NW Injury Law Center
Tacoma Personal Injury Lawyer
Trial attorneys representing injured people in Tacoma and across Pierce County.
NW Injury Law Center represents people injured in Tacoma and throughout Pierce County. Our trial attorneys handle car and truck collisions, motorcycle crashes, pedestrian and bicycle injuries, dog bites, injuries on unsafe property, and wrongful death claims. The firm has practiced for more than forty-five years, works on a contingency fee, and offers free consultations. Call (360) 695-1624.
Tacoma sits at a junction of heavy traffic. Interstate 5 runs straight through the city and carries the freight moving in and out of the Port of Tacoma; State Route 16 feeds the Narrows Bridge and the peninsula; and State Route 7 and Pacific Avenue carry dense local traffic through south Tacoma. The crash patterns follow the roads, and the claims that follow them regularly involve commercial vehicles and multiple insurers.
Injury cases we handle in Tacoma
- Car and auto collisions, the largest share of the claims we take
- Truck and commercial vehicle crashes, where federal carrier rules and several corporate defendants change how a claim is built
- Motorcycle collisions
- Pedestrian injuries and bicycle crashes
- Dog bites and animal attacks
- Slip and fall and other injuries on unsafe property
- Traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries
- Wrongful death claims
Tacoma car and auto accident claims
After a collision in Tacoma the practical questions are the same ones we hear every day: who pays for treatment now, what happens about the wages being missed, and whether the adjuster calling is on your side. They are not.
Personal Injury Protection. Washington insurers must offer PIP, and unless you rejected it in writing your own policy carries it. It pays medical treatment regardless of who caused the collision, which matters in the first weeks while fault is still being argued about.
Underinsured motorist coverage. Under RCW 48.22.030 no auto liability policy may be issued in Washington without underinsured motorist coverage unless the insured rejected it in writing, and the statute treats a driver with no insurance at all, a hit-and-run driver and a phantom vehicle within the same coverage. This is what responds when the at-fault driver carries the state minimum of $25,000 and your injuries are worth many times that. Checking it is one of the first things we do.
The recorded statement. The other driver’s insurer will ask for one early. You are not required to give it, and answers about how you felt in the first days are routinely used later to argue an injury was minor. See our page on whether you have to give a recorded statement.
How long do you have to file an injury claim in Washington?
Three years from the date of injury for most Washington personal injury claims under RCW 4.16.080. Wrongful death runs on its own three-year clock.
Claims against a public body run differently and much sooner. If a city, a county, a transit agency, a school district or the state is a potential defendant, Washington requires a formal tort claim to be filed and a waiting period observed before any lawsuit. Given how much of Tacoma traffic involves public roads, public vehicles and transit, that possibility is worth checking early rather than at the end.
These are outside limits, not targets. Vehicle data, surveillance footage and witness memory all degrade long before three years, and in claims involving a commercial carrier some federal records may lawfully be destroyed six months after the crash.
What if you were partly at fault?
You can still recover. Washington follows pure comparative negligence under RCW 4.22.005: contributory fault reduces your compensation in proportion to your share, but it does not bar recovery. A claim worth $100,000 where you carry thirty percent of the fault returns $70,000.
This is more generous than Oregon, where passing the halfway point ends the claim entirely, and it is worth knowing because insurance adjusters do not volunteer it. An early suggestion that you were partly to blame is a negotiating position, not a legal conclusion, and it is frequently made before anyone has reviewed the police report or the vehicle data.
Where Tacoma injury cases are filed
Injury lawsuits arising in Tacoma are filed in Pierce County Superior Court, at the County-City Building in downtown Tacoma. Smaller claims may be heard in Pierce County District Court, and cases involving a federal question or parties in different states can end up in federal court in Tacoma instead.
Where a case is filed affects timing and the jury pool, and it is decided at the start rather than adjusted later, so it is worth getting right. We also represent injured people throughout Washington state, including Tacoma, Pasco and Pullman, and across the river in Oregon.
Tacoma personal injury questions
Who are the personal injury attorneys serving Tacoma, WA?
NW Injury Law Center represents injured people in Tacoma and Pierce County. The firm has practiced personal injury law in Washington for more than forty-five years, handles car, truck, motorcycle, pedestrian, premises and wrongful death claims, works on a contingency fee, and gives free consultations.
What does a Tacoma auto accident attorney cost?
Nothing up front. We work on a contingency fee, meaning the fee is a share of what we recover and there is no fee if we recover nothing. Case costs such as accident reconstruction, records and expert testimony are advanced by the firm rather than billed to you as the case goes along.
Do I have to give the insurance company a recorded statement?
Not to the other driver’s insurer. You generally do have a duty to cooperate with your own insurer, which is a different thing. Before giving any statement it is worth a short conversation with a lawyer, because the questions are designed to narrow the claim and the answers are permanent.
How long will my case take?
It depends mostly on your treatment. Settling before your doctors understand the long-term picture means guessing at what the injury is worth, and the guess rarely favors the injured person. Straightforward claims can resolve within months of treatment stabilizing; serious injuries, disputed fault and commercial defendants take longer.
Do you handle cases outside Pierce County?
Yes. We take injury cases across Washington and Oregon, and much of our work comes from outside our immediate area. The same attorneys and the same fee structure apply wherever the injury happened.