Peerali Law has recovered over $50 million for injury clients since 2021, including a $16.3 million premises liability settlement. The boutique Los Angeles firm is focused on catastrophic injury claims: brain and spinal cord trauma, paralysis, amputation, and wrongful death. Founding partners Kristopher Peerali (CA Bar No. 322090) and Serena Peerali lead every case directly. Free consultation, no fee unless the firm recovers compensation.
Do You Have a Catastrophic Injury Case?
A catastrophic injury is one you live with for the rest of your life: The treatment might ends, but the injury’s impact doesn’t.
That distinction carries more weight than it sounds.
A broken femur is serious, painful, and slow to heal—but most people walk again. A severed spinal cord is a different event. So is a brain injury that takes your concentration, your temper, or your ability to hold a job.
At Peerali Law we treat an injury as catastrophic when it involves one or more of the following:
- Permanent loss of function—mobility, sensation, cognition, or use of a limb
- Neurological damage, including traumatic brain injury
- Spinal cord trauma causing paralysis or long-term impairment
- Amputation, or crush injuries requiring reconstruction
- Severe burns, disfigurement, or injuries needing repeated surgeries
- Organ damage with lasting systemic effects
- Any injury that prevents a return to your previous work or independence
The financial picture is what sets these cases apart. A standard injury claim covers treatment that has happened. A catastrophic claim has to account for decades of care that hasn’t—surgeries, equipment, home modification, lost earnings, and the cost of someone helping you live. Get that projection wrong at settlement and there is no second attempt.
If you’re reading this for someone else—a parent, a partner, a child in an ICU—the same applies.
We handle catastrophic claims involving:
Not sure whether your case fits? Tell us what happened and an attorney will tell you where you stand. The review is free and carries no obligation.
Catastrophic injury results we’ve secured
Peerali Law has recovered over $50 million for injury clients since 2021. The results below are settlements the firm has obtained in catastrophic and complex injury matters in Los Angeles and across California.
$16.3 million premises liability settlement
Peerali Law secured a confidential $16.3 million settlement in a premises liability case, the firm’s largest recovery to date. Kristopher Peerali led the matter.
The settlement was named a Top 10 Premises Liability Settlement in California for 2025 by TopVerdict, and a Top 20 Personal Injury Settlement in California in the same year. Terms are confidential at the client’s request.
$968,000 settlement after a disputed damages cap
Peerali Law recovered $968,000 for a passenger injured in a medical transport vehicle collision. The client suffered severe arm fractures and permanent loss of sensation.
The defense argued compensation should be limited to $250,000 because the injury occurred during medical transport. Peerali Law disputed that the limit applied, developed the evidence, and recovered the full policy limits from both the employer’s insurer and the driver’s personal policy.
This is what case classification is worth. How an injury is characterized determines which rules apply and what a claim is worth. That analysis happens early, and it is difficult to undo later.
Further Results
- $5.2 million—pedestrian accident, Los Angeles
- $1 million—rideshare driver injured in a rear-end collision
- $750,000—severe leg injury at a short-term rental property
- $300,000—multi-car pile-up, Los Angeles
- $300,000—scooter rider injured in Sacramento
More outcomes are listed on our case results page.
Every case is different. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. This is not legal advice or a promise of results.
How much is a catastrophic injury case worth in California?
The value of a catastrophic injury case in California depends on what the rest of your life will cost.
No attorney can value your claim from a web page, and any figure quoted before the evidence is gathered is a guess. What we can tell you is what a claim is built from, and where most of the money in a catastrophic case actually sits.
It is rarely the medical bills you have already received. It is the decades that follow.
Four things drive the number: the permanence of the injury, your age and earning capacity, the cost of care over your lifetime, and the strength of the evidence proving who caused it. Insurance policy limits and the number of liable parties set the practical ceiling.
Economic damages
Economic damages cover measurable financial loss, past and future.
- Medical treatment received to date, including emergency care, surgery, and hospitalization
- Projected future treatment, surgeries, and rehabilitation
- In-home nursing, attendant care, or residential care
- Adaptive equipment—wheelchairs, prosthetics, communication devices, vehicle modification
- Home modification, including ramps, widened doorways, and lift systems
- Lost income from the date of injury
- Lost earning capacity, where the injury limits what you can earn for the rest of your working life
Future cost is where catastrophic cases are won or lost. A settlement that covers today’s bills and nothing else leaves the client funding their own care within a few years. Once a case settles, it cannot be reopened because the projection was too low.
Non-economic damages
Non-economic damages compensate for harm that has no invoice—physical pain, emotional suffering, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, and the effect on your relationship with your spouse or family.
California places no statutory cap on non-economic damages in ordinary negligence claims. (Medical malpractice claims are treated differently under Micra as amended by AB 35, and are capped.)
These damages often exceed the economic figure in a catastrophic case. Proving them takes evidence, not adjectives.
Punitive damages
Punitive damages are available in California where a defendant acted with malice, oppression, or fraud according to Civil Code § 3294.
They are not awarded in most injury cases. Where the conduct was egregious—a company that knew about a defect, a property owner who ignored repeated warnings—they can change a case entirely.
How we prove what a case is worth
Peerali Law builds the damages model with the same experts the defense will use to attack it.
A certified life care planner projects the care you will need and what it will cost over your lifetime. A forensic economist converts lost earnings and future costs into present value. Treating physicians and medical experts establish permanence and prognosis. Where liability is disputed, we work with accident reconstruction specialists and private investigators to prove how the injury happened.
This is the work that separates a catastrophic claim from a standard injury claim, and it is expensive to do properly. Peerali Law funds it. You pay nothing for it unless we recover compensation.
If you want an assessment of your own case, an attorney will review it for free.
What California Law Says about Catastrophic Injury Claims
California has no single statute that defines “catastrophic injury” for a personal injury claim.
The term is a practical one. It describes injuries that permanently change what a person can do, and it signals a case that will turn on future costs rather than past bills. Courts and attorneys use it. The Civil Code does not define it.
That matters because the label does not create the claim. What governs your case is ordinary California negligence law—and the deadlines, fault rules, and evidence standards that apply to any injury claim, applied to a far larger set of damages.
How long you have to file
California gives most injury victims two years from the date of injury to file a lawsuit (California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1). Miss it and the claim is barred, however strong it was.
Several exceptions shorten or extend that:
- Claims against a public entity—a city, county, transit authority, or school district—generally require a written claim within six months (California Government Code § 911.2). This catches people out.
- Injured minors have the deadline paused until they turn 18 (CCP § 352).
- Medical negligence runs on a different clock—three years from the date of injury or one year after the plaintiff discovers the injury (CCP § 340.5).
- Delayed discovery—where the injury or its cause was not reasonably discoverable at the time.
In a catastrophic case the deadline arrives while you are still in treatment. The medical picture may not be settled for years, but the filing clock does not wait for it. That is one reason to speak to an attorney early, even if you are not ready to make a decision.
Being partly at fault does not end your claim
California follows pure comparative negligence. If you were partly responsible for the accident, your compensation is reduced by your share of fault—but it is not eliminated.
A claim worth $2 million where the injured person bears 20% of the blame may reover $1.6 million. Even a majority share of fault leaves a recoverable claim.
Insurers know this and use it. Assigning you fault is the cheapest way to reduce what they pay, which is why the investigation matters as much as the medicine.
Where “catastrophic” does appear in California law
The term has statutory meaning in specific contexts outside ordinary injury claims.
California Labor Code § 4662 identifies certain injuries—including total blindness, total paralysis, and severe brain injury—as presumptively permanent for workers’ compensation purposes. Medical assessment of permanent impairment commonly references the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment.
These are not the rules that govern a civil claim. They are useful because they reflect how the medical and legal systems already categorize the severity of an injury.
More detail: the legal definition of catastrophic injury under California law.
How We Build a Catastrophic Injury Case
Catastrophic cases are built in a different order to standard injury claims. The evidence that decides them—what your care will cost for the rest of your life—does not exist yet when you first call us. It has to be created.
Here is how the work runs.
1. Free case review
You speak to an attorney, not an intake screener. We ask what happened, what your injuries are, and what treatment you are having. If we think you have a claim, we say so. If we don’t, we say that too.
No cost, no obligation, and nothing you tell us affects your ability to pursue the claim elsewhere.
2. Investigation and liability
We move on evidence before it degrades. Scene photographs, surveillance footage, vehicle data, maintenance records, and witness accounts all have a short shelf life, and some of it is held by the party we will be suing.
Where liability is contested, we bring in accident reconstruction specialists and private investigators. We also identify every party who may be responsible—a driver, an employer, a property owner, a manufacturer, a public entity—because the number of liable parties often determines how much insurance is available.
3. Medical documentation
We work with your treating physicians and, where needed, independent medical experts to establish the full extent of the injury and its prognosis. What matters legally is not just what you have suffered, but what is permanent.
This stage takes time, and rushing it costs money. Insurers frequently make an early offer while the medical picture is still incomplete. The offer looks reasonable against today’s bills. It rarely survives contact with a life care plan.
4. Building the damages model
A certified life care planner projects the treatment, equipment, and care you will need across your lifetime and assigns costs to each. A forensic economist converts that projection, plus lost earning capacity, into present-day value.
This is the document that carries a catastrophic case. It is also the document the defense will attack, which is why it has to be built by qualified experts rather than estimated.
5. Negotiation
With liability established and damages documented, we present the claim to the insurers and negotiate. Most cases resolve at this stage.
You decide whether to accept. We give you our assessment and the reasoning behind it, but the decision is yours, and we will not pressure you toward a number you are not comfortable with.
6. Litigation and trial
If the offer does not reflect what the case is worth, we file suit. Cases proceed through discovery, depositions, expert exchange, and mediation, and a proportion settle at each stage.
A firm that will not try a case has less leverage in negotiating one. Both founding partners try cases.
How Long Does it Take to Get a Settlement?
Catastrophic cases generally take longer than standard injury claims, because the damages cannot be quantified until the medical picture stabilizes. A straightforward matter may resolve in months. A disputed liability case that goes to trial can take years.
We will give you a realistic estimate once we understand your case, and update it as things develop.
Start with a free case review and an attorney will explain how your case is likely to run.
What Does it Cost to Hire Peerali Law?
Peerali Law works on contingency. You pay nothing upfront, and you owe us nothing unless we recover compensation for you.
Contingency fees in personal injury cases across the United States generally run between 33% and 40%, and commonly increase if a case proceeds to trial. Some firms also charge case expenses back to the client, or add fees that were not made clear at the outset.
We put the terms in writing before you sign. Your fee agreement states what the fee is, what happens if the case goes to trial, and how expenses are handled. If anything in it is unclear, ask us before you sign it—that is what the agreement is for.
Catastrophic cases are expensive to run. Life care planners, economists, accident reconstruction specialists, and medical experts all have to be paid, and that happens long before any recovery.
Peerali Law funds those costs as the case proceeds.
One client described the fee side of working with us this way:
“I am very happy with the settlement results… Peerali Law firm also did not charge me extra money as agreed upon in the retainer contract. They honored to stay at their minimum fee which meant a lot to me.”
— L.F., Yelp review
This review reflects one client’s experience. Every case is different and results vary.
Full details of how we charge are on our legal fees page.
Why Choose a Boutique Law Firm for a Catastrophic Injury Case?
Peerali Law has three attorneys. That is the point.
The largest personal injury firms in Los Angeles employ over a hundred lawyers and several hundred support staff. They run on volume, and volume works for straightforward claims. A catastrophic case is not a straightforward claim, and the thing most likely to reduce its value is nobody senior paying close attention to it.
At Peerali Law a founding partner handles your case. Not a case manager, not a junior associate reporting upward. The attorney you speak to in your first call is the attorney who negotiates your settlement.
What close attention is worth
A client came to us after another firm had handled his claim. He had been injured in a multi-car collision, and his attorney had secured an offer of $74,000 from the insurer.
Kristopher Peerali took the case on. He re-examined how the injuries had been classified, documented the full extent of the damages—future medical costs, loss of earning capacity, and emotional harm—and settled the case for $300,000 within three weeks.
The facts had not changed. The work had.
Every case is different. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
The attorneys handling your case
Kristopher Peerali (CA Bar No. 322090) is a co-founding partner and led the firm’s $16.3 million premises liability settlement, named a Top 10 Premises Liability Settlement in California for 2025 by TopVerdict. He sits on the board of Consumer Attorneys of California and has published in Advocate Magazine and the California Litigation Review. He represented Fortune 500 companies before moving to plaintiff work.
Serena Peerali (CA Bar No. 303260) is a co-founding partner and a trial lawyer. She was recognized for a Top 100 Personal Injury Settlement in the United States in 2020, completed the CAALA Plaintiff’s Trial Academy, and has published in the Daily Journal and Advocate Magazine. Her practice includes medical negligence.
Ali Hosseini (CA Bar No. 316470) is a personal injury lawyer at the firm and a Super Lawyers Rising Star for 2026. He trained through the Trial Lawyers College Gerry Spence Method and has published in OCTLA’s The GAVEL.
What our clients say
Peerali Law is one of the highest-rated personal injury firms in Los Angeles, with 100+ five-star client reviews across Google and Yelp.
The firm has recovered over $50 million for clients since 2021 and works from an office in Hollywood Hills. Consultations are free. Hablamos español.