Representing Injured Drivers and Passengers in Tacoma

A collision changes your week before it changes your year. The vehicle is the visible problem. The medical bills, the missed shifts, and the adjuster who wants a recorded statement before you have seen a specialist — those arrive later, and they last longer.

Sterbick & Associates has practiced law in Tacoma for more than 29 years. Our office sits blocks from the Pierce County courthouse. Attorney John Sterbick is a second-generation Tacoma attorney, a member of the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA #17805) and the Washington State Association for Justice, and appears in both state and federal court.

Where Tacoma Collisions Happen

Tacoma’s crash burden is not spread evenly across the city. The City of Tacoma’s Vision Zero program — adopted by resolution in 2020 with a target of zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2035 — found that a small fraction of city streets carries most of the harm.

Roughly 70 miles of roadway, about 9.5% of Tacoma’s streets, accounted for 59% of all crashes killing or seriously injuring someone between 2019 and 2023. Pacific Avenue (SR-7) alone accounts for approximately 15% of those crashes. Other corridors repeatedly identified in the city’s high-risk network include South Tacoma Way, Portland Avenue, S 72nd Street, S Yakima Avenue, and McKinley Avenue.

Tacoma lowered its default residential speed limit to 20 mph in January 2023 as part of the same program.

This matters to your claim for a practical reason: corridor safety data, signal timing records, and prior collision history at a specific intersection are all discoverable, and they can bear directly on whether a municipality or a driver bears responsibility.

What We Handle

  • Rear-end, intersection, and lane-change collisions
  • Multi-vehicle pileups on I-5 and SR-16
  • Uninsured and underinsured motorist (UIM) claims against your own policy
  • PIP benefits recovery under RCW 48.22.085
  • Pedestrian and bicycle collisions
  • Hit-and-run and phantom vehicle claims

Washington Rules That Affect Your Tacoma Claim

You have three years. Most injury claims must be filed within three years of the collision under RCW 4.16.080(2). If a city vehicle, transit bus, or government entity is involved, you must first present a standard tort claim form and then wait 60 days before filing suit under RCW 4.96.020.

Partial fault does not end your claim. Washington applies pure comparative negligence under RCW 4.22.005. If you are found 30% responsible, you recover 70%.

There is no cap on pain and suffering. In Sofie v. Fibreboard Corp., 112 Wn.2d 636 (1989), the Washington Supreme Court held that statutory caps on noneconomic damages violate the constitutional right to a jury trial.

After the Settlement — Where We Are Different

Most injury firms close the file when the check clears. Sterbick & Associates is also a tax and bankruptcy practice, which means the problems that surface afterward are handled in the same office:

  • Hospital liens. Providers can lien your recovery under RCW 60.44.010, but those liens are capped by statute at 25% of the total recovery and carry strict filing requirements. We audit each one.
  • Settlement taxability. Compensation for physical injury is generally excluded from income under IRC § 104(a)(2), but punitive damages and interest are not. Allocation should be handled during negotiation.
  • Debt that accumulated while you could not work. If bankruptcy becomes the right answer, you are already in the right office — and Washington’s unlimited bankruptcy exemption for injury proceeds under RCW 6.15.010(1)(d)(viii) can protect your entire recovery when claimed correctly.

Read more on our Personal Injury practice page or our Tacoma office page.