availability and cost of insurance. The court discarded the trespasser, licensee, and invitee categories as the measure of a landowner’s duty; a visitor’s status may still have some bearing but is not determinative. An occupier who knows of a concealed danger and says nothing to a guest about to encounter it can be found negligent.
PRACTICE NOTE Rowland is where every California duty argument starts, premises cases most of all. When a defendant argues no duty, the answer is the Rowland factors, and when a landowner knew about the hazard, the failure-to-warn theory comes straight from the facts of this case: a cracked faucet handle the hostess had reported to her landlord but never mentioned to her guest.
Li v. Yellow Cab Co.
(1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 [Supreme Court of California; Sullivan, J.]
Abolished the all-or-nothing contributory negligence bar and adopted pure comparative negligence: damages are reduced in proportion to the plaintiff’s fault, and recovery survives even where the plaintiff’s share of fault equals or exceeds the defendant’s. The court held that Civil Code section 1714 did not freeze the old defense in place, rejected the fifty percent bar systems used in most other states, abolished last clear chance, and folded assumption of risk into the comparative scheme to the extent it is merely a variant of contributory negligence.
PRACTICE NOTE Li is the reason a client who was partly at fault still has a case in California. A plaintiff found seventy percent responsible still recovers thirty percent of the damages, which changes settlement math dramatically compared to the majority of states that cut recovery off at the halfway point.
Medical Damages: Billed vs. Paid
Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions, Inc.
(2011) 52 Cal.4th 541 [Supreme Court of California; Werdegar, J.]
An injured plaintiff whose medical expenses are paid through private insurance may recover as past economic damages no more than the amounts actually paid by the plaintiff or the insurer, or still owing, for the care received. The “negotiated rate differential,” the gap between the provider’s billed charges and the discounted amount the provider agreed to accept as payment in full, is not a collateral source benefit, because the insured plaintiff never incurred liability for it. The measure of past medical damages is the lesser of the amount paid or incurred and the reasonable value of the services. Evidence of the amount accepted as full payment is admissible; evidence that an insurer made the payments generally remains inadmissible.
PRACTICE NOTE Howell decided past medical expenses only and expressly reserved the question of what the full billed amounts might mean for noneconomic damages and future care. That reserved question is where the next generation of fights lives, and it is why the companion decisions on this page matter.
Corenbaum v. Lampkin
(2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 1308 [Second District, Division Three; Croskey, Acting P.J.]
Where medical providers agreed in advance to accept less than their billed charges as payment in full, the full billed amounts are not relevant and not admissible to prove past medical expenses, future medical expenses, or noneconomic damages, and experts may not rely on those billed amounts as the basis for opinions on the value of future care. Evidence of the amounts accepted as full payment remains admissible so long as the source of the payment is not disclosed to the jury. Applying these rules, the court reversed seven-figure compensatory awards and ordered a new trial limited to damages because the jury had heard only the billed amounts.
PRACTICE NOTE Corenbaum controls the insured-plaintiff case, and its reach ends where Pebley and Qaadir begin: treating outside the plan changes the framework entirely. Note what it left open. The court expressly declined to decide whether a defendant may prove that reasonable value is lower than the amount the providers accepted.
Bermudez v. Ciolek
(2015) 237 Cal.App.4th 1311 [Fourth District, Division Three; Ikola, J.]
For an uninsured plaintiff who has not paid the bills, the measure of damages usually turns on a wide-ranging inquiry into the reasonable value of the services. Billed amounts are relevant and admissible, both as the amount incurred and on reasonable value, but bills alone are not substantial evidence of reasonable value: qualified expert testimony is required, and treating physicians may supply it based on the bills together with their own knowledge and experience. The court affirmed a $3.7 million judgment for a bicyclist struck at an intersection, trimming only $46,175.41 that exceeded what the plaintiff’s own experts had supported.
PRACTICE NOTE Bermudez is the proof playbook for the lien and uninsured case. The bills come in, but the verdict must stay within what the experts actually endorse, line by line. Know before closing argument exactly which charges your experts stand behind, and at what figures.
Pebley v. Santa Clara Organics, LLC
(2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 1266 [Second District, Division Six; Perren, J.]
An insured plaintiff who chooses to treat with physicians and facilities outside his insurance plan is treated as uninsured for the purpose of determining economic damages. A tortfeasor cannot force an injured person to run treatment through insurance, and choosing lien-based care outside a plan is not a failure to mitigate damages. The plaintiff may introduce the billed amounts, but bills alone are not enough: the plaintiff must also present competent expert testimony that the amounts are reasonable, and the defense may answer with its own experts in a wide-ranging inquiry the jury resolves. Items actually paid through insurance remain governed by Howell even in a lien case; the Pebley judgment itself was trimmed for two such charges.
PRACTICE NOTE Pebley is the authority that protects a client’s right to choose their surgeon rather than their HMO’s surgeon. Its discipline runs both ways: the reasonableness of lien-based charges must be proven with qualified expert testimony, and any provider actually paid by insurance must be claimed at the paid amount, not the billed amount.
Qaadir v. Figueroa
(2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 790 [Second District, Division Eight; Ohta, J.]
Confirms Pebley: an insured plaintiff who treats outside the plan with lien providers is treated as uninsured for both past and future medical damages, and there is no duty to mitigate by staying in network. The decision adds two refinements. Unpaid billed amounts are admissible only on a showing that the plaintiff actually incurred them, meaning genuine liability for the bills, and evidence that the plaintiff’s attorney referred the client to the lien physicians is relevant to bias and to reasonable value. On the record presented the errors were harmless and the judgment was affirmed, because the award tracked the competing experts’ valuations rather than the raw bills.
PRACTICE NOTE Qaadir cements the lien-treatment framework and simultaneously hands the defense the attorney-referral question. Build the incurred-liability foundation, lien agreements and testimony, before the bills are offered, and prepare the referral story for cross-examination rather than hoping it stays out.
Civil Code section 3333.9 (SB 623)
Lien-based treatment in rideshare cases; accidents on or after January 1, 2027
For claims against transportation network companies, their subsidiaries, or app-based drivers arising from automobile accidents occurring on or after January 1, 2027, recovery of past medical expenses billed by lien-based providers is capped at the 70th percentile of a recognized billed-charges database for the same or similar service in the same geographic area, with a narrow pretrial safety valve for exceptionally rare or highly specialized treatment. Billed amounts above the recoverable figure are void and uncollectable and cannot be shown to the jury, and neither side may reference the cap itself. The statute also requires itemized, code-level billing, mandates disclosure of lien sales and financing arrangements, opens attorney-provider referral relationships to discovery, and adds attorney conduct rules enforceable by State Bar discipline. It does not reach earlier accidents, care run through insurance or government coverage, or Hospital Lien Act providers, and it leaves the collateral source rule intact.
PRACTICE NOTE This is the first statutory carve-out from the Pebley and Qaadir framework, confined for now to rideshare defendants. In those cases the wide-ranging inquiry gives way to a database ceiling, which makes provider selection, coding discipline, and early benchmark analysis part of case value from day one.
Experts and Evidence
Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern California
(2012) 55 Cal.4th 747 [Supreme Court of California; Chin, J.]
Trial courts have a substantial gatekeeping duty under Evidence Code sections 801 and 802 to exclude expert opinion that is speculative, based on matter that cannot reasonably support the particular opinion offered, or built on reasons the underlying material does not actually support. The gate has limits: the court may probe the analytical chain between data and conclusion, but it must not choose between competing reasonable opinions, weigh persuasiveness, or resolve scientific disputes. Applying that standard, the court upheld the exclusion of a lost-profits opinion that projected a tiny company into a global market leader through circular reasoning, and confirmed that exclusion rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion.
PRACTICE NOTE Sargon is the hearing behind every serious expert fight in California, on both sides of the v. Build your own experts’ opinions so the chain from data to conclusion survives an Evidence Code section 402 hearing, and use Sargon to attack defense opinions that assume their conclusions, most commonly billing and biomechanical experts whose methods cannot withstand the scrutiny.
Deadlines That End Cases
Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1
Statute of limitations for personal injury
Most California personal injury and wrongful death actions must be filed within two years of accrual. Different claim types carry different periods, and doctrines such as delayed discovery and tolling can move the date in either direction, but two years is the working rule for ordinary negligence injuries.
PRACTICE NOTE The limitations period is the outer wall, not the schedule. Evidence, witnesses, and video disappear on a much faster clock.
Government Claims Act; Government Code section 911.2
Claims against public entities
Before suing a California public entity for personal injury or wrongful death, a written claim generally must be presented to the entity within six months of accrual. Missing the claim deadline can bar the lawsuit entirely, subject to narrow relief procedures. Claims involving public buses, government vehicles, dangerous conditions of public property, and public employees all live under this regime.
PRACTICE NOTE This is the deadline that catches people who assumed they had two years. If any government connection is possible in a case, the six-month analysis happens first.
Settlement Leverage
Time-Limited Demands; Code of Civil Procedure section 999 et seq.
Statutory framework for pre-suit policy-limits demands
California statutorily defines the time-limited demand: a pre-litigation settlement offer to a liability insurer for policy limits, open for a defined period, with required contents including a clear offer of settlement, the material terms, a release framework, and reasonable proof supporting the claim. The framework governs how insurers must treat such demands and gives properly built demands real consequences when they are unreasonably refused.
PRACTICE NOTE The demand letter is where many seven-figure cases are actually decided. Compliance with the statutory elements is not a formality; a demand an insurer cannot cleanly accept is a demand that generates no leverage.
Statutory Offers to Compromise; Code of Civil Procedure section 998
Cost shifting inside the lawsuit
Either side may serve a written offer to allow judgment on stated terms at any time until ten days before trial. The offer must set out its terms and include a provision for acceptance by signed statement, and acceptance must be written and signed. The consequences of guessing wrong are concrete. A plaintiff who rejects a defense offer and fails to beat it forfeits postoffer costs, pays the defendant’s costs from the date of the offer, and can be ordered to cover the defendant’s postoffer expert fees. A defendant who rejects a plaintiff’s offer and fails to beat it can be ordered to pay the plaintiff’s postoffer expert witness costs on top of ordinary costs.
PRACTICE NOTE The 998 is the in-litigation sibling of the policy-limits demand: the right number served at the right moment converts trial risk into a running meter. Form defects are the classic trap. An offer without a compliant acceptance provision is void, so the mechanics deserve the same care as the number.
Civil Code section 3291
Prejudgment interest on a beaten 998 in personal injury cases
In a personal injury tort action, when the plaintiff serves an offer under Code of Civil Procedure section 998 that the defendant does not accept within 30 days or before trial, whichever comes first, and the plaintiff then obtains a more favorable judgment, the judgment bears interest at 10 percent per year from the date of the first such offer the judgment exceeds, running until the judgment is satisfied. The interest attaches to the personal injury damages, and the section does not apply to public entities or public employees.
PRACTICE NOTE This is the quiet engine that makes a well-placed plaintiff’s 998 dangerous to insurers: 10 percent a year from the offer date, in an era when cases take years to reach verdict, can add six figures to a seven-figure judgment. Serve a beatable number early and let the meter run.
On the Docket for the Next Review
Coming in future updates:
- Knight v. Jewett (1992) 3 Cal.4th 296 primary assumption of risk
- Privette v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 689 injuries to contractors’ workers
- Civil Code section 1431.2 (Proposition 51) several liability for noneconomic damages
This reference states general principles of California law for informational purposes. It is not legal advice, it does not address the facts of any particular case, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Case law and statutes change; always confirm current authority before relying on it. For advice about a specific matter, contact Stuck Law Firm, APLC for a free consultation.
Last reviewed: August 20, 2026