Personal Injury

A serious injury upends everything at once. Suddenly there are medical bills you never planned for, time away from work, pain that does not let up, and an insurance company calling before you have even left the hospital — not to help you, but to close your claim for as little as possible. You did not choose this, and you should not have to face the people responsible, and their insurers, on your own.

Boyadzhyan Legal Shield represents injured people and grieving families throughout Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Founding attorney Knarik Boyadzhyan is a former Deputy Public Defender who began her career as a paralegal in the United States Department of Justice's Violent and Organized Crime Section, and she has represented injured clients in claims arising from auto collisions, premises liability, and other serious-injury matters. That courtroom background matters in an injury case, because insurers pay the most to lawyers who are genuinely prepared to try a case rather than simply settle it.

This is the firm's top-level personal injury page. Below you will find the specific kinds of cases we handle — car, truck, motorcycle, and pedestrian accidents, wrongful death, slip-and-fall and premises liability, dog bites, and traumatic brain injury — along with how fault and compensation actually work in California, the deadlines that can end a claim before it begins, and how to deal with the insurance company. Each linked page goes deeper on its subject; this one is the map.

We handle personal injury cases on a contingency basis: you pay no attorney's fee unless we recover for you, and the initial consultation is always free. That means strong representation is available no matter your financial situation, and our interests are aligned with yours from the first day — we are paid only if we win. We never promise a particular result, because no honest lawyer can, but we do promise a case built carefully on your facts and pursued with real preparation.

After an injury you can, in theory, handle a claim yourself — and the insurance company would often be delighted if you did. The reason has nothing to do with your intelligence and everything to do with the imbalance of the fight. On the other side is a company that resolves thousands of claims a year, with adjusters, defense lawyers, and a financial incentive to pay you as little as possible. On your side, unrepresented, is one person trying to recover from an injury while learning the system for the first time. A personal injury lawyer exists to level that field.

The most important practical reason to hire counsel is the contingency fee. You pay no attorney's fee up front and no fee at all unless we recover for you; our fee is a percentage of what we win. That structure does two things. First, it puts a prepared advocate within reach regardless of your bank account — you are not choosing a lawyer based on what you can afford to pay hourly. Second, it aligns our interests with yours: we are paid more only when you recover more, so we are motivated to build the case fully rather than settle it cheaply to move on.

A lawyer also changes what the claim is worth. Studies and everyday experience in this field point the same way: represented claimants tend to recover more, even after fees, because a lawyer knows how to value a case properly, how to prove the future costs that insurers ignore, and how to refuse a lowball offer credibly. We take the insurer's calls and paperwork off your plate, protect you from tactics like the early recorded statement, and let you concentrate on healing. And because we prepare each case as if it may go to trial, the insurer knows a fair settlement is the cheaper path for them — which is exactly the leverage that produces one.

Nearly every personal injury case turns on negligence — the legal idea that a person who fails to use reasonable care, and thereby injures someone, must pay for the harm. California's foundational negligence rule is set out in Civil Code § 1714, which provides that everyone is responsible for injuries caused to another by their want of ordinary care. To recover, you generally must show that the other party owed you a duty of care, breached it, and caused your injuries, and that you suffered real damages as a result. Proving each of those links, with evidence rather than assertion, is the heart of an injury case.

California follows a rule called pure comparative negligence, and it is unusually favorable to injured people. Under it, being partly at fault does not bar your recovery — it only reduces it by your percentage of fault. If a jury finds your damages are $100,000 but that you were 20% responsible, you still recover $80,000. Even a person found mostly at fault can recover the portion attributable to the other side. This is why insurers work so hard to pin blame on you: every percentage point of fault they can shift is money out of your recovery. Rebutting that fault-shifting is a core part of what we do.

The compensation itself, called damages, falls into two broad categories. Economic damages are your measurable, out-of-pocket losses — past and future medical treatment, lost wages, lost earning capacity, property damage, and related costs — and California tort law (Civil Code § 3333) entitles an injured person to the amount that will compensate for all the detriment caused. Non-economic damages cover the harms that have no receipt: pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, and the loss of life's enjoyment. There is no fixed formula for pain and suffering; its value is argued from the severity and permanence of the injury, the length and difficulty of recovery, how the injury has changed your daily life and relationships, and the credibility of the whole picture. Presenting that human story persuasively, and documenting the economic losses precisely, is what separates a full recovery from a discounted one.

Every injury claim runs against a clock, and in California the clock is unforgiving. For most personal injury cases, the statute of limitations is two years from the date of the injury under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. If you do not file a lawsuit within that window, the court will almost always throw the case out no matter how clearly the other side was at fault — the strength of your claim cannot revive a deadline you have already missed. A related deadline, three years, generally applies to claims for damage to personal property under Code of Civil Procedure § 338.

There is a critical exception that catches people off guard. When a government entity may be responsible — a city or county vehicle, a dangerous public road or intersection, a transit bus, or a hazard on public property — you generally must first file a formal written claim directly with that entity within just six months of the injury under Government Code § 911.2, before any lawsuit is possible. This is a separate, much shorter deadline than the two-year rule, and missing it can end an otherwise strong case. Because so many Valley collisions involve public streets and public vehicles, this six-month rule comes up more often than people expect.

A few situations can shorten, lengthen, or pause these periods — injuries to minors, injuries not reasonably discovered right away, and certain other circumstances can change the analysis — but none of that is safe to assume without advice. The practical takeaway is simple: the deadlines are real, some are surprisingly short, and evidence degrades long before any deadline arrives. Talking to an attorney promptly is the only reliable way to be sure your claim is protected. This is general information about California deadlines, not legal advice about the timing of your specific case.

After an accident, the other side's insurance company will often contact you quickly, and it is important to understand what that call is really for. The adjuster is friendly, but their job is to protect the insurer's money, not to make you whole. Two tactics show up again and again: a fast, low settlement offer made before anyone knows how serious your injuries are, and a request for a recorded statement in which an offhand answer — 'I'm feeling okay,' 'I didn't see them' — can be replayed later to cut your claim. You are generally not required to give the other driver's insurer a recorded statement, and it rarely helps you to do so.

The early offer is the most common trap. Serious injuries reveal themselves over time; a back or neck injury or a concussion can worsen for weeks, and future treatment often costs far more than the first bills suggest. If you accept a quick check, you almost always sign a release that ends the claim forever — and you cannot come back when the next surgery or the lasting symptoms arrive. Once we are involved, we handle communications with the insurer directly, so you are not navigating recorded statements, blame-shifting, or pressure to settle while you are still hurt and still healing.

The most reliable way to protect your claim is straightforward: get medical care and follow through on it, keep records and photos, be careful about what you post on social media (insurers do look), and avoid giving statements or signing anything before you have talked to a lawyer. Then let counsel deal with the adjusters. Because we prepare each case for the possibility of trial, insurers know that undervaluing it carries a real risk for them — and that is what moves a claim toward the full value your injuries actually warrant.

Boyadzhyan Legal Shield is based in Encino on Ventura Boulevard and represents injured people throughout the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles — Encino, Sherman Oaks, Tarzana, Van Nuys, Woodland Hills, Studio City, Northridge, and the surrounding communities. We know these streets: the crowded stretches of Ventura Boulevard, the on-ramps and interchanges of the 101 and the 405, and the surface-street corridors where so many of the Valley's collisions and pedestrian injuries happen.

If your injury case goes to court, a San Fernando Valley civil matter is generally heard at the Van Nuys Courthouse, which handles civil cases for much of the Valley. Familiarity with the local court — how cases move, how the Valley's juries tend to see these disputes, and how the defense insurers operating in this area behave — is an advantage that a downtown-only or out-of-area firm cannot offer. We litigate in Van Nuys and the surrounding Los Angeles County courts, and that local command shapes how we build and value a case from the very start.

Working from a single Encino office keeps the firm close to the courts, the clients, and the communities it serves. Whether your injury happened in the Valley or elsewhere in Los Angeles County, you work directly with the attorney handling your case — not a rotating cast of case managers — and you get counsel who knows the terrain, treats you as a person rather than a file, and is genuinely available when you have a question. Consultations are free, we advance the costs of building your case, and you owe no attorney's fee unless we recover for you.