Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

The cant' get away with it. There are ways to enforce a judgment if you can find assets.

Settlements are not awarded. Do you have a settlement or a judgment? If it is a settlement it also depends on whether or not it was a "judicially supervised settlement." If it was, you can file a motion under CCP section 664.6 to have the settlement turned into a judgment. You then use the statutory enforcement of judgment procedures to collect. If it was not judicially supervised, the settlement is a new contract and you must sue for breach of that contract.