Pendleton Personal Injury Lawyer | Car Accident, Truck Wrecks, Motorcycle Crashes

If you’ve been hurt in an accident in Pendleton, on I-84, on Highway 11, or anywhere in Umatilla County, Hess Injury Law is the local firm to call. Our nearest office is in Hermiston at 1025 N. 1st Street — about 30 minutes from downtown Pendleton — and we represent accident victims throughout Umatilla County and Eastern Oregon.

Personal injury and wrongful death cases involving vehicle accidents are all our firm does. We’ve recovered millions for clients hurt by negligent drivers, trucking companies, and other parties throughout this region. The consultation is free, and you don’t pay anything unless we recover compensation for you.

Contact our office or call to talk to a Pendleton personal injury attorney today.

Why Hess Injury Law for Your Pendleton Case

When you’re choosing a personal injury lawyer, three things matter most: who’s actually going to handle your case, how much experience they have with cases like yours, and whether they know the area well enough to represent you effectively.

What we offer Pendleton clients:

Local presence in Eastern Oregon. Our nearest office is in Hermiston at 1025 N. 1st Street. We’re in the same region as your case — not advertising into Pendleton from Portland or Seattle.
60+ years of combined experience. Personal injury and wrongful death cases involving vehicle accidents are all our firm does.
Direct attorney attention. When you call, you talk to an attorney handling your case — not a call center.
Hablamos Español. Our staff speaks Spanish fluently and can communicate with Spanish-speaking clients and family members throughout the case.
Track record. We’ve recovered millions for clients hurt in Eastern Oregon vehicle accidents. Meet our team.
No fee unless we win. You pay nothing out of pocket. We work on contingency.

Vehicle Accidents in Pendleton and Umatilla County

Pendleton sits at one of the most dangerous stretches of interstate in Oregon. The roads that produce most of the cases we handle:

I-84 runs east-west through Pendleton, with the Cabbage Hill descent — also called Emigrant Hill — beginning just east of town. This 6% grade dropping 2,000 feet over six miles is the steepest interstate grade in Oregon, and ODOT publishes a specific safety advisory for commercial truckers because of the high crash rate.
Highway 11 runs north from Pendleton through Adams and Athena toward Walla Walla. The corridor sees recurring crashes including agricultural traffic and commuter routes.
Highway 37 runs east from Pendleton to Pilot Rock and further into the Blue Mountains.
Highway 30 (Old Highway 30 / Old Oregon Trail Highway) parallels I-84 in places and serves as a regional alternative route.

Recent Pendleton-Area Crashes

A few crashes that show what these corridors produce:

April 21, 2026 — A Pendleton driver was killed at milepost 207 on I-84 after striking the rear of a Freightliner tractor-trailer. The driver, 55-year-old Jeanette Lynn Row, lost control on wet pavement, left the roadway, rolled multiple times, and was ejected from the vehicle. OSP was assisted by Pendleton Fire and Ambulance at the scene.
April 10, 2025 — A truck and trailer rolled over on Cabbage Hill at milepost 222, blocking both westbound lanes of I-84 between La Grande and Pendleton for hours. The driver was transported to St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton.
June 2024 — A fatal rear-end crash on the Cabbage Hill descent killed a driver from Irrigon when a pickup struck a slow-moving semi-truck.
December 18, 2024 — Sections of I-84 between Pendleton and Ontario were closed for about 11 hours after a commercial truck lost traction in winter conditions and blocked the highway. Multiple vehicles spinning out and not using chains caused additional closures at Ladd Canyon.
December 22, 2024 — A Pendleton pedestrian, Noah J. Lindsey, 25, was killed crossing I-84 near Pendleton.
September 2023 — A fatal crash involving two commercial trucks on eastbound I-84 closed the highway for six hours.

Local Conditions That Cause Pendleton Crashes

A few hazards specific to this region:

Cabbage Hill on I-84. The 6% grade dropping 2,000 feet over six miles is the steepest interstate grade in Oregon. Trucks lose traction in winter, brakes fail or overheat on the descent, and conditions at the top can be radically different from conditions at the bottom.
Winter conditions on the I-84 corridor. Black ice, freezing rain, drifting snow, and chain requirements between Pendleton and Ontario are recurring winter hazards. Multi-hour highway closures happen multiple times each winter.
Blowing dust on I-84 and I-82. Agricultural fields drying out and wind picking up can drop visibility to near-zero in seconds.
Wildfire smoke. Recent fires have closed area highways and contributed to crashes when smoke combines with already-difficult conditions.
Highway 11 commuter traffic. Heavy commuter and commercial traffic on the Pendleton-Walla Walla corridor produces regular serious crashes.
Wildlife on rural roads. Deer, elk, and free-range livestock on Highway 37 and rural Umatilla County roads, particularly around dawn and dusk.
Round-Up week traffic. The Pendleton Round-Up brings substantial visitor traffic each September. Crash exposure in and around town spikes during the event.

When an out-of-state insurance adjuster handles a claim from this area, they often don’t understand these conditions or how they affect liability. That gap is something local representation closes.

Cases We Handle in Pendleton

Our team handles personal injury and wrongful death cases involving:

Car Accidents

Rear-end collisions, intersection crashes, head-on collisions, and multi-vehicle pile-ups on I-84, Highway 11, Highway 37, and the streets of Pendleton. Learn more about our Pendleton car accident practice.

Truck Accidents

Crashes involving semi-trucks, delivery vehicles, and other commercial vehicles — particularly the heavy commercial truck traffic on the I-84 corridor through Cabbage Hill. Truck cases involve federal regulations, electronic logging device data, and trucking company liability. Learn more about our Pendleton truck accident practice.

Motorcycle Accidents

The Blue Mountains and rural roads around Pendleton are popular riding destinations, and riders are particularly vulnerable. Learn more about our Pendleton motorcycle accident practice.

Wrongful Death

When a vehicle accident takes a family member, we represent surviving spouses, children, and parents in wrongful death claims. Learn more about our Pendleton wrongful death practice.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Accidents

Pedestrian crashes on I-84 and around Pendleton — like the December 2024 fatality — are a recurring problem in this region. Learn more about our Pendleton pedestrian accident practice and Pendleton bicycle accident practice.

Other Injury Claims

We also handle bus accident cases, boat accident claims, defective product claims, premises liability cases, and slip and fall claims.

Where Pendleton Residents Go for Care After a Crash

The closest emergency department to Pendleton is St. Anthony Hospital at 2801 St. Anthony Way. For more serious trauma, patients are sometimes transferred to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland or, in serious cases, to Legacy Emanuel or OHSU in Portland.

Pendleton Fire and Ambulance typically responds first to crashes on I-84 in Umatilla County, often working alongside Oregon State Police and ODOT crews on highway closures.

For minor injuries, urgent care options at St. Anthony and elsewhere in Pendleton provide same-day documented care. Even when injuries seem minor in the immediate aftermath of a crash, getting evaluated — and creating a medical record from the day of the accident — matters significantly for any claim.

We’ve covered medical bills and how they get paid in detail in our guide on how medical bills are paid after a car accident, as well as the medical liens that come out of any settlement.

Umatilla County Courts

Personal injury cases that don’t settle and require litigation in Umatilla County are filed in the 6th Judicial District. The Pendleton Court at the Umatilla County Courthouse on SE 4th Street is one of three district courthouses, along with the Hermiston Court at 915 SE Columbia Drive and the Heppner Court. We know the local courts, the local insurance defense bar, and how cases move through this district.

What Compensation You Can Recover

Depending on the specifics of your case, recoverable losses in a Pendleton accident claim may include:

Economic damages:

Past and future medical expenses
Lost wages and reduced future earning capacity
Vehicle damage and other property loss
Out-of-pocket costs related to the injury

Non-economic damages:

Pain and suffering
Emotional distress and the long-term impact of the injury on your life
Loss of enjoyment of life
Loss of consortium for spouses

Wrongful death damages when a family member is killed — including loss of financial support, loss of companionship, and the deceased’s pre-death pain and suffering. Our guides on who can sue for wrongful death in Oregon and who gets the money in a wrongful death lawsuit walk through how these claims work.

Two factors come up in almost every Pendleton case worth understanding:

Insurance coverage. Many drivers in this region carry minimum policy limits, and serious injuries can quickly exceed what’s available. Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is often the most important source of compensation, and a lot of clients don’t realize they have it or how to access it.

Insurance adjuster tactics. Adjusters handling claims from rural Eastern Oregon often assume injured people don’t have access to experienced legal representation and offer significantly lower settlements as a result. Our guide on how to scare an insurance adjuster walks through the playbook and how to push back.

For a realistic read on what cases tend to settle for, see our breakdown of personal injury settlement amounts and examples and how much is my personal injury case worth.

What If You Were Hurt at Work

A worker hurt on the job — particularly in a vehicle accident while driving for work, on a construction site, or in connection with another party’s negligence — typically has both a workers’ compensation claim through their employer AND a third-party personal injury claim. The two claims coexist, and pursuing the third-party claim doesn’t cost you your workers’ comp benefits. We cover this in detail in our guide on getting a settlement after being hurt at work.

What to Expect When You Call

When you call our office, here’s how it works:

Free consultation. We’ll take time to understand what happened, what injuries you’re dealing with, and what the insurance situation looks like. No fee, no obligation.
Case evaluation. If your case has merit, we’ll explain what we think it’s worth and how we’d handle it. If it doesn’t, we’ll tell you that too.
Investigation. Once we’re hired, we get to work immediately — gathering the police report, ordering medical records, identifying witnesses, locking down evidence before it disappears.
Dealing with insurance. You stop talking to the insurance company. Everything goes through us.
Negotiation or trial. Most cases settle. When the insurance company won’t make a fair offer, we’re prepared to file suit and try the case.

You focus on getting better. We handle the rest.

Talk to a Pendleton Personal Injury Lawyer Today

If you’ve been hurt in an accident in Pendleton or anywhere in Umatilla County — on I-84, Highway 11, Highway 37, or any local road — our team is ready to help. The consultation is free, and you don’t pay anything unless we recover compensation for you.

Call or contact us online. Our nearest office is at 1025 N. 1st Street in Hermiston, about 30 minutes from downtown Pendleton.

Hablamos Español.

We also represent accident victims in Hermiston, Walla Walla, Pullman, Umatilla, Boardman, Milton-Freewater, La Grande, The Dalles, and throughout Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington.