DUI Accident Injury Attorney in South Pasadena, CA

When a drunk or impaired driver injures you, two separate things happen. The state may prosecute the driver for DUI, but that criminal case is about punishment, not about paying you back. Only a civil injury claim recovers compensation for your medical bills, lost income, and pain, and that is the side I handle for you.

The two cases can move in parallel, and a criminal conviction can even help establish the driver's fault in your civil claim. I coordinate with the criminal case wherever it strengthens your recovery.

Drunk-driving cases often begin with unusually strong evidence: police reports, chemical test results, field sobriety findings, and sometimes a guilty plea or conviction. I move quickly to gather and preserve all of it, along with witness accounts and scene evidence, before anything is lost.

Because driving drunk is so reckless, these cases can support punitive damages, an extra award meant to punish the wrongdoing, on top of compensation for your losses. I evaluate whether your case qualifies.

Responsibility may not stop with the driver. Depending on the facts, a business that served an obviously intoxicated minor, an employer, or the owner of the vehicle may share liability, so I look at every possible source of recovery.

California generally gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a Personal Injury lawsuit, and missing that deadline can bar your claim entirely.

A shorter six-month deadline can apply when a government entity is involved, and other exceptions exist. The safest step is to talk with me early so evidence is preserved and no deadline slips by.

California law lets you recover economic damages, your concrete financial losses, and non-economic damages, the human costs that are harder to measure. I make sure every category that applies to your case is counted.