Injured because someone else was careless?

DeRosa Law Firm concentrates its practice on employment law. Taylor DeRosa also represents a limited number of people in serious injury matters, handled the same way: personally, from intake through resolution.

He is a sole practitioner. No case manager sits between you and the attorney.

Matters are handled in Orange County Superior Court, and in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, or Riverside Superior Court where the defendant sits there.

Two years from the date of injury for most negligence claims, under Code of Civil Procedure §335.1. Some claims run on different clocks, including certain professional negligence matters and contractual windows in insurance disputes.

The government-claim rule catches people constantly: a collision with a city vehicle, a fall on public property, an injury on a bus or at a public hospital. It is a formal written presentation to the entity, not a phone call.

There is no formula, and any figure quoted before the medical picture is clear is a guess. What drives value:

Non-economic damages (pain, lost function, and the things you stopped doing) are recoverable in California, and they are what an insurer works hardest to shrink.

California follows pure comparative negligence, adopted in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975). Being partly responsible does not bar recovery; it reduces it in proportion to your share of fault. A person found 30 percent at fault may recover 70 percent of proven damages. Assigning you a percentage is a routine part of how insurers build an offer.

If you were hurt on the job, workers’ compensation is generally the exclusive remedy against your employer under Labor Code §3600. It pays medical treatment and disability benefits without proof of fault, and does not pay for pain and suffering.

A separate personal injury claim may still exist against someone who is not your employer: a negligent driver, a property owner, a contractor on the site, or a manufacturer of defective equipment. Those third-party claims run alongside a comp claim.

There is also an employment dimension people miss. Being fired, demoted, or pushed out after reporting an injury, filing a workers’ compensation claim, or raising a safety concern can be unlawful retaliation under Labor Code §132a, §6310, and §1102.5. The injury claim and the retaliation claim are separate matters, and the second has its own deadline.

Taylor DeRosa takes a limited number of injury matters, personally, alongside an employment practice built on trial work.

In employment litigation, a separate practice area from personal injury, he obtained a $41,098,250 verdict, as trial counsel with Rizio Lipinsky. That result was an employment matter, not a personal injury case, and no personal injury outcome is described on this page.

Every case is different. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome; each result depends on the specific facts and law of that matter.