Encino Car Accident Lawyer

Encino Car Accident & Personal Injury Lawyer

Hurt in an Encino accident? Here is what to know.

• Yaghmai Law Firm represents people injured in Encino, Tarzana, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, and the surrounding south San Fernando Valley.
• We handle Encino car, truck, motorcycle, pedestrian, bicycle, rideshare, brain injury, burn, and wrongful death cases.
• California gives you two years from the date of the incident to file under CCP 335.1. Claims against a government entity must be presented within six months under Gov Code 911.2.
• Most Encino civil cases are venued in the Van Nuys Courthouse complex of the Los Angeles Superior Court — the firm appears there regularly.
• No fees unless we recover. Call or text (888) 800-6731 or submit your case online.

Encino sits along the Ventura Freeway (US-101) on the south edge of the San Fernando Valley, where the 101 meets the Sepulveda Pass corridor of the 405 (Interstate 405). Encino’s surface streets — Ventura Boulevard, White Oak Avenue, Balboa Boulevard, Hayvenhurst Avenue — carry heavy commute traffic between the Valley and the Westside, and Encino is dense with medical offices, professional firms, and high-end retail. The legal questions that follow an Encino crash are California state law questions, but the practical work of preserving evidence, valuing damages, and dealing with the at-fault carrier requires a lawyer who is available promptly and works on contingency.

Yaghmai Law Firm represents Encino drivers, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, and rideshare passengers under a contingency engagement. We investigate liability using CHP and LAPD West Valley Area reports, coordinate medical care, and either negotiate with the carrier or file suit in the Van Nuys Courthouse complex of the Los Angeles Superior Court. You pay no attorney fees unless we recover.

Recent CHP-Reported Incidents in Encino

The list below is pulled from California Highway Patrol public incident data for Encino and updated automatically as new reports come in. It is provided for informational context only.

Types of Encino Personal Injury Cases We Handle

Encino personal injury cases fall into several categories, each with its own statutory framework. The firm represents Encino clients in all of them:

• Car accident cases — collisions on the 101, the 405, and Encino surface streets. Negligence framed under CVC 22350, 22107, 21703, and 23152.
• Truck and commercial vehicle cases — governed by FMCSR (49 CFR Parts 350-399) plus California law.
• Motorcycle accidents — including lane-splitting under CVC 21658.1.
• Pedestrian accidents — CVC 21950/21954/21955 crosswalk framework, CVC 20001/20002 hit-and-run.
• Bicycle and e-bike accidents — Three Feet for Safety (CVC 21760), dooring (CVC 22517).
• Uber and Lyft rideshare cases — coverage layered under PU Code 5433 (SB 371 effective 1/1/2026).
• Traumatic brain injuries.
• Burn and catastrophic injuries.
• Wrongful death and survival actions — CCP 377.60 standing, CCP 377.30/377.34 survival (post-1/1/2026 rule).

Ventura Boulevard collisions

Ventura Boulevard is the commercial spine of Encino and the source of a large share of the collisions we handle here. It runs the length of the district with continuous storefronts, restaurants, medical offices, and driveways opening directly onto moving traffic.

The dominant patterns are broadside impacts from vehicles turning across traffic and rear-end collisions where a driver stops abruptly for a turning car ahead. Because so much of the conflict happens at driveways rather than intersections, liability frequently rests on sightlines and on footage from the business the driver was entering.

US-101 ramp and merge crashes

The Ventura Freeway runs along the southern edge of Encino, and its ramps deposit drivers onto Ventura Boulevard and the surrounding streets while they are still carrying freeway speed.

Crashes in that first block past a ramp are consistently more severe than the low-speed impacts further into the neighborhood. They also raise a practical question immediately: a collision on the freeway itself is a California Highway Patrol matter, while one on the surface street is handled by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Balboa, White Oak, and the north-south connectors

Balboa Boulevard, White Oak Avenue, and Hayvenhurst Avenue carry traffic between the freeway corridor and the residential streets north of Ventura. These are wide, fast, and heavily signalized.

Left turns across oncoming lanes produce the most serious injuries on these corridors. Fault usually depends on the signal phase and on independent witnesses rather than on the drivers’ accounts, which almost never agree.

Pedestrian injuries along the boulevard

Encino has genuine pedestrian activity along Ventura Boulevard, and the crossings are long.

Vehicle Code section 21950(a) requires a driver to yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing in a marked crosswalk, or in an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. Insurers respond with subsection (b), which requires pedestrians to use ordinary care and not to leave a curb into the path of a vehicle close enough to be an immediate hazard.

Whether that occurred is a factual question. In a corridor this densely built, there are usually cameras and witnesses that answer it.

Bicycle collisions

Riders on Ventura Boulevard and the connectors face close passes and doors opening into the travel lane from the parking line.

The Three Feet for Safety Act, Vehicle Code section 21760, requires a driver overtaking a bicycle traveling in the same direction to pass at a safe distance that does not interfere with the bicycle’s safe operation, given the size and speed of both and the surrounding traffic. Measurements of lane width and the parked-car line typically prove these cases better than testimony.

Motorcycle crashes

Riders using the US-101 corridor through Encino contend with congestion, short merges, and abrupt speed changes. Carriers raise lane splitting early and often mischaracterize it.

Vehicle Code section 21658.1 defines lane splitting as riding a two-wheeled motorcycle between rows of stopped or moving vehicles in the same lane and authorizes the CHP to develop educational guidelines. It does not make the practice illegal.

Rideshare and delivery collisions

The restaurant and retail density along Ventura Boulevard generates constant rideshare and delivery activity, much of it involving drivers stopping in travel lanes.

Public Utilities Code section 5433(b)(1) requires transportation network company insurance to be primary and in the amount of $1,000,000 for death, personal injury, and property damage from the moment a driver accepts a ride request until the ride is complete. Establishing that timeline is often the difference between a minimum-limits claim and a substantial one.

Parking structure and premises injuries

Not every Encino injury involves a moving vehicle on a public street. Retail parking structures, medical office buildings, and apartment complexes produce backing collisions, falls on poorly maintained walkways, and injuries in badly lit stairwells.

Civil Code section 1714(a) sets the standard: a person is responsible for injury caused to another by want of ordinary care in the management of their property or person, reduced to the extent the injured person’s own lack of care contributed. Private security footage in these settings is overwritten quickly and is held by an owner with no obligation to preserve it absent a demand.

Dog-bite injuries

Under Civil Code section 3342(a), a dog owner is liable for damages to a person bitten in a public place, or while lawfully in a private place, regardless of the dog’s former viciousness or the owner’s knowledge of it. California does not give an owner a free first bite.

Hit-and-run and impaired driving

Vehicle Code section 20001(a) requires a driver involved in a crash causing injury or death to stop immediately at the scene. A violation is punishable by imprisonment, or by up to a year in county jail, or by a fine of $1,000 to $10,000, or both.

That does not pay for your care. Where the driver is never identified, recovery generally runs through uninsured motorist coverage on your own policy.

Fatal collisions

Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 determines who may bring a wrongful death claim, beginning with the surviving spouse or domestic partner and children, or the decedent’s personal representative. The deadline is two years under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, and Government Code section 911.2(a) adds a six-month requirement where a public entity is involved.

Compensation in an Encino Car Accident Case

California recognizes two categories of compensatory damages, both unlimited in ordinary negligence cases.

Economic damages: past and future medical expenses, lost wages, lost earning capacity, vehicle repair or replacement, out-of-pocket recovery costs.

Non-economic damages: pain, suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, disfigurement, loss of consortium. Proposition 213 (Civil Code 3333.4) bars non-economic recovery for uninsured drivers and DUI plaintiffs.

Pure comparative fault under Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 — recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, never eliminated.

UM/UIM under Insurance Code 11580.2 generally applies if the at-fault driver was uninsured or fled the scene. Encino residents often carry above-state-minimum policies; the firm reviews coverage early in every case.

California Law That Governs Your Encino Case

Your Encino case is governed by California state law with these deadlines and rules. None are negotiable.

• Statute of limitations: two years (CCP 335.1); one year from discovery for medical malpractice (CCP 340.5).
• Government claims: six months (Gov Code 911.2) against City of Los Angeles, LAPD, LA Metro, LAUSD, Caltrans, State of California.
• SR-1 reporting: CVC 16000 requires SR-1 within ten days of any crash with injury, death, or property damage over $1,000.
• Hit-and-run: CVC 20001 and 20002.
• Negligence per se: CVC violations supply the negligence element under California Evidence Code 669.
• Comparative fault: Li v. Yellow Cab Co.
• Proposition 213: Civil Code 3333.4.

If your Encino case involves a City of Los Angeles vehicle, a roadway defect on the 405 or 101, or another public entity, the six-month government-claim clock is the most important date in the case.

Local Driving Routes and Hazards in Encino

Encino occupies a narrow band between the Ventura Freeway and the hills, which concentrates almost all of its traffic onto a handful of streets. That concentration explains both where collisions happen and why the same few intersections generate so many of them.

Ventura Boulevard

Ventura Boulevard carries the district’s commercial traffic end to end. Storefronts, restaurants, and medical offices open driveways directly onto moving lanes, so drivers are constantly slowing to turn while others accelerate between signals. The result is a steady volume of turning and rear-end collisions spread along the corridor rather than clustered at a few intersections.

The Ventura Freeway (US-101)

US-101 runs along the southern edge of the district and is the reason Encino traffic surges and collapses on a predictable daily cycle. When the freeway slows, drivers divert onto Ventura Boulevard and the parallel residential streets, pushing freeway-volume traffic onto roads never designed for it.

Balboa Boulevard, White Oak Avenue, and Hayvenhurst Avenue

These north-south connectors link the freeway corridor to the neighborhoods above Ventura. They are wide and signalized, and they carry the heaviest left-turn volume in the area. Left turns across oncoming traffic are the crash type most likely to produce serious injury here, and the one most often disputed.

Residential cut-through traffic

When the 101 backs up, navigation apps route drivers through residential streets that have no shoulders and limited sightlines. Those streets carry children, cyclists, and parked-car obstructions, and the drivers using them are unfamiliar with the area and usually in a hurry.

Which agency responded

Collisions on Encino surface streets are investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department, while crashes on US-101 fall to the California Highway Patrol. That determines where the report lives and how it is obtained, and near the ramps both agencies can hold part of the record.

What to Expect After an Encino Accident

Most people who call have never handled an injury claim before. This is how an Encino case tends to proceed and where ground is quietly lost.

The evidence window is the real deadline

Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 allows two years for most injury claims, but that is seldom what determines the outcome. Business cameras along Ventura Boulevard overwrite within days, parking structure footage is held by private owners with no duty to keep it, and witnesses in a commercial corridor are strangers who become impossible to find after a few weeks.

Where a public entity may be responsible, Government Code section 911.2(a) shortens the deadline to six months.

Identify who investigated

LAPD handles Encino surface streets and the CHP handles US-101. Sending a request to the wrong agency costs weeks, and a crash near a ramp may have produced records in both places.

An early offer is not a compliment

Offers that arrive before treatment is finished are priced on an incomplete medical picture. Accepting one generally closes the claim for good, including for care still ahead of you.

Having an offer reviewed costs nothing, and if the number is fair we will tell you that instead of inventing a dispute.

You can decline a recorded statement

The other driver’s insurer may press for one. You are not required to provide it, and those recordings are regularly used later to argue your injuries were minor or that you contributed to the crash. Your duties to your own insurer under your own policy are separate and do apply.

Once we are retained, that contact comes here instead of to you.

Do not stop treating over cost

Gaps in care are among the first arguments a carrier uses to discount an injury. If the barrier is affording treatment rather than needing it, that is solvable, and the options depend on your coverage.

How long it takes

A clear-liability claim with completed treatment can resolve within months. Disputed fault, ongoing care, or a claim against a public entity takes longer. Settling before the medical picture stabilizes almost always means accepting less than the case is worth, so we prefer to set an accurate expectation at the start.

Insurance coverage questions specific to the Valley

Encino sits in a part of Los Angeles where a single collision often involves drivers insured under very different arrangements: a leased vehicle covered by a corporate policy, a household member driving a car titled to a relative, a delivery driver working under a commercial contract, and a rideshare driver whose coverage depends entirely on the app.

Identifying every applicable policy is a separate exercise from proving fault, and it frequently matters more to the outcome. A clear liability case against a minimally insured driver can be worth less than a contested case against a well-covered one. That is why we map the coverage before making any decision about how hard to push a claim.

Injuries that surface days later

People routinely leave a collision believing they are uninjured, then wake up three days later unable to turn their head. That delay is ordinary physiology rather than exaggeration, but insurers treat any gap between the crash and the first medical visit as evidence that nothing serious happened.

If you felt fine at the scene and do not now, the useful response is to be seen promptly and to describe the full history accurately, including that symptoms developed over days. What damages a claim is not the delay itself but an incomplete record that never explains it.

What we need from you at the start

Very little, in practice. The police report number if one exists, photographs if you took any, your own insurance declarations page, and the names of anyone who saw what happened. If you do not have those, we can usually obtain them.

What matters far more than paperwork is an accurate account of what you felt and when. The medical record is built on that history, and it is the part nobody else can reconstruct later.

Why Encino Clients Choose Yaghmai Law Firm

Encino clients work with Yaghmai Law Firm because it is responsive, multilingual, runs on contingency for personal injury matters, and operates entirely remotely. Houtan Yaghmai personally handles every case from intake through resolution, in English, French, and Persian, with Spanish interpreters as needed.

Encino clients often reach out after weeks of calls to an adjuster who keeps asking for one more document. This is a small practice by choice. Houtan Yaghmai handles every case personally from the first conversation through resolution, so nobody is passed to a case manager and nobody repeats their history to a new voice each time.

The firm operates remotely. For an Encino client that means no drive down Ventura, no parking structure, and no time away from work to sit in a waiting room. Documents are signed electronically and updates arrive by phone or text on a schedule shaped around your treatment and your job.

Conversations happen in English, French, or Persian, with Spanish interpreters arranged when needed. For many families in this part of the Valley, discussing a serious injury in their first language is the difference between following their case and merely receiving updates about it. Injury matters run on contingency, so there is no fee unless there is a recovery.

“After a serious accident, the calls and paperwork start before you have even stopped hurting. I take all of that off you so you can focus on the people who matter.”

— Houtan Yaghmai, Esq., President & Managing Attorney

You can verify Houtan’s California State Bar license at apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/298487.

Encino Personal Injury FAQ

How long do I have to file an Encino personal injury case?

Two years from the date of the incident under California Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Claims against a public entity (City of Los Angeles, LAPD, LA Metro, Caltrans, State of California) must be presented in writing within six months under Government Code section 911.2.

Will my case be filed in Van Nuys court?

Most south Valley civil cases, including Encino, Tarzana, and Sherman Oaks cases, are filed at the Van Nuys Courthouse complex of the Los Angeles Superior Court. Venue can shift if the defendant resides or has its principal place of business elsewhere.

Do I have to come to a Sherman Oaks or Encino office?

No. Yaghmai Law Firm operates remotely. The entire engagement runs by call, text, video, and a secure online portal.

How much does it cost to hire an Encino car accident lawyer?

Nothing upfront. The firm handles personal injury cases on contingency: no attorney fees unless we recover. The case review is free.

My crash was on the 405 or the 101 in Encino. Does that matter?

The substantive law is the same as for surface streets. Freeway crashes typically involve CHP rather than LAPD, which usually means more detailed reports and dashcam evidence. Early evidence preservation matters more on freeway cases.

What if the other driver was uninsured?

Your own UM/UIM coverage under California Insurance Code section 11580.2 generally applies. Most California auto policies include UM by default unless rejected in writing. Encino drivers often carry well above the state minimum, which expands available UM coverage.

What if I was partly at fault?

California follows pure comparative fault under Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault but never eliminated.

What languages does the firm handle?

Houtan speaks English, French, and Persian fluently. The firm uses professional interpreters for Spanish, Armenian, and other languages as needed at no additional cost.

Related Practice Areas

These pages cover the case types Encino clients ask about most. Each links back to the firm’s personal injury hub.

• Personal Injury overview
• Areas Served by Yaghmai Law Firm
• Glendale Personal Injury Lawyer
• Burbank Car Accident Lawyer
• Van Nuys Personal Injury Lawyer
• Los Angeles Car Accident Lawyer
• Los Angeles Motorcycle Accident Lawyer
• Submit Your Case for Free Review

Reviewed by Houtan Yaghmai, Esq., President & Managing Attorney. Admitted to practice law in California (State Bar No. 298487). He represents personal injury and immigration clients statewide.

Last updated: August 13, 2026.