We welcome you to the award-winning hit-and-run accident law firm Ehline Law located in Downtown Los Angeles. Did you or a loved one suffer property damage, serious injury, or death at the hands of a hit-and-run driver?

A Caring, Aggressive, and Experienced Hit and Run Lawyer is Standing By To Help!

Our charismatic Los Angeles car crash lawyers help survivors of tragic hit-and-run accidents, especially road rage victims. Our hit-and-run crash lawyers have a proven track record for winning clients millions of dollars in money damages for hit-and-run cases. Our charismatic, superior California hit-and-run accident attorneys have won clients over $100 Million in civil negligence verdicts and settlements since opening our doors in 2005.

We offer hit-and-run accident victims and their loved ones legal advice through a free consultation. There we will discuss related insurance claims, legal assistance, and forming an attorney-client relationship. Our top hit-and-run lawyer represents hit-and-run victims afflicted with brain injuries (TBI), burn injuries, and wrongful death claims caused by drivers fleeing the scene of an accident.

Everything you must know as an injured hit-and-run accident victim, including uninsured motorist coverage and uninsured motorist insurance, is covered here. Let’s talk about hits and-run accidents and hit-and-run accident statistics now!

Tips for After Hit-And-Run Accidents?

1. Dial 9-1-1 – If you are a hit-and-run collision victim and have suffered severe injuries, you must hang up, log off and make a 911 call.
2. Seek Witness Help – You should ask any witnesses and Good Samaritans to flag down the local police or ask someone to contact law enforcement.
3. Write Down Plate Numbers – Document the hit-and-run driver’s license plate number.
4. Take An Ambulance to the Hospital – Victims must stabilize their injury in an official document tying them to the crash site. An ambulance ride to the urgent care or the emergency room is the best way to protect your rights.
5. Contact a Los Angeles hit-and-run car accident law firm – After you leave the E.R., your next step is calling our top-notch-injury lawyers for a free case evaluation. We will explain your legal rights and use our experience handling motor vehicle hit-and-run accidents to conduct insurance company negotiations on your behalf.

The DA will use your accident account to launch their criminal investigation and identify the hit-and-run driver suspect. Your actions may help apprehend and prosecute the fugitive for causing your accident-related injuries and property damages.

Over 20,000 Hit & Runs Annually?

The Los Angeles Police Department receives reports of around 20,000 hit-and-run accidents each year, but the actual numbers for Los Angeles hit-and-run accidents are likely higher. Despite this, the insurance company will still require paint transfer or other evidence that you were hit and forced to take evasive action after the at-fault driver left.

Under California Law, What Is A Criminal Hit And Run?

Many people know this accident occurs when another vehicle strikes you, and the person driving the car flees from the scene. But did you also know that criminal charges can result in penalties ranging from a misdemeanor or felony charge, increasing or decreasing depending on damages and injuries suffered?

Scofflaw drivers causing collisions resulting in severe injury or death injuries will face maximum Vehicle Code prescribed penalties, including Penal Code Section violations covering vehicular homicide and murder. (See also Penal Code Section 1382).

• BEWARE – Local California Courts Are Hard On Hit-And-Run Drivers 

The California Legislature and courts are very hard on defendants who flee the scene and consider causing a crash and driving or running away to be terrible criminal behavior. Hit and run is a serious criminal offense including up to six months in county jail and a 1,000 dollar fine for a misdemeanor hit and run.

But more severe penalties include a year or more in state prison for a felony hit and run. Under the California Vehicle Code, hit-and-run charges are sure to follow any driver fleeing the scene of an accident. But an uninsured, unemployed driver who played no role in the collision may flee the accident scene. The goal in any hit-and-run case is to obtain compensation. You must talk to a hit-and-run accident lawyer who can review your claim, explain your insurance coverage, and determine if any financial compensation covers such a situation.

Your Los Angeles County attorney will present options for making you whole, including making a personal injury claim against the defendant’s insurance company or filing personal injury lawsuits for the injured plaintiffs.

• NOTE: Hit-and-runs are a widespread tactic with DUI drivers

Sadly, victims often see hit-and-run drivers absconding from crash scenes, battered, bruised, stranded, and left for dead after the accident. Not only can you suffer considerable physical damage from these accidents, but you also have to feel the stress of paying for it as you have no other person to pay for the damage they caused. Hiring a lawyer can help with these specific accidents.

What Are Some Common Hit And Run Accident Injuries?

Our hit-and-run accident attorneys see cases involving:

• Death
• Paraplegia
• Lacerations
• Brain injuries
• Quadriplegia
• Severe spine injuries
• Broken bones and skull fractures.

Here are some examples of how these injuries take place. The defendant’s vehicle could strike another rear end, triggering a gas tank explosion. A criminal defendant suspect might even hit a power pole or transformer with their vehicle.

If so, live electrical wires could strike a child or older woman in a crosswalk or ignite a freshly ruptured and leaking gas tank with a passenger trapped inside a burning car, causing death or severe burn injuries. Hit-and-run drivers can easily cause a high-speed hit-and-run collision and leave you there to die. The lawbreaker may be a three-striker. (California Three Strikes Law) facing life in prison, drunk and desperate.

How Does My Los Angeles Hit And Run Accident Lawyer Help Me Receive Money Damages?

Getting you paid the most means gathering evidence and building a solid case.

Our California Hit And Run Accident Attorneys Are Experts At Evidence Gathering

To see who hit who first, we will use our skills to find minor clues, like messages on bumper stickers, bumper contact marks, and other contact areas. Our experts may uncover evidence missed by the Police Traffic Collision Investigation report.

If needed, we will take the victims back to the scene, re-create what happened, and find other evidence– perhaps even more eyewitnesses. Our firm hires only the most charismatic, attentive, excellent legal advocates. We will listen to your story, study your case, deploy our vast experience and tools, and investigate and win your case. We refuse to settle your case until you get what you deserve, and we keep you fully informed and in the loop every step of the way.

Our Los Angeles personal injury attorneys will go the extra mile for you, bringing your case closure. Our goal is winning for our clients – who become our partners. Our sworn members of the California State Bar, who practice negligence law in the local courts like Stanley Mosk, deal with less-than-honest insurers and hit-and-run driver defendants.

Hit And Run Legal Accident Damages?

You are entitled to receive money for your reasonably foreseeable property damages and bodily injuries arising from the defendant’s negligence causing your auto accident. We help plaintiffs file legal money damages claims against negligent defendants. Victims will use this money to get their car fixed, pay their medical bills, and arrange alternative transportation and other medical expenses like surgery or physical therapy.

When our attorney experts find evidence of the defendant’s liability and fault, we will hold them legally liable to pay your damages. Your damages award may include the following:

• General money damages for pain and suffering and
• Special financial damages for out-of-pocket costs and expenses related to your Los Angeles hit-and-run accident. (More resources about negligence damages here).

• Are Hit And Run Drivers The Only Defendants or Parties Liable To Pay Me?

Victims may be able to receive maximum compensation in several forms, including:

• Homeowner’s Insurance
• Uninsured motorist coverage insurance (this will be additional insurance coverage from the victim’s own insurance company)
• Government agency claims
• Worker’s Compensation insurance
• California unemployment and disability insurance.

Homeowner’s Insurance

If a hit-and-run driver struck bicyclists or pedestrians, you could challenge your homeowner’s Insurance for coverage. Injured car drivers may only make insurance claims under a valid pre-collision uninsured motorist binder. When you try to get additional binding after the crash with a driver, you may face criminal insurance fraud charges based on past history in many of these leaving-the-scene cases.

Government Tort Claims Act

A government agency or contractor may be partially or fully at fault. For example, a faulty traffic intersection signal causes drivers approaching opposite each other to have a green light while driving through a local neighborhood. You can imagine these two cars hitting each other as they enter the intersection, but the other driver flees the accident scene for one reason or another. The driver who left the scene did not erase the city or county’s responsibility for causing the crash. The hit-and-run driver didn’t cause the accident; the government forced the accident.

Hit Run Accidents, Settlements, And Verdicts

Our professional team will fight for every penny against every responsible party for a settlement. Our attorneys have accomplishments under their belts and a group of negotiation and litigation experts that have won hundreds of thousands for hit-and-run clients (passengers and others) alone and more for other injury and wrongful death victims.

We negotiated with our client, Bob Stein, 1 Million Dollars from the City of Los Angeles for a faulty signal phasing issue funneling road traffic on Rose Street and the Venice Beach area into the intersection with all four traffic signals showing “green.” We filed government claims against the City of Los Angeles for allowing a traffic signal power cable to remain severed as streets were undergoing road repairs, violating light signal phasing safety regulations.

Our client suffered terrible spinal cord injuries and Stein’s closed head injury concussion. But sometimes, a drunk or unlicensed hit-and-run driver will run someone over in a crosswalk or T Bone another car in an intersection at high speed. The blame-free, innocent party could be killed in a violent collision involving heavy impact forces.

Suppose your car was debased by a pothole or road debris during heavy rains, destabilizing and sliding it out. You, the guilt-free plaintiff, crashed because you could not take proper evasive actions to avoid the danger. Therefore, you can make a government claim assuming you follow the statutory guidelines to claim and file a lawsuit. (Ex: Government installs or maintains faulty guard rails, your car loses control and rolls down a cliff, causing severe injury or death).

Survivors may be left suing for their sibling, mom, or dad’s wrongful death. Assuming you were a direct car accident victim, you may suffer a head injury or disc burst fracture, and face depression from losing your dearly beloved, now departed family member, including their comfort.

So you must remember, even if you don’t have the correct Insurance and the bad guy got away, speaking to a superior, genius accident-related personal injury attorney is your key to victory. A superb lawyer like Michael Ehline can help rule out potential economic recovery sources in your potential bodily injury lawsuit. (Click here to learn about car accident tort claims in Los Angeles, CA).

Example of a Recent Hit And Run Driver Insurance Claim Victory:

In one example, our firm took on a case for a dead victim’s estranged wife and daughter. In that case, police reports claimed the dead man was drunk and nude, wandering the highway. So he was run over and killed by multiple parties, one after another. Also, at least one of these drivers fled the crime scene. Ultimately, the survivors’ first attorney withdrew from the case.

But Ehline took a second look at the file and signed the family up as clients. Afterward, we conducted additional investigations. This fatality claim was a severe case, but due to our study and understanding of insurance bad faith law and the Cumis counsel rules, our firm could exhaust the drivers’ insurance policies who ran the victim over. That helped us secure a significant settlement for the family.

A hit-and-run can change your life in an instant. If you are the victim of an errant driver in the L.A. area, you must find proper legal representation. Ehline Law Firm’s hard work and experience will assure you the best legal representation. Police often seek out and arrest drivers leaving accident scenes, and these suspects are usually intoxicated or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Our helpful car accident lawyers think dangerous drivers are publicly accountable to victims; making wrongdoers pay helps prevent repeats. Your quick actions in helping police identify and hunt down the person who hit you will help punish the perpetrator and protect others from similar activities.

When a hit-and-run accident victim receives help from a skilled car accident attorney, their case will become significantly bolstered. Your attorney will investigate the crash, determine losses sustained, and hold the responsible party liable. The Ehline Law Firm’s work already speaks for itself with its track record in California, winning hundreds of cases.

Contact a Skillful and Aggressive Hit and Run Accident Lawyer in Los Angeles

The Ehline Law Firm offers accident victims an initial free consultation to all hit-and-run accident victims. We do this so you can discuss the potential claim with our skilled, listening, and compassionate advocates in detail! Our superb, compassionate lawyers remain committed to justice, and we never stop fighting on your behalf.

But you must contact our local number and schedule a no-pressure consultation with a hit-and-run plaintiff’s attorney available 24 hours per day (213) 596-9642 for immediate legal help. You could blow the statute of limitations or drastically hamper the evidence-gathering process by handling your case alone. We have multiple Northern, Central, and Southern California, with a local law office near you in the State of California.

We will drive to your local spot or send you a car. Victims of hit-and-run crashes are welcome to enter their contact information into our online contact form for faster service and a sweeping victory.