Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Re: Serving a defendant

The insurance company has no obligation to accept service. You will have to subpoena the insurance company and TRY to get the personal confidential info you need. You can hire a detective agency to try to locate the defendants. You might have to 'publish' service. If you don't get the defendants served, your case will be dismissed. If your case has merit and value, an attorney would generally be willing to take it on contingency. If you've already been told it isn't high enough value to interest attorneys, you'll have to learn how to do everything yourself. If it has value, feel free to contact me.

Re: Serving a defendant

Unfortunately, you cannot serve the lawsuit on the defendant's insurance company yet. There have been recent attempts to pass such a law requiring the insurer to accept service for its insured, but it has not passed the legislature yet. Soon we hope. In addition, the insurance company is not required to voluntarily give you the current address of their insured. It merely adds needless additional expense and delay to an already expensive and time consuming litigation process to have to hunt down and serve the defendant who has no control over whether the insurer settles anyway! The law must be changed to help injured victims obtain prompt, inexpensive justice. Good luck.

Re: Serving a defendant

In Calif. you can't sue the insurance company and because you are the adversary and for privacy reasons, they won't tell you anything or help you. They don't act as agents. If there's a police report, you'll need an atty or a private investigator to run the license plate or drivers license thru DMV for new info.