Pullman Personal Injury Lawyer | Your Pullman Personal Injury Advocates

If you’ve been hurt in an accident in Pullman, on US 195, on Highway 270, or anywhere in the Palouse, Hess Injury Law is the local firm to call. Our Pullman office is at 104 NW Stadium Way — a short walk from Washington State University — and we represent accident victims throughout Whitman County.

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 the Inland Northwest. 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 Pullman personal injury attorney today.

Why Hess Injury Law for Your Pullman 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 Pullman clients:

Local office. Our Pullman office is at 104 NW Stadium Way. We’re in your community, not advertising into Pullman from Spokane 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 or a paralegal.
WSU community familiarity. We represent students, families of students, faculty, staff, and longtime Pullman residents. We understand the realities of life in a college town and the kinds of cases that come up here.
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 Washington vehicle accidents. Meet our team.
No fee unless we win. You pay nothing out of pocket. We work on contingency.

Vehicle Accidents in Pullman and the Palouse

Pullman sits on one of the most heavily-traveled corridors in southeastern Washington. Two state highways and the surrounding rural roads carry the traffic of WSU, the freight moving between the Palouse agricultural belt and I-90, and the cross-state-line traffic to and from Idaho.

The roads that produce most of the cases we handle:

US 195 runs north-south through the area, connecting Pullman to Spokane and I-90 to the north and to Lewiston-Clarkston to the south. WSDOT formally identifies US 195 as a major regional freight corridor and has conducted a multi-year corridor crash analysis on the route. The stretch between Pullman and the Idaho state line sees recurring serious crashes, including head-on collisions and weather-related incidents.
State Route 270 runs east-west, connecting Pullman to US 195 at its west end and to Moscow, Idaho at its east end. Highway 270 at Airport Road — about seven miles east of Pullman — has been the site of multiple recent multi-vehicle and fatal crashes.
State Route 26 runs west out of Pullman toward Royal City and the Tri-Cities corridor.
The Pullman-Moscow corridor carries heavy student traffic between WSU and the University of Idaho.

Recent Local Crashes

A few crashes that show what these corridors produce:

August 2, 2023 — A 28-year-old driver from Moscow, Idaho was killed in a head-on collision with a semi-truck on US 195 at milepost 25.92, just three miles north of Pullman near the SR 270 interchange. The driver attempted to pass vehicles in the southbound lane and collided directly with the semi-truck. The roadway was fully closed for hours.
December 3, 2024 — Three vehicles crashed on Highway 270 at Airport Road, seven miles east of Pullman, around 3 p.m. Multiple injuries were reported.
Garbage truck rollover — A Pullman Disposal Service truck rolled on US 195 near SR 270 after a tire blew, sending the driver to the hospital with serious injuries.
High-wind semi rollover — A semi-truck was blown over by high winds on US 195 between Pullman and the Idaho state line, closing the highway.

Local Conditions That Cause Pullman Crashes

A few hazards specific to the Palouse:

WSU game day traffic. WSDOT, WSP, the City of Pullman, and the WSU Driver Safety Committee actively coordinate on traffic safety during football and basketball games. WSP increases patrols on SR 26, US 195, and I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass. Crash volumes spike around game days.
Student travel between Pullman and Moscow. The eight-mile Pullman-Moscow corridor sees heavy student traffic, often late at night, and produces a recurring volume of impaired driving and fatigue-related crashes.
High winds on US 195. The exposed terrain produces sudden gusts capable of blowing over high-profile commercial vehicles. Multiple semi-truck rollovers have occurred south of Pullman in wind events.
Winter conditions on the Palouse. Drifting snow on US 195 and US 95, freezing rain, and black ice are recurring winter hazards documented by WSDOT.
Agricultural equipment on rural roads. Combines, harvesters, and tractors share the rural road network with passenger vehicles, particularly during planting and harvest seasons.
Heavy commercial truck traffic on US 195. A loaded semi weighs up to 80,000 pounds. A passenger car weighs around 4,000. Crashes between the two are routinely catastrophic.

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 Pullman

Our Pullman office handles personal injury and wrongful death cases involving:

Car Accidents

Rear-end collisions, intersection crashes, head-on collisions, and multi-vehicle pile-ups on US 195, Highway 270, Highway 26, and the streets of Pullman. Learn more about our Pullman car accident practice.

Truck Accidents

Crashes involving semi-trucks, delivery vehicles, and other commercial vehicles on the US 195 freight corridor. Truck cases are different from regular car accidents — they involve federal regulations, electronic logging device data, and trucking company liability. Learn more about our Pullman truck accident practice.

Motorcycle Accidents

The Palouse is a popular riding region, and riders are particularly vulnerable. Insurance companies often try to assign more fault to the motorcyclist than is fair. We push back. Learn more about our Pullman 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 Pullman wrongful death practice.

Catastrophic and Brain Injuries

Serious head, spinal, and traumatic brain injuries require attorneys who understand the long-term medical and economic implications. Learn more about our Pullman catastrophic injury practice and Pullman traumatic brain injury practice.

Where Pullman Residents Go for Care After a Crash

The closest emergency department to Pullman is Pullman Regional Hospital at 835 SE Bishop Boulevard. For more serious trauma, patients are often transferred to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane or Gritman Medical Center in Moscow, Idaho.

For minor injuries, urgent care options at Pullman Regional and elsewhere in the area 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.

Whitman County Courts

Personal injury cases that don’t settle and require litigation in Whitman County are filed in Whitman County Superior Court in Colfax, with district court matters handled at the courthouse complex there. We know the local courts, the local insurance defense bar, and how cases move through this jurisdiction.

What Compensation You Can Recover

Depending on the specifics of your case, recoverable losses in a Pullman 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.

Two factors come up in almost every Pullman 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 Pullman 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 Pullman Personal Injury Lawyer Today

If you’ve been hurt in an accident in Pullman or anywhere in Whitman County — on US 195, Highway 270, Highway 26, 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.

Visit our Pullman office at 104 NW Stadium Way, call, or contact us online.

Hablamos Español.

We also represent accident victims in Hermiston, Pendleton, Walla Walla, Clarkston, Moscow, Idaho, and throughout Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon.