Most people who fall on a Los Angeles sidewalk decide within about a day that there is nothing to be done, because the sidewalk belongs to the city and you cannot fight the city. Half of that is wrong, and it is the half that matters.
Under Streets and Highways Code 5610, the owner of the property fronting a sidewalk must maintain that sidewalk so it does not endanger people. Not the city. The building, the shop, the apartment block or the house whose lot the sidewalk runs past. So a fall on a raised slab outside a business is frequently a claim against that business, on the ordinary two-year deadline, rather than a claim against Los Angeles on a six-month one.
Culver Legal has recovered $200 Million and counting for injured people in California. Contingency, costs advanced, no fee unless we win. Call (310) 600-7881 at any hour.
Where Los Angeles Slip and Falls Happen
Sidewalks, and specifically raised slabs. This city’s street trees lift concrete into a lip that is invisible walking toward the sun and is exactly the height that catches a toe.
Shops and supermarkets, where the hazard is a spill and the whole case turns on how long it had been there before you found it.
Apartment buildings, on unlit stairwells, worn nosings and missing handrails, which produce the worst outcomes because a fall on stairs is a fall from height, and where a head strike makes a brain injury the largest part of the claim.
Parking structures, where oil, a wheel stop in a walkway, and lighting that was designed for cars rather than people combine badly, and where the person who goes down is often about to become somebody struck by a reversing vehicle instead.
Work sites and workplaces. A fall at work is a workers compensation claim and, where the property belonged to somebody other than your employer, a premises claim at the same time. On an active job that is a construction accident claim, where the question becomes which contractor controlled the area.
Who Is Actually Responsible
A private property owner, under Civil Code 1714, owes a duty of ordinary care to people who come onto the property. In practice the fight is over whether they knew or should have known about the hazard, and whether they had a reasonable system for finding it.
The adjacent owner, for the sidewalk, under Streets and Highways Code 5610 as above.
A transit operator. A fall while boarding, riding or stepping off is a claim against a carrier that owes its passengers utmost care rather than ordinary care, which is a higher duty than any property owner on this page carries. That is a bus accident claim and against a public operator it runs on six months rather than two years. Where a fall is fatal, and on stairs it happens, the family’s claim is a wrongful death claim.
A public entity, but on harder terms. Under Government Code 835 the entity is liable for a dangerous condition of its property only if you establish the condition was dangerous, that it caused the injury, that it created a foreseeable risk of that kind of injury, and either that an employee created it or that the entity had actual or constructive notice of it in time to have done something. That last element is the one cases are won and lost on, and it is why evidence of how long the defect had been there matters more here than almost anywhere else.
More than one of them at once, frequently. A tenant business, its landlord and the city can all be in the frame for the same fall, and they will each point at the others.
Told the sidewalk is the city’s problem, so there is nothing to do?
California law puts the maintenance duty on the property fronting the sidewalk. That changes who you are claiming against, and how long you have.
Slip and Fall Injuries We See in Los Angeles
Wrist and forearm fractures, from the reflex of catching yourself, which frequently need fixation and leave lasting stiffness.
Hip fractures, which in an older adult are a life-changing event rather than a broken bone, and which are valued far too cheaply if treated as one.
Head injuries. A fall backward puts the back of the head onto concrete with nothing slowing it down. If somebody has not been themselves since a fall, that is a brain injury question and it is worth raising early.
Shoulder injuries, including rotator cuff tears that present as “just sore” for weeks.
Spinal compression fractures, which are easy to miss on a first examination when attention is on the visible injury.
How Culver Legal Values a Los Angeles Slip and Fall Claim
- Medical costs already incurred, from the emergency room through imaging, surgery and therapy
- Future care, including hardware removal and revision surgery still ahead
- Lost income, and lost earning capacity where the injury ends a kind of work
- Pain and suffering, valued against the medical record
- Loss of independence, which on a hip or a spinal injury in an older adult is the real harm and the one insurers price lowest
- Property damage, including anything you were carrying
Which Court Will Hear My Los Angeles Case?
The court covering the place where you fell, not the one nearest your home.
Los Angeles County handles this differently from most of California, and it is set out in a standing order of the court. General Order 2024-GEN-003-00, filed 17 May 2024, records that since 10 October 2022 every newly filed personal injury case is filed in the judicial district where the incident arose.
The court is also retiring its Personal Injury Hub in favor of Independent Calendar courtrooms, where one judge manages the case throughout. Since 8 January 2024 personal injury cases in the Central District have been assigned to IC departments at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, and hub departments have been closing into new IC courtrooms as that proceeds, Department 30 into Department T at the Alhambra Courthouse and Department 31 into Department B at the Van Nuys Courthouse.
That does not change whether you have a claim. It changes where it is filed and who manages it, and filing in the wrong district spends time a two-year deadline does not give back.
Where You Are Taken Matters, and in Los Angeles It Varies
Los Angeles County has fifteen designated trauma centers, and which one receives you depends on where the incident happened rather than on where you live.
Verified against the California EMS Authority’s designated and ACS-verified trauma center list, the Level I centers in and around the city are Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles General Medical Center, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for children. Level II centers including California Hospital Medical Center, Northridge, Providence Holy Cross, St. Francis and Huntington Memorial cover the rest of the county.
Why that belongs in a legal claim rather than a medical one. The records that prove the injury sit with whichever facility received you, and across a county this size that is frequently not the hospital nearest home. A serious injury also generates records at more than one facility as somebody is transferred, and gathering all of them rather than the first set to arrive is a large part of what an early demand gets wrong.
Is It Worth Suing for a Slip and Fall in Los Angeles?
It depends far less on how badly you were hurt than on whether anybody can show the hazard had been there long enough to be found.
That is the honest answer competitor pages avoid. A fall claim is not won by proving a spill existed. It is won by proving the owner knew, or should have known, and had a reasonable chance to fix it or warn you. A spill dropped ninety seconds before you walked through it is nobody’s negligence. The same spill left three hours in a supermarket aisle is a different case entirely.
Which is why the answer changes with how quickly somebody acts. Inspection logs, footage and maintenance records all sit with the property owner and none of them are preserved for your benefit. Footage in particular overwrites on a loop measured in days. A case that looks marginal in week one frequently looks strong once those records are obtained, and unprovable once they are gone.
The notice requirement, and how constructive notice is established, is set out in how a California premises claim works.
Deadlines to File a Los Angeles Slip and Fall Claim
Two years from the fall for a claim against a private owner or business, under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1.
Six months to present a written claim to a public entity, under Government Code 911.2.
Up to a year, by application, if six months was missed. Government Code 911.4 allows a written application for leave to file late, and Government Code 911.6 says the entity shall grant it on grounds including that the injured person was physically or mentally incapacitated. After a hip fracture or a head injury, that is not a technicality.
Two further grounds matter here and are easy to miss, because they are the ones most people actually fall under. Government Code 911.6(b) also requires the application to be granted where the injured person was a minor for any part of the six months, or was physically or mentally incapacitated for any part of it, provided the application is made within six months of them turning eighteen or of the incapacity ending, or a year after the claim accrued, whichever comes first.
Injured children. Code of Civil Procedure 352 pauses the ordinary period while an injured person is under 18.
Did you photograph the hazard before it was repaired?
Hazards get fixed quickly once somebody falls. If you did not, there are other ways to prove it was there, and they get harder with time.
What to Do After a Fall in Los Angeles
Photograph the hazard, and photograph how old it looks. Weathering, dirt in a crack, weeds growing through a joint, a worn patch on a stair nosing. Against a public entity you have to show it had been there long enough to have been noticed, so the age of a defect is evidence in its own right.
Photograph the surroundings too. A raised slab means nothing in isolation. Show the lighting, the approach, and what was in front of the property.
Report it to whoever runs the place, and get the report in writing. Ask for a copy. If you are handed an incident form, take a photograph of it before you hand it back.
Names and numbers of witnesses, because a shop will not keep them for you.
Get examined even if you got up and carried on. People are embarrassed after a fall and walk it off, and the medical record then starts a week late.
Do not give a recorded statement to the property’s insurer, and do not accept that it was your own fault because you were not looking. California reduces recovery in proportion to fault rather than barring it, so being partly to blame lowers the figure without ending the claim.
What does it cost, and what comes out of a settlement? Nothing up front. The fee is a percentage of the recovery under a written fee agreement, and there is no fee if there is no recovery. Out of a settlement come the fee, the case costs advanced, and any medical liens, which is why the headline figure and the amount received are different numbers. The full breakdown is in how a California premises claim works.
Why Los Angeles Clients Choose Culver Legal
We come to you. In the hospital, at home, or anywhere getting across this city is not realistic after a fracture.
Our team speaks Spanish, Farsi, Filipino, Hindi, Mandarin and Korean.
Nothing up front. Contingency, costs advanced by the firm, no fee unless we win. Culver Legal was founded in 2020, has recovered $200 Million and counting, and answers the phone 24 hours a day.
Los Angeles Slip and Fall FAQs
I am undocumented. Can I still 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. So 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.
I fell on a public sidewalk. Is there really anyone to claim against?
Usually yes, and often not the city. Streets and Highways Code 5610 puts the duty to maintain a sidewalk on the owner of the property fronting it. That matters twice over, because it changes who the claim is against and because a claim against a private owner runs on two years rather than the six months that applies to a public entity.
They fixed the broken step the week after I fell. Does that hurt my case?
No, and it is often the opposite. A repair made straight after a fall tends to confirm that the condition needed repairing. What it does cost you is the evidence, because the hazard no longer exists to be photographed. That is the reason to get advice quickly rather than to wait and see how the injury settles.
The store says I should have seen it. Where does that leave me?
Still with a claim. California reduces recovery by your share of fault rather than barring it, so an argument that you were not paying attention is an argument about percentage, not about whether you recover. It is also an argument the store has an interest in making regardless of whether it is true.
Contact a Culver Legal Los Angeles Slip and Fall Lawyer
If you were hurt in a fall anywhere in Los Angeles, call (310) 600-7881 at any hour. The review costs nothing, and if the fall was on public property the timing matters more than you would expect.
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.
