Encino Personal Injury Lawyer

An injury in Encino usually starts on an ordinary errand. A left turn on Ventura Boulevard, a merge where the 101 meets the 405, a wet floor in a medical building lobby on White Oak. The insurer’s first move is almost always the same: a friendly call, a request for a recorded statement, and a quick offer before anyone knows how serious the injury is.

Manoukian Law Firm is a personal injury firm in Chatsworth, roughly twenty minutes from Encino, and every case is prepared as though it will be tried. That means no case manager relaying messages and no shifting file assignments. It also means the case is prepared from day one as if it will be tried.

What to do in the first week

1. Get medical attention the day of the incident if you can. Encino Hospital Medical Center and Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center are the closest emergency options for most of the area.
2. Make sure a report exists. For surface streets in Encino that generally means the LAPD West Valley Division; for the 101 or the 405 it usually means the California Highway Patrol.
3. Photograph everything before it changes: vehicle positions, skid marks, the hazard on the floor, the lighting, the shoes you were wearing.
4. Write down what happened while it is fresh, including the time, the weather and who was nearby.
5. Ask nearby businesses to preserve video. Most systems overwrite in days, and a written preservation request carries more weight than a phone call.
6. File a DMV form SR-1 within ten days if there was an injury or more than $1,000 in property damage, as Vehicle Code 16000 requires.
7. Talk to an attorney before you give any statement or sign a medical authorization.

Encino injury cases the firm handles

Vehicle claims make up the largest share. We handle car accident cases across the Encino stretch of Ventura Boulevard and the residential grid south of it, and truck accident cases involving commercial vehicles on the 101 and the 405, where hours of service records, maintenance files and electronic logging data are often the strongest evidence and are lost quickly if no one asks for them.

Riders and people on foot are exposed in a way drivers are not. Motorcycle accident claims frequently involve lane splitting, which California law permits under Vehicle Code 21658.1. Bicycle accident cases along Balboa and Hayvenhurst often turn on the three-foot passing rule in Vehicle Code 21760. In pedestrian accident claims, the starting point is Vehicle Code 21950, which requires drivers to yield in both marked and unmarked crosswalks.

Encino has a dense concentration of medical offices, restaurants and apartment buildings, and injuries there are governed by the property owner’s duty of care described in Rowland v. Christian. These cases turn on notice: whether the owner knew or should have known about the hazard and whether it was fixed or warned about in time. We handle slip and fall claims, apartment complex injuries, and hotel injuries on that framework. We also handle dog bite cases, where Civil Code 3342 imposes strict liability on the owner when the bitten person was lawfully in a public or private place, and the bite must be reported to the local health officer with a quarantine that generally runs ten days.

Trips booked through an app raise a coverage question before anything else. In a rideshare accident, the applicable limits depend on the period the driver was in under Public Utilities Code 5433, from 50/100/30 with the app on and no ride accepted, to a $1,000,000 liability policy once the driver is en route or carrying a passenger.

Where Encino cases are heard

Encino sits inside the Los Angeles Superior Court system, and civil injury cases from this area are generally handled in the court’s Northwest district at the Van Nuys Courthouse, with some matters assigned to the North Valley district in Chatsworth. Court assignments and filing rules change, so we verify the correct venue for each case rather than relying on habit.

Most claims never reach a courtroom. They are resolved once the medical picture is complete and the evidence is organized well enough that the value is difficult to argue with. Preparing for trial and settling are not opposite paths. The first makes the second possible.

What can be recovered

California allows recovery of past and future medical expenses, valued as the amounts actually paid or owed under Howell v. Hamilton Meats, along with lost earnings, reduced earning capacity, the cost of future treatment, and non-economic losses such as pain, sleep disruption and the activities you have given up. If a family member died, Code of Civil Procedure 377.60 identifies who may bring a wrongful death claim, and a separate survival action under section 377.30 may also apply.

Head injuries deserve special attention. Symptoms of a traumatic brain injury can appear days later and are easy to attribute to stress or lack of sleep. Consistent documentation by treating physicians, along with a neuropsychological evaluation where appropriate, is what turns a real injury into a provable one.

Working with the firm

Manoukian Law Firm was founded by Vaheh Manoukian, a graduate of the USC Gould School of Law and UCLA who handled depositions and trials at a larger firm before opening his own. The firm belongs to the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles and Consumer Attorneys of California, its founding attorney was selected to the Super Lawyers Rising Stars list for 2027.

Consultations are free and the firm works on contingency, so there is no fee unless we win. The firm helps clients in English, Spanish and Armenian, and meetings can happen by phone, by video, or at the hospital. More detail is on the about page, and the contact page has directions and the intake form.

Frequently asked questions

If you were hurt in Encino, call (818) 818-5031 for a free consultation. The consultation is free, and there is no fee unless the firm recovers for you.