Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
In this guide
These claims arise when a delivery van, a sprinter, a box truck or a courier vehicle strikes a person, a parked car or a bicycle on a Los Angeles street. Which rules apply depends on the vehicle's weight, and who pays depends on the contractor structure behind most last mile routes. Freeway tractor-trailer crashes are on our Los Angeles truck accident lawyer page.
Why the van's weight decides the rules
Gross vehicle weight rating, or GVWR, is the loaded weight the manufacturer specifies for the vehicle. It is printed on a plate in the door frame, and it does not change with what is in the back that day. That number, not the size of the van or the name on its side, decides which set of rules governed the driver who hit you.
49 CFR 390.5 defines a commercial motor vehicle as one used on a highway in interstate commerce with a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more. The definition also reaches a vehicle designed to carry more than eight passengers for compensation, and any vehicle carrying placarded hazardous materials. A commercial driver's license comes in higher up, at 26,001 pounds, under 49 CFR 383.5.
| Vehicle | Commercial motor vehicle? | Federal logs? | Minimum liability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Van rated under 10,001 lbs | No, under 49 CFR 390.5 | No | California 30/60/15 minimum ($30,000 per person, $60,000 per crash, $15,000 property damage) |
| Box truck rated 10,001 lbs or more | Yes, in interstate commerce | Yes, unless short-haul applies | $750,000 if for-hire interstate |
| Straight truck rated 26,001 lbs or more | Yes, and a CDL (commercial driver's license) is required | Yes, unless short-haul applies | $750,000 if for-hire interstate |
Why box trucks often have no logs
A truck does not always mean a logbook, and in local delivery it often does not. 49 CFR 395.1(e)(1) excuses a driver who operates within a 150 air-mile radius of the normal work reporting location and returns to it within 14 consecutive hours from keeping records of duty status, the federal driver's log, at all. A route that starts and ends at a warehouse in the San Fernando Valley or the Inland Empire fits that description almost every day.
The exception does not eliminate records. The same paragraph requires the motor carrier, meaning the trucking company, to keep, for six months, accurate time records showing the time the driver reported for duty each day, the total hours on duty each day, and the time the driver was released. Those are requested by name. So are the things the company keeps for its own reasons: route manifests, handheld scanner timestamps, telematics (the vehicle's own tracking data) and GPS breadcrumbs, and the delivery targets the driver was working against.
Route pressure is provable, and it is usually provable from the company's own systems. A stop count, a scan history and a dispatch clock together show what the day required. That evidence does the work that a falsified logbook does in a long-haul case.
Who actually employed the driver
Last mile delivery is commonly built in tiers. A national retailer or shipping network contracts with a local delivery company, that company hires and pays the drivers, and the vans are often leased or rented rather than owned. The van may carry a brand's colors while the driver's paycheck comes from a business with a dozen employees and a single commercial auto policy.
The first claim is straightforward. If the driver was an employee acting within the scope of employment, that local company answers for the crash. CACI No. 3720, the jury instruction on that point, treats conduct as within the scope when it is reasonably related to the assigned work, or reasonably foreseeable in light of the employer's business. Delivering packages on an assigned route is not a close question.
Reaching the company above it takes a different theory. CACI No. 3704 asks whether that company had the right to control how the work was performed, not only the result. The jury also weighs who supplied the equipment, whether the work was part of the regular business, and how the worker was paid. CACI No. 3709 covers apparent agency, where a defendant carelessly or intentionally created the impression that the worker was its own and the injured person reasonably relied on it. Negligent selection of the contractor is a third route.
When the van is the driver's car
Some deliveries run in personal vehicles, and then the claim behaves like a car crash. Under Vehicle Code section 16056, a California policy issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2025 has to carry at least $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 for two or more, and $15,000 in property damage. One ambulance ride and one MRI can pass $30,000.
If the vehicle belonged to someone other than the driver, Vehicle Code section 17151 caps that owner's imputed liability, meaning liability passed to the owner for the driver's negligence, at $15,000 for one person and $30,000 for more than one. When those numbers run out, the next layer is your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage under Insurance Code section 11580.2. It sits on your policy whether or not you were in your car when you were hit.
Delivery claims that are not truck claims
- A food or grocery app driver in a personal car. That is a rideshare style claim governed by the app's coverage periods, and our Los Angeles Uber accident lawyer page covers how those layers work.
- You were the delivery driver. Workers compensation comes first, and a claim against the other driver or a property owner runs beside it rather than in place of it.
- A postal or other federal vehicle. A claim against the United States runs on its own administrative track with its own deadlines, and it has to be identified immediately rather than after the fact.
- A damaged package and nothing else. Loss or damage to goods in transit is a cargo claim under a different body of law, and nothing on this page applies to it.
Who pays after a delivery van crash
Whoever employed the driver, first, and then whoever controlled the work above them. The order is settled by documents: the vehicle registration, the lease or rental agreement, the contract between the local company and the brand, and the payroll that shows who set the route and the pace.
Those documents are held by companies that would rather not produce them, and the electronic records behind a single route are kept on a schedule measured in months. Ask early. There is no fee unless we recover. If the vehicle that hit you was a tractor-trailer instead, read who is liable in a truck accident. If it was a container truck out of the harbor, read port and drayage truck accidents.