Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) is one of the most photographed drives in America, usually pictured with cliffs on one side and the ocean on the other.
The stretch running through Long Beach is a different road entirely. It runs inland, beneath the Terminal Island Freeway on the west side, through the Los Alamitos Traffic Circle, and past storefronts and a college campus out east.
Long Beach paramedics and Long Beach police respond to crashes here, but the road itself is owned or maintained by the State of California.
If a dangerous condition, a missing sign, or an unwarned hazard caused the collision, liability rests with the state, and a much shorter deadline for filing a lawsuit applies. That is what sets Pacific Coast Highway accidents apart from almost every other crash in the city.
If you were injured on PCH, The Beliz Law Firm can help. Our Long Beach car accident lawyers can determine which agency is responsible for that segment, obtain traffic collision reports, preserve roadway conditions, meet filing deadlines, and deal with insurers.
What Steps Should Be Taken After Pacific Coast Highway Accidents?
The immediate steps you take after an accident are the same as after any serious crash, and include:
- Get medical attention. Seek immediate medical attention and attend follow-up appointments, because gaps in treatment are used against you later.
- Confirm a report was taken. Collisions involving injury or death must be reported to law enforcement within 24 hours, with a separate report sent to the DMV within 10 days.
- Contact the insurance company. Notify your own insurer to get the claims process started.
The step unique to PCH accidents is determining whether the road itself was at fault, because a written claim against a public entity is due within six months rather than the two years allowed against a driver.
Responsibility can also be divided. California owns the highway, but may share an individual intersection with the city under a maintenance agreement. Sidewalks, lighting, and driveways may belong to someone else. Sorting that out takes time, and the clock is already running.
The Six-Month Clock Nobody Mentions
Filing against the wrong entity preserves nothing, which is why the split between city and state matters in practice and not just on paper. The Long Beach stretch of Route 1 was never relinquished to the city, which is why a claim for a dangerous condition must be presented to the state rather than the city.
To bring an injury claim against a public entity in California, a written claim must first be presented to it within six months of the incident. Once a claim is rejected, a further deadline for filing suit runs, measured in months rather than years.
That six-month deadline runs independently of the two-year deadline for an injury claim against the at-fault driver, and surviving one does not extend the other.
Why Is a Road Claim Harder Than a Driver Claim?
A public entity is liable for injury caused by a dangerous condition of its property only where the condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury suffered and the entity had notice of it in time to have done something. Notice is frequently the fight, and prior collisions at the same location are how it gets proven.
The state also has an added defense. Design immunity protects an approved roadway design where discretionary approval was given, and substantial evidence supports its reasonableness.
That immunity can be lost if the design becomes dangerous because of changed physical conditions, the entity knew or should have known, and it had a reasonable opportunity to fix the problem or warn about it.
On a corridor being actively studied and rebuilt for safety reasons, the record of what the state knew tends to be substantial.
Which Deadlines Run No Matter Who Is at Fault?
Separate from any government claim, an ordinary personal injury action in California generally must be filed within two years. California also requires drivers to report an accident within 24 hours if it results in an injury or death.
Separately, the driver must personally file an SR-1 Accident Reporting Form with the California Department of Motor Vehicles within 10 days if the crash resulted in an injury, death, or more than $1,000 in property damage; a police officer’s report does not substitute for the SR-1.
These deadlines are easy to miss from a hospital bed. A CA Pacific Coast Highway accident lawyer will usually take them over at the first meeting.
What Actually Determines the Recovery Number?
Expectations should be set carefully here. Let’s take a look at why.
How Can Personal Insurance Impact Recovery Amounts?
Most claims are resolved within the insurance available. California requires only modest minimum coverage, and where the at-fault driver carries the minimum, that figure is what their insurer will pay.
It is not a cap on what the driver legally owes. A judgment can exceed the policy, with the difference becoming the driver’s personal debt.
What Is the Difference Between Economic and Noneconomic Damages?
Recovery generally consists of two categories: economic and noneconomic damages.
Economic damages include documented costs, such as:
- Past and future medical bills,
- Loss of income and earning capacity, and
- Loss of household services.
Noneconomic damages cover harder-to-measure costs, including:
- Loss of enjoyment of life,
- Physical pain, and
- Mental suffering.
Fault is divided rather than assigned, so recovery is still possible when you are partly to blame. Your share of fault reduces the amount, with each defendant paying only its own percentage of the noneconomic portion.
Recovery is also generally capped for past medical care at the amount actually paid or still owed rather than the amount billed.
The One Question That Changes Everything
Pacific Coast Highway accidents in Long Beach turn on a question most collisions never raise: Was the road itself part of the cause? Everything that follows, which deadline applies, which entity gets the claims, and what the case is actually worth, depends on the answer.
At The Beliz Law Firm, our founding partner, Michael A. Beliz, has spent two decades untangling exactly these kinds of jurisdictional questions in Southern California collisions.
Our firm helps clients go up against agencies and insurers built to process claims like this routinely, at a moment when nothing about it feels routine to the person living through it. We guide clients through the process as it unfolds, so they are never the last to know where things stand.
If you were hurt on the Pacific Coast Highway, contact The Beliz Law Firm for a free consultation.
Michael A. Beliz, Esq., established The Beliz Law Firm in the spring of 2011. Michael has been a practicing attorney since 2006 and worked for two of the most prominent plaintiff’s personal injury law firms in Southern California. He has worked on and handled hundreds of cases as an attorney in all types of personal injury cases, including vehicle accidents, pedestrian accidents and dog bites, and successfully recovered millions of dollars for his clients.
Rate this Post
Loading...