If you or someone with you has hit their head and is showing symptoms right now — loss of consciousness, repeated vomiting, a worsening headache, confusion, slurred speech, seizure, weakness in the limbs, or fluid draining from the nose or ears — call 911 or go to an emergency room. That is a medical question, not a legal one, and it comes first. This page is not medical advice; the Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, and Johns Hopkins Medicine publish far better material on the medical picture than any law firm can.
What follows is the legal side: why a head injury claim in California works differently from other injury claims, what has to be documented, and the deadline rules that apply when an injury affects the injured person’s ability to manage their own affairs.
Key Points
- Get evaluated the same day. Symptoms after a head impact commonly appear later, and a gap between the collision and the first medical record is the most common argument raised against these claims.
- These claims often lack an objective imaging finding, which makes them the hardest injury category to document and the easiest for an insurer to dispute.
- The injured person is frequently the least reliable reporter of their own symptoms. Observations from family and colleagues carry unusual weight here.
- You do not need to have struck your head for a brain injury to occur in a collision.
- California tolls the filing deadline where someone lacked the legal capacity to make decisions when the claim arose — but the bar is high, and the tolling does not extend the deadline for claims against a public entity.
- No page can tell you what a head injury claim is worth.
Why These Claims Are Legally Different
Most injury claims are argued about degree. Head injury claims are frequently argued about existence.
A fracture appears on an X-ray. A milder brain injury often does not appear on standard imaging at all, which means the claim rests on clinical assessment, symptom reporting, and evidence of changed function rather than on a picture. Insurers know this, and the defense is predictable: normal scans, subjective complaints, and some other explanation for the symptoms — stress, sleep, a pre-existing condition, or ordinary life.
The consequence is that these claims are won or lost on documentation built early, and on evidence that most people do not think to gather.
Delayed Symptoms and the Gap Argument
Symptoms after a head impact frequently show up hours or days later. Adrenaline masks a great deal at the scene, and cognitive changes in particular tend to surface once the person tries to return to ordinary demands — work, driving, managing a household.
That delay is medically unremarkable and legally expensive. Every day between the collision and the first medical record is a day an insurer will use to argue the injury came from something else. It is the single most common causation argument in this category.
Two practical consequences. Get evaluated the same day even if you feel fine, and report symptoms as they appear rather than waiting to see whether they resolve. Our page on what to do after a car accident covers the immediate steps, including California’s reporting duties.
The Injured Person Is Often the Worst Historian
This is the point that most distinguishes a head injury claim, and it is barely discussed anywhere.
Where an injury affects memory, concentration, or self-awareness, the person living with it may not accurately perceive or report what has changed. They may insist they are fine. They may not notice that they are losing track of conversations, taking three times as long at tasks, or becoming uncharacteristically short-tempered. In some cases they genuinely cannot notice.
So the most valuable evidence in these claims often comes from other people. A spouse describing what mornings look like now. A manager describing work that used to take an hour. A friend describing someone who stopped going out. Contemporaneous observations from people who knew the person before the collision are harder for an insurer to dismiss than the injured person’s own account, and they are usually never collected because nobody thought to ask.
You Do Not Have to Hit Your Head
A brain injury can occur in a collision without any impact to the head, because rapid acceleration and deceleration move the brain inside the skull. “I never hit my head” is a sentence people say at the scene and to their doctor, and it later gets quoted back at them.
It is worth describing what happened to your body in the collision accurately, and letting a clinician decide what that means.
What Builds the Record
- Prompt evaluation, and follow-through on referrals rather than stopping when the acute phase passes.
- Specialist assessment where symptoms persist. Where cognitive effects are in issue, formal neuropsychological evaluation is often what moves a claim from assertion to evidence.
- Consistent symptom reporting across every provider, so the record does not contradict itself.
- Before-and-after evidence from other people, gathered while recollection is fresh.
- Employment records showing changed duties, reduced hours, errors, or accommodations.
- Specific functional detail rather than general complaint — what can no longer be done, and for how long. The categories California recognises are set out on our pain and suffering page.
Deadlines, and What Happens If Capacity Is Affected
Most California injury lawsuits must be filed within two years of the injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1.
Code of Civil Procedure section 352 provides that where a person entitled to bring an action was, at the time the cause of action accrued, either under the age of majority or lacking the legal capacity to make decisions, the time of that disability is not counted as part of the limitations period.
Three things to understand about that:
- The bar is high. California presumes that people have the capacity to make decisions. A brain injury — even a serious one — does not by itself establish a lack of legal capacity. This is a legal standard about the ability to understand and manage one’s affairs, not a medical diagnosis.
- It does not rescue a claim against a public entity. Section 352 expressly does not apply to actions against a public entity or public employee where a claim has to be presented under the Government Claims Act. So where a city vehicle, a transit agency, or a dangerous roadway may be involved, the much shorter government claim timeline runs regardless of the injured person’s condition. That is a trap in exactly the cases where it matters most.
- Do not rely on it as a plan. Whether tolling applies is decided later, on evidence, by a court. Treating it as a reason to wait is a serious risk.
Claims on your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage carry their own separate requirements.
If Someone Cannot Manage Their Own Claim
Where an injury leaves someone unable to handle a legal matter, California courts can appoint a representative to bring and manage the claim on their behalf, and settlements in those circumstances are subject to court oversight rather than being agreed privately.
Families in this position are usually also dealing with medical decision-making, income loss, and care arrangements at the same time. It is worth getting advice early rather than after a deadline has become urgent.
What Can Be Recovered
Depending on the evidence, the categories that may apply include past and future medical care, rehabilitation and ongoing therapy, lost income, reduced earning capacity, the cost of care and assistance, and non-economic harm including loss of enjoyment of life.
Severe cases involve future costs that have to be projected rather than totalled from bills already received, which is a different evidentiary exercise from an ordinary claim.
What no page can do is tell you what such a claim is worth. Published averages pool cases with nothing in common, and value depends on the documented injury, its effect on work and daily life, the apportionment of fault under pure comparative fault, and the insurance actually available. How claims are valued is covered on our car accident settlements page. Where a collision is fatal, a wrongful death claim follows its own rules.
Head Injuries After a Peninsula Collision
Our office at 15 North Ellsworth Avenue, Suite 105, San Mateo, CA 94401 handles injury claims across San Mateo County, and civil matters for this area are generally heard in the San Mateo County Superior Court. Head injuries arise across the range of collisions we handle, and are often more serious where the person struck was a motorcyclist, a cyclist, or a pedestrian. Where spinal symptoms accompany a head impact, our page on back and neck injury claims covers that overlap. More about the office is on our San Mateo page.
How Vaksman Khalfin Can Help
Our brain injury practice handles these claims from the medical documentation through to resolution: making sure the right assessments happen and are in the record, gathering the before-and-after evidence from people who knew the person, identifying every policy that may apply, protecting the filing deadlines rather than relying on tolling, and dealing with the insurers while a family deals with treatment.
The practice is led by Alan D. Khalfin, admitted in California. We handle injury matters on a contingency-fee basis: there is no upfront attorney’s fee, and attorney’s fees are owed only if we recover compensation for you. Case costs are a separate category from attorney’s fees, and how both are handled is set out in the written fee agreement we go through with you before anything is signed. Initial consultations are free.
To speak with a California personal injury attorney, call 650-250-0705 or schedule a free consultation. Related reading: our California car accident page and our California personal injury guides.
Reviewed by Alan D. Khalfin, Partner and Managing Attorney, Vaksman Khalfin, PC (admitted in California). Last reviewed: 09/08/2026
Frequently Asked Questions
Commonly hours or days rather than immediately, and cognitive symptoms in particular often surface once someone returns to work or ordinary demands. If new or worsening symptoms appear at any point after a head impact, that is a reason to be seen rather than to wait — and any emergency warning sign means calling 911 rather than making an appointment.
Loss of consciousness, repeated vomiting, a worsening or severe headache, increasing confusion or slurred speech, seizures, weakness or numbness in the limbs, and clear fluid or blood draining from the nose or ears are all reasons to call 911 or go to an emergency room. That list comes from medical guidance rather than from us, and the medical institutions publishing on this topic are the better source.
Possibly. Milder brain injuries frequently do not appear on standard imaging, which is why these claims often rest on clinical assessment, specialist evaluation, consistent symptom reporting, and evidence of changed function rather than on a scan. Normal imaging is something an insurer will raise; it is not the end of the question.
Yes. Rapid acceleration and deceleration in a collision can move the brain inside the skull without any direct impact. Describe what happened to your body accurately and let a clinician assess what it means, rather than ruling it out yourself.
There is no reliable average, and a figure would tell you nothing about a specific claim. Published averages combine cases with different injuries, different evidence, different fault apportionment, and different insurance limits. What determines value is the documented injury and its effect on work and daily life, the share of fault assigned, and the coverage available to pay.
Most California injury lawsuits must be filed within two years of the injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. A much shorter timeline applies where a public entity may share responsibility, and claims on your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage carry separate requirements.
Code of Civil Procedure section 352 provides that time spent lacking the legal capacity to make decisions is not counted in the limitations period. Two cautions: California presumes capacity, so a brain injury alone does not establish a lack of it, and the section does not apply where a claim must first be presented to a public entity. It is not something to rely on as a plan.
California courts can appoint a representative to bring and manage a claim on behalf of someone unable to do so, and settlements in those circumstances are subject to court oversight rather than being agreed privately. Getting advice early matters, because the underlying deadlines continue to run.
