Can a Pedestrian Sue if Hit by a Car?

You stepped off the curb. A driver came through a turn lane in Moses Lake, rolled out of a Kennewick parking lot, or looked at a phone instead of the road on a Spokane side street. The next thing you knew, you were on the ground.

Now you’re home from the hospital with a stack of bills, a swollen ankle, and a voicemail from the driver’s insurance adjuster asking for a quick recorded statement. Somewhere in that conversation, someone has already suggested you crossed where you shouldn’t have, or that you weren’t visible enough at dusk.

The short version: a Washington pedestrian can sue a driver who caused the crash, and the law here is more forgiving on shared fault than most people assume. Our pedestrian accident team works these cases across eastern Washington, with offices in Moses Lake, Spokane, and the Tri-Cities.

A Pedestrian Can Sue a Driver Who Hit Them in Washington

A pedestrian hit by a car in Washington has two paths against the at-fault driver. The first is an insurance claim filed with the driver’s liability carrier, which is usually how a case starts. The second is a lawsuit, filed when the insurer denies the claim, lowballs the offer, or disputes who was at fault.

Most cases resolve through the claim path. The lawsuit is the lever that pushes a stalled negotiation toward a fair number.

There is a third path worth knowing about. If the driver was uninsured or carried minimum coverage that doesn’t come close to the bills, your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage may help cover the gap if that coverage applies and you purchased it or did not reject it. Many drivers don’t realize they carry this protection on their own auto policy even though they were on foot when they were hit, and a lawyer can pull the policy and check.

What You Have to Prove to Win a Pedestrian Injury Claim

A personal injury claim rests on four elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Each one has a plain-language meaning that shapes a pedestrian case.

Drivers owe pedestrians a duty of reasonable care on Washington roads. That means watching for people on foot, slowing down for crosswalks, and staying alert near intersections, parking lots, and side streets.

Breach is the careless act that violated that duty.

Looking at a phone at a Pasco intersection. Rolling through a stop sign in Spokane Valley. Failing to yield to a pedestrian who had the right of way.

Washington law spells out specific pedestrian protections. Under RCW 46.61.235, drivers must yield to pedestrians within a crosswalk, marked or unmarked. RCW 46.61.245 layers on a general duty: drivers must exercise due care to avoid hitting any pedestrian on the roadway. Together, those statutes give a Washington pedestrian a strong starting position when a driver fails to yield.

Causation links the careless act to the injuries. Damages are the losses: medical bills, lost wages, and lasting pain. All four pieces need to be there.

What Happens When the Driver Says You Were Partly at Fault

Being told you share the blame does not end your case here. Washington follows a pure comparative fault system under RCW 4.22.005. If you are found partially responsible for the crash, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but you can still recover damages unless you are 100% at fault.

Say you stepped into the street mid-block on a Moses Lake side road after dark, and the driver who hit you was speeding and looking at a phone. A jury or insurance adjuster might assign you 30% of the fault and the driver 70%. Your recovery drops by 30%, but it does not disappear.

In many other states, that same fault percentage would end the case completely. Washington does not work that way.

Insurers know how the math works. The insurer often opens with a quick offer that bundles a high fault percentage into the number, hoping you accept before talking to a lawyer.

Once that percentage is locked into a signed settlement, it does not change. Getting a lawyer involved before the number is set protects what you can recover, and weighing the fault split is part of what our personal injury team does on every case.

What You Can Recover in a Washington Pedestrian Injury Claim

Damages in a Washington pedestrian case fall into two categories under common law: economic and non-economic. Economic damages cover money already spent or earned. Non-economic damages cover what the injury did to the rest of your life.

A pedestrian claim can include:

• Medical expenses can include emergency care, surgery, rehabilitation, and projected future treatment.
• Lost wages and reduced earning capacity apply when a working pedestrian cannot return to the same job.
• Pain and suffering covers the physical injury and its lasting impact.
• Out-of-pocket costs can include medical equipment, in-home care, and transportation to follow-up appointments.
• Family-based claims may also be available under Washington law, but those depend on the relationship and specific facts.

Each of these has to be backed by records, bills, employer documentation, and medical opinion. The stronger the documentation, the harder the case is to challenge.

Almost every injured pedestrian wonders how pain and suffering gets valued. Insurance companies may use internal formulas or valuation methods when reviewing pain and suffering, but Washington law does not assign non-economic damages a fixed multiplier.

Any number you see online claiming a flat rule is not a Washington legal standard. The value of those damages depends on the evidence, the severity of the injury, and how long the recovery takes.

How Long You Have to File a Pedestrian Injury Lawsuit in Washington

Washington’s general statute of limitations for personal injury is three years from the date of the crash under RCW 4.16.080. For most pedestrian cases, that is the clock you are working against.

A few limited exceptions exist. Washington law can extend the deadline when the injured pedestrian is a minor or legally incapacitated, but those exceptions are narrow and fact-specific. Don’t assume one applies until a lawyer confirms it.

Waiting risks more than the deadline. Evidence disappears fast. Surveillance footage from a Spokane gas station gets overwritten in days, witness memories fade, and vehicle data may be wiped during routine service.

Filing the insurance claim well before the three-year mark gives negotiations time to play out and keeps a lawsuit available as a backup if the insurer won’t move.

Frequently Asked Questions

What If the Driver Who Hit Me Left the Scene?

A hit-and-run does not kill the case. Your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage may help cover the gap if that coverage applies and you purchased it or did not reject it.

Police reports, surveillance footage, and witness tips can still identify a driver weeks later, and the steps you take in the first 48 hours after a hit-and-run can decide whether the driver is ever found.

Who Pays My Medical Bills?

Typically, in Washington, an injured person should look to first-party coverage to pay their medical bills. “First party” means your insurance, as opposed to “third party,” meaning the other person’s insurance. Pedestrian cases are different, however, because if the offending driver has personal injury protection (PIP) coverage, that PIP coverage will cover a pedestrian’s medical bills as though it were the pedestrian’s own insurance. It will be very important, however, that the PIP adjuster and the liability adjuster be different people, since their obligations to the injured party will be different.

What If I Was Hit in a Parking Lot Instead of a Public Road?

A claim is still on the table. Private property does not strip away a driver’s duty to watch for pedestrians, and a low-speed parking lot impact can still cause serious injury.

The fault analysis runs the same way it would on a public road. In some cases, the property owner also shares responsibility, especially when poor lighting, missing signage, or blind corners contributed to the crash.

Will I Have to Go to Court?

Most pedestrian injury claims in Washington settle before anyone files a lawsuit, and most lawsuits settle before trial. Some do not. The early decisions in a case shape both paths, so we prepare each file as if it could go before a jury, even when settlement looks likely from the start.

Get Help Filing a Pedestrian Injury Claim in Eastern Washington

The adjuster who called you has a job to do, and that job is not protecting your recovery. McPartland Law Offices handles personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis, which means you do not pay legal fees unless we recover compensation for you.

Free consultations are available, and our Moses Lake and Spokane offices serve injured pedestrians across eastern Washington, from the Tri-Cities to Spokane Valley. Call McPartland Law Offices at 509-495-1247 or fill out our contact form to tell us what happened.