Burbank Personal Injury & Workers' Compensation Lawyers

Serving Injured Burbank Workers & Accident Victims

Burbank sits at the crossroads of the 5, 134, and 101 freeways, and it's home to two of the largest employers in entertainment — Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Studios — plus Hollywood Burbank Airport. That mix of studio production, aviation, retail, and media work produces a steady stream of on-the-job injuries.

Burbank's busiest accident points — the 5/134 interchange, San Fernando Boulevard, and Olive Avenue near the studios — produce serious car, motorcycle, and pedestrian collisions. Burbank also has an unusual amount of production traffic on ordinary streets: equipment trucks, generator rigs, and crew vehicles moving between lots, often early in the morning or late at night. A collision with a commercial production vehicle brings a different set of insurers and a different investigation than an ordinary fender bender. We manage the medical liens and the insurance company so your recovery comes first.

Burbank's employment base is concentrated in entertainment to a degree few cities match. Warner Bros. and Walt Disney both run major operations here, and studio work produces a distinctive injury profile: grip and electric crews lifting and rigging overhead, set construction with power tools and heights, camera and sound operators carrying heavy equipment on uneven ground, and the repetitive strain that comes from long production days. Hollywood Burbank Airport adds ground-handling, baggage, maintenance, and fuelling work, which is among the more injury-prone employment in the region. Beyond those, Burbank supports a large media and post-production workforce, retail along San Fernando and at the Empire Center, warehousing, and a substantial municipal payroll including Burbank Water and Power. Entertainment work carries a wrinkle worth knowing: crews are frequently employed through loan-out companies, payroll services, or production entities that exist only for one project, which can make identifying the actual employer and its insurer genuinely difficult.

Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center on Buena Vista is the main hospital for Burbank and takes most serious collision and workplace injuries in the area. Get your emergency department records from that first visit — they establish that your injuries date from the accident, which is precisely what an insurer will contest later. In a workers' compensation claim your employer's insurer generally directs your treating physician for the first 30 days through its Medical Provider Network, which is why a studio or production company may send you to a specific clinic rather than your own doctor. You can name your own physician in advance by predesignating them in writing before an injury, and you can request a change after 30 days.

Which Workers' Comp Board Hears a Burbank Claim

California assigns workers' compensation cases to a Workers' Compensation Appeals Board district office based on the ZIP code where the injury happened. For Burbank, that is the WCAB Van Nuys district office.

You almost certainly will not go there. Nordanyan Law files the paperwork, appears at hearings and conferences, and handles depositions on your behalf. Most Burbank clients resolve an entire workers' compensation case without ever setting foot in a board office. Office assignments can change, so if you want to confirm yours, the state publishes a ZIP lookup at dir.ca.gov — or call us and we will check it for you.

What To Do in the First 48 Hours in Burbank

1. 1

   Get medical attention the same day. Production and warehouse injuries in particular get shrugged off because people want to finish the shoot or the shift, and the gap between the injury and the first medical record is the argument the insurer will use against you.

2. 2

   Report a work injury to your supervisor, unit production manager, or safety coordinator in writing, and ask for a DWC-1 claim form. California allows 30 days under Labor Code § 5400, and your employer must give you the form within one working day of learning about it.

3. 3

   On a production, write down the exact production name, the production company, the payroll or loan-out company on your paystub, and the name of the unit you were working with. Crews are often employed through entities that dissolve when the project wraps, and reconstructing who your employer actually was months later is one of the hardest parts of an entertainment claim.

4. 4

   After a collision, call the police and get a report number. Burbank PD covers city streets including San Fernando, Olive, Victory, and Hollywood Way; the CHP handles the 5, 134, and 170, so which agency responds depends on where you were hit.

5. 5

   Photograph the scene, the equipment, and your injuries, and get names for witnesses before the crew disperses. Then decline to give any insurer a recorded statement until you have spoken to a lawyer — on a production, that call sometimes comes from a risk-management department the same day.

Why Burbank Clients Choose Nordanyan Law

Directions from Burbank

Our Van Nuys office is conveniently accessible from Burbank via major freeways.

Results for Burbank Area Clients

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