Of course they’re blaming you. That’s what people do after an accident. Nobody wants to be the one who caused it.
But here’s what you need to understand: what the other driver says at the scene doesn’t decide anything. What their insurance company says doesn’t decide anything either. Fault is determined by evidence — and in California, even if you do share some of the blame, you can still get paid.
So before you panic, let’s walk through how this actually works.
A lot of states will bar you from recovering anything if you’re more than 50% responsible for the crash. California isn’t one of them.
California follows pure comparative negligence, a rule the state Supreme Court established in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. back in 1975. It works like this:
Your compensation is reduced by whatever percentage of fault a jury assigns to you — but you’re never completely shut out unless you were 100% responsible.
Real math:
That’s $40,000 you don’t have right now. It matters.
The key legal foundation here is California Civil Code Section 1714, which establishes everyone’s duty to exercise ordinary care. When someone breaches that duty, they’re negligent. When multiple people breach it, the courts divide up responsibility.
This isn’t about truth for the insurance company. It’s about money.
Every point of fault they pile on you is a direct savings for them. If they convince you — or a jury — that you were 40% at fault instead of 15%, they just cut their payout by 25% on the full value of your case. On a $200,000 claim, that’s a $50,000 swing.
That’s their business model. And they’re good at it.
Here’s what their adjusters are trained to do:
Get you on a recorded statement fast. Before you talk to a lawyer. Before you’ve even processed what happened. They’ll ask leading questions designed to get you to say something that sounds like an admission — “I didn’t see them until the last second” or “I probably should’ve been going slower.”
Weaponize the police report. Even though the officer showed up after the crash and based their report on whatever the other driver said. Police reports contain errors all the time — especially when one driver is hurt and can’t give their side of the story at the scene.
Dig into your driving history. Prior tickets, prior accidents, anything they can use to paint you as a risky driver.
Dispute your injuries. Claim they’re pre-existing, exaggerated, or unrelated to this crash.
This is why you never give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurer without talking to a lawyer first. That single piece of advice can be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Not what the other driver tells the cop. Not what the adjuster decides over the phone. Fault comes down to evidence:
At DP Injury Attorneys, we don’t just accept the insurance company’s version of events. We build our own. We’ve taken cases where the police report was against our client, where the other side offered zero before we got involved — and we still recovered full compensation.
Don’t throw in the towel. A police report is one officer’s interpretation of a scene they didn’t witness. They showed up after the crash, talked to whoever was able to talk, and wrote down what they heard. If you were hurt and couldn’t give a full statement — or if the other driver was more persuasive — the report can be skewed.
Police reports can be challenged and contradicted with:
A bad police report makes the case harder, not impossible. We’ve handled plenty of them.
Under California Civil Code Section 1431.2 (Proposition 51), there’s a distinction that affects multi-party cases:
Economic damages — medical bills, lost wages, property damage — each defendant can be on the hook for the entire amount, regardless of their fault percentage. That’s called joint and several liability, and it protects you when one party can’t pay.
Non-economic damages — pain and suffering, emotional distress — each defendant only pays their proportional share.
This matters when there are multiple people at fault. Your attorney makes sure you’re pursuing every liable party and every available source of recovery.
Some firms won’t touch a case where fault is contested. We take those cases head-on. We’ve recovered compensation for clients when the police report was against them, when liability was denied, and when the insurance company’s first offer was literally zero.
We investigate every angle. Gather every piece of evidence. And we don’t let the other driver’s narrative go unchallenged.
The other driver can say whatever they want. The evidence tells the real story. And we know how to find it.
Contact us for a free consultation. No fee unless we win. Let’s get your side of the story heard.
Arthur Paul D’Egidio is the Managing Partner of DP Injury Attorneys, a San Diego personal injury law firm. With more than 12 years of experience in California injury law, he has dedicated his practice to representing clients in a wide range of personal injury matters, including car accidents, workers’ compensation, slip and falls, catastrophic injury, and wrongful death cases.
Arthur received his Juris Doctor from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law and is a member of the State Bar of California as well as the San Diego County Bar Association. He has received numerous accolades for his work, including being named a Super Lawyer for seven straight years by Thomson Reuters and a “Top 40 Under 40” by the National Trial Lawyers.
