A catastrophic injury changes your life in ways an ordinary injury claim was never built to measure. If you or someone you love suffered permanent harm in a Tempe crash, fall, or workplace incident, the insurance company is already working to limit what it pays.
A Tempe catastrophic injury lawyer at Hartley Law Car Accident & Injury Lawyers approaches these claims differently, building them around the cost of a lifetime rather than a few months of treatment. We represent people living with spinal cord damage, amputations, severe burns, and multi-system trauma from our office on West Broadway Road. Call (602) 529-2222 to discuss what your situation involves and which options may be available to you.
Catastrophic claims are not ordinary injury claims with larger numbers attached. They involve life care planning, vocational loss, and defense teams that treat every filing as a trial risk.
Before founding this practice, our founding attorney was a partner at one of the world's largest law firms, representing Fortune 500 corporations and professional sports organizations in matters involving more than $1 billion. That preparation now works on behalf of injured people instead of the companies on the other side of the table.
Insurers in these matters rarely deny that an injury occurred. They dispute how permanent it is, how much future care it will require, and how much of the harm can be traced back to the incident. Our preparation is built around answering those three arguments with evidence.
Our Tempe office is at 1438 W Broadway Rd, Suite 101A, keeping the team close to clients, hospitals, and collision sites associated with these claims. If your injury falls outside the catastrophic category, our Tempe personal injury lawyer page covers the broader range of cases we handle.
We take these matters on a contingency-fee basis, and attorney fees are paid from recovery under the signed agreement.
Arizona statutes do not define catastrophic injury as a separate legal category. In practice, the term describes harm that permanently limits what a person can do, earn, or expect from daily life.
Claims in this category commonly involve:
Two related injury types have dedicated pages because they follow different paths for proof and damages. Traumatic brain injury claims turn on neuropsychological testing and long-term cognitive evidence, which our Tempe brain injury lawyer page addresses. When an injury proves fatal, the matter becomes a statutory action brought by surviving family, and our Tempe wrongful death lawyer page explains how those claims work.
The practical test is rarely the diagnosis alone. What matters is whether the injury permanently changes a person's earning capacity, independence, and the level of care they will need going forward.
Arizona is unusual among states, and the difference matters most in exactly these claims. The Arizona Constitution provides that no law shall be enacted limiting the amount of damages recoverable for causing the death or injury of any person, subject to a narrow exception involving felony conduct.
Many states cap non-economic damages at a fixed figure. Arizona does not, so a jury may value a lifetime of pain, lost independence, and diminished quality of life without an artificial ceiling.
That constitutional protection only helps when the losses are documented. Economic damages in these cases typically include:
Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and disfigurement. Insurers rarely contest the emergency room bill. They contest the decades of care that follow, which is where the real value of a catastrophic case sits.
Expect the opposing side to argue that you contributed to what happened. In severe cases, that argument is frequently the insurer's primary strategy for reducing exposure.
Arizona law limits how far it can go. Under A.R.S. § 12-2505, contributory negligence and assumption of risk are questions of fact left to the jury, and applying either defense does not bar the action. Full damages are instead reduced in proportion to the relative degree of the injured person's fault that is a proximate cause of the injury or death.
Someone found 30% responsible therefore recovers 70% of the damages proven rather than nothing. The statute does withhold comparative negligence from anyone who intentionally, wilfully, or wantonly caused or contributed to the injury.
Because a single fault percentage moves the entire recovery, we treat liability evidence as seriously as medical evidence from the first week forward.
Severe injuries produce long hospitalizations, and families often reach out months afterward. The filing clock does not pause for treatment.
A.R.S. § 12-542 requires actions for injuries done to the person of another to be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrues. Missing that deadline generally ends the claim regardless of how strong the underlying evidence is.
A far shorter deadline applies when a public entity may be responsible. Under A.R.S. § 12-821.01, claims against a public entity, public school, or public employee must be filed within 180 days after the cause of action accrues.
The filing must contain facts sufficient to show the basis on which liability is claimed, plus a specific amount for which the claim can be settled. A claim not filed within that window is barred.
Waiting also costs evidence. Vehicle data gets overwritten, businesses recycle surveillance footage, and witness memory fades well inside the two-year window.
That 180-day rule reaches further than most people expect. Government vehicles, public transit, road design, signage, and maintenance may all bring a public entity into a case, which is why we work to identify every potentially responsible party early.
Documentation is what drives value in these claims, and much of it has to be created rather than simply collected. Our work usually begins before the medical picture is complete.
Evidence preservation comes first. Our team secures vehicle data and surveillance footage before they are overwritten and retains accident reconstruction experts when the mechanism of injury is disputed. Medical experts, life care planners, and economists then translate a diagnosis into a documented lifetime cost.
Non-economic loss requires proof as well. Statements from family members, treating therapists, and former coworkers document what independence looked like before the injury and what daily life demands now. Those accounts often carry more weight with a jury than a billing summary does.
Commercial vehicle claims add another layer, because carriers control driver logs, maintenance records, and telematics that disappear on retention schedules. Our Tempe truck accident lawyer page covers how those cases are handled.
Throughout the process, we work with adjusters and defense counsel so families can focus on treatment and adjustment rather than on claim management.
Severity by itself does not decide the question. The distinguishing factor is permanence: whether the injury will continue to affect your independence, earning capacity, and care needs indefinitely rather than resolving with treatment.
A life care planner projects the treatment, equipment, therapy, and personal care required by a specific injury over a lifetime. An economist then converts that plan into present-day figures that can be presented to an insurer or a jury.
Minimum policy limits are often exhausted by a single week of intensive care. Our team looks for additional layers of coverage, including underinsured motorist benefits on your own policy, employer or commercial policies, and other parties who may share responsibility.
Early offers usually arrive before the long-term prognosis is known, and a settlement is generally final. Once a claim has been released, no later complications or additional surgeries can be added to it.
Liability and lifetime cost evidence together carry the most weight. Photographs, vehicle data, witness accounts, and complete medical records all contribute, and the earliest evidence is usually the hardest to recover later. Records showing daily functioning before the injury are valuable, too, and are frequently overlooked.
We handle these cases on a contingency fee basis. Attorney fees are paid from a recovery under the signed agreement, and we go over the specific terms with you before anything is signed.
A catastrophic injury claim is worth what the evidence proves, and evidence is easiest to protect early. If you are weighing whether to move forward, speaking with a Tempe catastrophic injury lawyer costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Call Hartley Law in Tempe at (602) 529-2222, or request a case evaluation to discuss your situation with attorney Matt Hartley and our team. We will review what happened, explain which deadlines apply to your circumstances, and help you understand whether your case should move forward.
Serious injury cases deserve careful evaluation and experienced judgment. Hartley Law PLLC represents clients across Arizona with a focus on strategy, preparation, and personal attention. We review each matter carefully and help you understand whether your case should move forward.
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