Fresno Personal Injury Law Firm

An injury turns your life upside down quickly, and the decisions that decide what the claim is worth get made in the first two weeks, usually before anyone has explained them to you. The adjuster calls early, sounds reasonable, and makes an offer built on a medical picture that is not finished yet.

Culver Legal, LLP represents injured people across the Central Valley from an office at 1690 W Shaw Avenue, Suite 220 in Fresno. We work on contingency and advance the costs of the case, so there is nothing to pay up front and no fee unless we win. If there is no recovery, you are not charged those costs either. Call (310) 600-7881 at any hour, including tonight.

Who Are You Actually Making a Claim Against?

This is the first question in the case and it decides your deadline, not just your defendant.

Against a private driver, business or property owner, you have two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1.

The moment a public body is anywhere in the story, a different rule takes over. Government Code 911.2 requires a written claim to be presented to that entity within six months of the injury, and until that has happened there is no lawsuit to file.

In Fresno the bus is the city. FAX, Fresno Area Express, is a City of Fresno department rather than an independent district, so a claim arising from a FAX bus runs against the city on the six-month clock. That is simpler than it is in some California cities, and it is still six months.

Also on the shorter clock: a city or county vehicle, a claim about a public road or sidewalk, a school district, and any injury on public property.

Where the claim actually goes, and the detail that catches people

A claim against the City of Fresno is filed with the Risk Management Division, 2600 Fresno Street, Room 1030. Not with the City Clerk. The division that decides the claim is the division that receives it.

The city requires claims to be filed in duplicate. That is its own published instruction, and it is the kind of procedural point that is trivial when you know it and expensive when you do not. A single copy invites an argument about whether the claim was properly presented, inside a six-month window that does not pause while that gets sorted out.

Confirm which public body you are dealing with before filing anywhere. The city, the county, a school district and the state are four separate entities with four separate processes, and a claim presented to the wrong one has not been presented.

What Should You Do After an Injury in Fresno?

• Call 911 and get a report number.
• Get medical attention the same day, even for something that seems minor. The record made now is what ties the injury to the incident later.
• Photograph everything: the scene, the damage, your injuries, the road, anything that contributed.
• Get witness names and numbers before people leave.
• Do not give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurer. You are not required to.
• Do not sign a release for a fast figure before you know the medical picture.

How Do You Get the Police Report?

For a collision on a city street inside Fresno, the report comes from the Fresno Police Department Records section, 2323 Mariposa Street, on (559) 621-2534. The counter is open Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., which is an hour earlier than most people assume. Collision reports are ordered online for a $12 convenience fee, charged by the service that fulfills the report rather than by the city. Other records go through the department’s public records portal and come back digitally.

A collision out on Highway 99, Interstate 5 or State Route 41 is normally investigated by the California Highway Patrol instead, so the report is theirs and the request goes to the CHP office covering the location. Establishing which agency wrote the report is worth doing before making the trip.

Where Will You Be Treated, and Why Do Those Records Decide the Case?

Community Regional Medical Center, 2823 Fresno Street, describes itself as the only Level I trauma center between Los Angeles and Sacramento, verified at that level by the American College of Surgeons and staffed around the clock by surgeons board certified in surgery and critical care.

That matters to your file rather than to your comfort. It means one hospital holds the imaging, the trauma activation record and the first responder narrative for a catchment running hundreds of miles in both directions. Those are three separate documents, held by different custodians, requested separately, and none of them is the discharge summary. Whatever facility treated you, urgent care included, keep the paperwork.

Where Will a Fresno Injury Case Be Filed?

At the B. F. Sisk Courthouse, 1130 O Street, which is where Fresno County hears unlimited civil cases, meaning claims seeking more than $35,000. Any injury case worth bringing is normally an unlimited civil case, so that is usually the answer.

The detail worth more than the address is who hears it. A Fresno case is tried in Fresno County, to a Fresno County jury, and what an insurer offers is shaped by what it expects that jury to do long before anyone sets foot in a courtroom.

How Dangerous Are Fresno Roads, Really?

More carefully than most pages will tell you, and the honest answer is more useful than the alarming one.

The California Office of Traffic Safety publishes crash rankings drawn from statewide collision data. Fresno is measured against the 15 California cities with populations over 250,000, and in these tables a rank of 1 is the worst.

In 2023, 1,600 people were killed or injured in crashes in Fresno, ranking the city 12th of those 15. On the headline number Fresno sits near the better end of its group rather than the worse end, and across most categories it ranks 9th to 15th. Any page telling you Fresno is among the most dangerous cities in California has not looked at the table.

One category is a genuine exception, and it is the one worth knowing.

Children on foot. Pedestrians under 15 killed or injured in Fresno: 16 in 2021, 24 in 2022, 31 in 2023. The city’s rank went from 6th of 15, to 3rd, to 2nd. Second worst of the fifteen largest cities in California, climbing three years running, in a city that ranks near the bottom of that group on almost everything else.

Figures are for the years shown, from the CA Office of Traffic Safety with data from SWITRS, and they count people killed and injured together rather than deaths alone.

What Types of Cases Do You Handle in Fresno?

• Car accidents. California’s at-fault system makes the driver who caused the crash liable, and we pursue every available coverage, including your own underinsured motorist policy where the other driver’s limits fall short.
• Truck accidents. Agricultural and commercial freight moves through this county in volume on Highway 99 and Interstate 5. These cases involve federal carrier regulations, several potentially liable companies, and electronic records that expire.
• Motorcycle accidents. Lane splitting is not prohibited in California, which is not the same as being declared legal, and insurers reach for it against riders whether or not it happened.
• Pedestrian accidents. Vehicle Code 21950 requires drivers to yield at crosswalks. See the child-pedestrian figures above.
• Bicycle accidents. Door-zone collisions and right-of-way violations, where the three-foot passing rule does a lot of work.
• Slip and fall. These turn on notice: whether the owner knew, or should have known, about the hazard. Inspection logs prove it and they are discarded on a schedule.
• Bus accidents. FAX is run by the City of Fresno, so the six-month government claim applies.
• Brain injuries. A normal emergency scan answers the emergency question rather than every question.
• Construction accidents. The company that injured you is often not the company that employs you.
• Dog bites. Strict liability under Civil Code 3342, and in this county the bite report goes to the county health department rather than the city shelter.
• Work injuries. A third-party claim can run alongside a workers compensation claim rather than instead of one.
• Wrongful death. Code of Civil Procedure 377.60 decides who may file, and the answer is narrower than most families expect.
• Rideshare accidents. Which policy responds depends on what the driver’s app was doing at the moment of the crash.
• Employment matters. For a claim about a wage, a termination or treatment at work rather than an injury, we will review it and tell you plainly whether we handle it or refer it on.

We also handle premises claims against commercial property and catastrophic injury arising from any of the above. If you are not sure which of these describes what happened, that is not something you need to work out before calling.

Case Results

Why Do Fresno Clients Choose Culver Legal?

We are in Fresno. The office is at 1690 W Shaw Avenue, Suite 220, and if you are in the hospital, at home and unable to drive, or out in the county, we will come to you.

Our team speaks Spanish, Farsi, Filipino, Hindi, Mandarin and Korean. Explaining your own accident in your own words is not a convenience.

The economics are simple. Contingency, costs advanced, nothing up front and no fee unless we win. We advance the case costs, and if there is no recovery you are not charged those costs either. Culver Legal has recovered $200 Million and counting, and the phone is answered 24 hours a day.

Fresno Personal Injury FAQs

How long do I have to file a claim in Fresno?

Two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1. If a public entity is involved, a written claim must be presented within six months under Government Code 911.2, which is a separate and much earlier deadline. Code of Civil Procedure 352 pauses the ordinary period for injured children, though the six-month government claim is not paused the same way, and that exception to the exception is where a child’s claim against a public body is usually lost.

I was hurt on a FAX bus. Who do I claim against?

The City of Fresno. FAX, Fresno Area Express, is a city department rather than an independent transit district, so the six-month government claim applies and it is presented to Risk Management at 2600 Fresno Street, Room 1030, in duplicate. Do not wait for a police report before presenting it; the deadline does not pause for paperwork.

Which courthouse will my case go to?

If you are seeking more than $35,000, which covers most injury cases, it is filed as an unlimited civil case at the B. F. Sisk Courthouse, 1130 O Street, and heard in Fresno County.

How much does a personal injury lawyer cost?

Nothing up front. We work on contingency, which means the fee is a percentage of what we recover and there is no fee at all if we recover nothing. We also advance the costs of running the case. What we will not do is give you a number for what your case is worth before we know what happened and how the injury settles, because any figure quoted that early is a guess dressed up as a valuation.

The insurance company says I was partly at fault. Does that end it?

No. California reduces a recovery in proportion to fault rather than barring it, so being partly to blame lowers the figure without removing the claim. An adjuster’s view of fault is an opening position and not a finding.

I am undocumented. Can I bring a claim without putting myself at risk?

Yes, and the protection is stronger than most people expect. Under Evidence Code 351.2, added by AB 2159, evidence of a person’s immigration status is not admissible in a civil action for personal injury or wrongful death, and discovery into it is not permitted either. It cannot be raised at trial and it cannot be asked about beforehand. It is not a question we ask you, and it is not a question the other side gets to ask.

Contact a Culver Legal Fresno Personal Injury Lawyer

Evidence in an injury case has a shelf life. Vehicles get repaired, camera footage is overwritten on a loop measured in days, and a carrier’s records reach the end of their retention period. If you were hurt anywhere in Fresno or the surrounding Central Valley, reach us at (310) 600-7881 at any hour, or at 1690 W Shaw Avenue, Suite 220. The review costs nothing.

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Culver Legal, LLP is a California law firm. The information on this page is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.