Sacramento Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer

Under California Code of Civil Procedure §335.1, you have two years from the date of your injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. If your injury involves a government entity — such as a Sacramento County vehicle or a Caltrans road defect — the deadline drops to six months to file a government claim, after which you may have additional time to file suit. We urge clients not to wait, because evidence disappears, witnesses’ memories fade, and medical documentation becomes harder to reconstruct. Contact us as soon as possible so we can protect your right to recover.

Liability depends on how the injury occurred — responsible parties can include negligent drivers on I-5 or Highway 50, property owners where a slip or fall happened, employers in workplace accidents, product manufacturers if defective equipment was involved, or even a government agency if a dangerous road condition contributed. We conduct a thorough investigation to identify every party whose negligence contributed to your injury — including motor vehicle negligence on Sacramento’s major corridors. California law allows us to pursue multiple defendants simultaneously, which is critical in spinal cord cases where lifetime care costs can be in the millions.

California law allows spinal cord injury victims to seek both economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages include all past and future medical expenses, in-home nursing care, adaptive equipment, lost wages, and lost earning capacity — costs that in severe SCI cases routinely exceed $1 million over a lifetime. Non-economic damages compensate you for pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and emotional distress. We work with life care planners and vocational experts to build a damages model that reflects your full lifetime needs — see how we approach spinal cord injury compensation statewide.

We handle spinal cord injury cases on a contingency fee basis, which means you pay nothing out of pocket and owe us nothing unless we recover compensation for you. Our fee is a percentage of the final settlement or judgment, agreed upon in writing before we begin. This arrangement ensures that every injured person — regardless of their financial situation — has access to experienced legal representation. There are no upfront retainer fees, no hourly charges, and no costs billed to you while the case is in progress. Schedule your free consultation to get started.

If you are physically able, call 911 so that paramedics and Sacramento Police or the California Highway Patrol can document the scene. Seek emergency medical treatment immediately and follow every instruction your doctors give you — gaps in treatment are used by insurance adjusters to minimize your claim. Preserve any evidence you can: photos of the scene, contact information for witnesses, and the at-fault party’s insurance details. Then call our Sacramento office before giving any recorded statement to an insurance company, because anything you say can be used to reduce your compensation.

California follows a pure comparative fault system, meaning your compensation is reduced by your percentage of responsibility for the accident — but you can still recover even if you were 99% at fault. For example, if you were found 20% at fault for a collision on Highway 99 and your damages total $3 million, you would recover $2.4 million. Insurance companies routinely try to inflate your share of fault to reduce what they owe. We gather independent evidence — accident reconstruction, surveillance footage, and expert witnesses — to fight back against unfair fault assignments. This is especially critical in Sacramento car accident cases where liability is contested.

Most spinal cord injury cases take one to three years to resolve, and some complex cases take longer. We generally wait until you reach maximum medical improvement before negotiating a final settlement, because settling too early can leave you without funds to cover future care needs you haven’t yet incurred. Cases filed in Sacramento County Superior Court are subject to court scheduling, which adds time if we go to trial. We keep you informed at every stage and will always advise you honestly about whether a settlement offer fairly compensates you for your lifetime losses — our Sacramento attorneys are available 24/7.

Your immediate medical care is typically covered through your own health insurance, Medicare or Medi-Cal, or — if the injury was a car accident — your MedPay or personal injury protection coverage. Medical providers will often treat spinal cord injury patients on a medical lien basis, meaning they agree to be paid from your settlement proceeds rather than upfront. We coordinate with your providers to keep liens manageable and negotiate reductions at the time of settlement. You should never delay surgery or rehabilitation waiting for a case to resolve — gaps in care hurt both your health and your claim. Contact us to understand your full options.

A quick settlement offer is almost always far below what a serious spinal cord injury case is actually worth. Insurers make early offers before the full extent of your long-term medical needs, lost earning capacity, and care costs are known. Once you sign a release, you permanently waive your right to seek additional compensation — even if your condition worsens. We strongly advise against accepting any settlement offer without legal review. We will evaluate the offer against your projected lifetime costs and, if necessary, reject it and pursue maximum recovery through litigation — Joseph Shirazi has recovered $250M+ for California clients.

We build liability by establishing that the defendant owed you a duty of care, breached that duty through negligence or recklessness, and that the breach directly caused your spinal cord injury. Evidence we collect includes police and accident reports, medical records, surveillance and dashcam footage, cell phone records, expert testimony from accident reconstruction specialists, and witness statements. In product liability cases — such as defective vehicle safety equipment — we may retain biomechanical engineers to demonstrate how the defect caused or worsened the injury. We leave no stone unturned because the stakes in a spinal cord case are too high to present anything less than an airtight case. Cases involving commercial truck accidents often require additional biomechanical experts.

Yes — under California’s pure comparative fault doctrine, partial fault does not bar your recovery; it only reduces it proportionally. If you were speeding on Florin Road when another driver ran a red light and caused your injury, the jury would apportion fault between you and we would recover the remaining percentage. Insurance companies love to argue shared fault as a way to pay less, which is why having experienced counsel to counter those arguments is critical. We build your case to minimize any fault attributed to you and maximize your net recovery. Learn more about how comparative fault affects Sacramento accident claims.

We offer a completely free, no-obligation consultation for spinal cord injury victims and their families. During this meeting, we review the facts of your accident, explain your legal options, and give you an honest assessment of the strength of your case — with no pressure to hire us. It helps to bring any documents you have: accident or police reports, photographs, insurance correspondence, medical records, and bills. If you cannot travel to our office due to your injuries, we can come to you at a Sacramento-area hospital, rehabilitation facility, or your home. Request your free consultation here.

Most Sacramento spinal cord injury lawsuits are filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, located at 720 9th Street in downtown Sacramento. Depending on where the accident occurred and the parties involved, cases may also be filed in federal district court at the Robert T. Matsui United States Courthouse on I Street. We are familiar with local judges, court rules, and procedures, which allows us to navigate the litigation process efficiently on your behalf. Knowing the local legal landscape gives our clients a meaningful advantage from the first day of litigation. Our Sacramento office handles cases throughout Sacramento County and the Central Valley.

If the driver who caused your spinal cord injury carries little or no insurance, we look first to your own uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage, which California law requires insurers to offer. We also investigate every other potential source of recovery — the driver’s employer if they were on the job, a third party whose negligence contributed, or a government entity if road design was a factor. In catastrophic injury cases, we pursue every available avenue aggressively because a single insurance policy is rarely sufficient to cover a lifetime of spinal cord injury care. We do not close a case until all sources of recovery have been thoroughly exhausted — including car accident insurance claims across all available policies.

The majority of spinal cord injury cases settle before trial, but we prepare every case as if it will go before a Sacramento County jury. Insurance companies pay higher settlements when they know your attorneys are ready, willing, and experienced in courtroom litigation. We will not recommend a settlement that fails to cover your lifetime medical needs, lost income, and pain and suffering — and if the defense refuses to make a fair offer, we will take your case to verdict. Our clients always make the final decision on whether to settle or proceed to trial, with our full guidance on the risks and benefits of each path. See how we approach SCI litigation statewide.