Personal injury lawyer help in Salt Lake City, UT

If you live in or near Salt Lake City (population about 192,672) and you were hurt in an accident that was not your fault, this page is the starting point. It explains Utah's personal injury rules as they apply to Salt Lake County residents: the four years filing deadline, the modified comparative negligence (50% bar) rule, how auto insurance works here, where cases are filed and what injured people can recover. It also explains how to request a free claim review.

Our role is simple: you describe what happened in Salt Lake City using the free claim review form, and your request may be shared with participating attorneys or legal services partners who handle that type of matter in Utah. Submitting a request does not hire an attorney, and everything below is general legal information to help you make a decision, not legal advice about your specific situation.

Federal crash records list 119 fatal crashes inside Salt Lake City from 2019 through 2023, in which 125 people died. The yearly count was 15 in 2019, 24 in 2020, 26 in 2021, 33 in 2022 and 21 in 2023; 59% of them happened after dark.

Of the 21 fatal crashes in Salt Lake City in 2023, 8 involved a pedestrian and 8 happened at or near an intersection. Roads with more than one fatal crash in Salt Lake City in 2023: State Route 68 had 5 and I-80 had 3.

Across Salt Lake County, the same records show 362 fatal crashes and 382 people killed over those five years.

A high share of the fatal crashes in Salt Lake City involve pedestrians. Pedestrian claims often turn on where the person was crossing, the lighting and whether the driver should have seen them, so photos taken at the same time of day and any nearby camera footage matter.

Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), final data for 2019 to 2023. FARS counts every crash on a public road in which someone died within 30 days; a crash counts for Salt Lake City when the reporting agency coded it there. Counts for one place are small and swing from year to year, so read them as a picture of local risk, not a forecast.

Different attorneys handle different claims, so identify the type of accident early. Salt Lake City shares its court and its Utah rules with the rest of Salt Lake County; the detailed guides below, apply equally to accidents in Salt Lake City.

• Car Accident claimsCar Accidents
• Truck Accident claimsTruck Accidents
• Motorcycle Accident claimsMotorcycle Accidents
• Pedestrian Accident claimsPedestrian Accidents
• Slip and Fall claimsSlip & Fall
• Workplace Injury claimsWork Injuries & Workers' Comp
• Medical Malpractice claimsMedical Malpractice
• Wrongful Death claimsWrongful Death

Utah generally gives an injured person four years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit (Utah Code § 78B-2-307(3)); medical malpractice is different (two years). Wrongful death claims follow their own deadline, which can differ from the one above. Claims against a city, county, school district or state agency follow separate and often much shorter deadlines. Once the deadline passes, the Salt Lake County District Court will dismiss the case regardless of how clear the fault was, so the practical rule in Salt Lake City is to get legal advice early.

Utah follows modified comparative negligence (50% bar). In plain terms, you can recover only if you were less than 50% at fault, and your award is reduced by your share of fault. Insurance adjusters apply this rule from the first phone call, which is why the way an accident is described and documented in the days after it happens in Salt Lake County has a direct effect on what a claim is worth.

After a car accident in Salt Lake City, your own personal injury protection (PIP) coverage pays initial medical bills and a portion of lost wages regardless of who caused the crash. A lawsuit against the at-fault driver for pain and suffering is available only when injuries meet Utah's serious-injury threshold or costs exceed PIP limits. Minimum required coverage in Utah is 25/65/15.

Lawsuits arising from accidents in Salt Lake City are typically filed in the Salt Lake County District Court, the trial court of general jurisdiction for Salt Lake County, although cases can sometimes be filed where the defendant resides or does business, and claims against out-of-state trucking companies or manufacturers may end up in federal court. Most claims settle before trial, but the credible ability to try a case in Salt Lake County is what moves insurers to pay fair value.

Employees injured on the job in Salt Lake City are generally covered by Utah workers' compensation, administered through the Utah Labor Commission. Report the injury to your employer within 180 days — that notice deadline is short and missing it can end the claim before it starts — then file the formal claim within six years from the accident to apply for a hearing on disability benefits (Utah Code § 34A-2-417), with medical bills submitted within one year. Workers' compensation does not pay for pain and suffering, so when a third party such as a subcontractor, driver or equipment manufacturer caused the injury, a separate personal injury claim is often worth pursuing alongside it.

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