Los Angeles drunk driving accident lawyerYour claim does not wait for a conviction.

What decides your drunk driving claim

We represent people hurt by a drunk or impaired driver in Los Angeles County, and families handling a claim after a death. The claim turns on the criminal case, punitive damages, who served the alcohol, which policies pay, restitution from the criminal court, and deadlines. A crash with no impairment is covered on our car accident page.

The conduct here is more than carelessness, which opens damages a rear-end case never reaches, and a police agency investigated it the same night. No fee unless we recover.

How the criminal case affects your claim

The prosecutor owns the criminal case. Vehicle Code 23152 makes it unlawful to drive under the influence, or with 0.08 percent or more of alcohol by weight in the blood. Vehicle Code 23153 applies when he also broke another law and proximately caused injury to someone else.

Your claim turns on none of that. CACI No. 200, in the 2026 edition of CACI, gives your jury the difference: a criminal jury must find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, while yours need only find your version more likely true than not.

The criminal case produces evidence quickly: the arrest report, the chemical test, and often body camera video. Under Vehicle Code 23612, a driver consents to blood or breath testing on a lawful DUI arrest.

The conviction carries less weight in the civil case than people expect. Evidence Code 1300 admits a final judgment of guilt only where the crime is punishable as a felony, to prove any fact essential to that judgment. Penal Code 1016 adds that short of a felony, a nolo contendere plea, meaning no contest, is no admission in a civil suit over the same act. A guilty plea is different, under Evidence Code 1220.

Extra damages against a drunk driver

Punitive damages punish a defendant, on top of what compensates you. Civil Code 3294(a) allows them on clear and convincing evidence of oppression, fraud, or malice. Subdivision (c) defines malice as despicable conduct carried on with a willful and conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others.

Drunk driving meets that definition. In Taylor v. Superior Court (1979) 24 Cal.3d 890, the California Supreme Court held that driving while intoxicated may itself be malice under section 3294 where the circumstances disclose a conscious disregard of the probable dangerous consequences.

One who wilfully consumes alcoholic beverages to the point of intoxication, knowing that he thereafter must operate a motor vehicle, thereby combining sharply impaired physical and mental faculties with a vehicle capable of great force and speed, reasonably may be held to exhibit a conscious disregard of the safety of others.

Taylor v. Superior Court (1979) 24 Cal.3d 890, 897

Taylor also answered the next argument. Prior arrests and convictions may raise the odds, but the court refused to treat them as essential prerequisites. The first offense counts.

CACI No. 3940 is what a jury hears. It requires clear and convincing evidence of malice, then asks the jury to weigh the defendant's financial condition, with one optional bracketed line: no award may exceed his ability to pay.

No insurer pays this award. Insurance Code 533 states that an insurer is not liable for a loss caused by the wilful act of the insured, and City Products Corp. v. Globe Indemnity Co. (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 31 held that public policy prohibits insurance covering punitive damages.

We ask the collection question first. Against a driver with a minimum policy and no savings, a punitive claim is a claim on paper. Against a driver with assets, it changes the negotiation.

Can you sue the bar or host?

Usually not. Dram shop law is the general name for a rule making whoever supplied the alcohol answerable for what the drinker later does, and California replaced its version with immunity. Business and Professions Code 25602 makes it a misdemeanor to sell or furnish alcohol to an obviously intoxicated person, then removes civil liability from that same person. Subdivision (c) abrogated, meaning overturned by statute, Vesely v. Sager, Bernhard v. Harrah's Club, and Coulter v. Superior Court, and declared consumption rather than service the proximate cause.

Civil Code 1714(c) does the same for private parties. No social host who furnishes alcohol may be held accountable for injury to or death of a third person resulting from the consumption. The neighbor who kept pouring is not a defendant.

Two exceptions survive, both turning on a minor. Section 25602.1 reaches a licensee, meaning a licensed seller, or any other person who sells alcohol, where the drink went to an obviously intoxicated minor and proximately caused the injury. Civil Code 1714(d)(1) reaches an adult who knowingly furnishes alcohol at his residence to someone under 21. CACI Nos. 422 and 427 set out both.

Who pays after a drunk driving crash

Vehicle Code 16056 raised the minimum limits on January 1, 2025 to $30,000 for one person, $60,000 where two or more are hurt, and $15,000 for property, and raises each again on January 1, 2035. An ambulance ride and an MRI can exhaust $30,000.

Your own policy is next. Insurance Code 11580.2 requires uninsured motorist coverage at the limits it sets, deletable only by written agreement, and runs a deadline against your own insurer: within two years, sue, agree in writing, or demand arbitration. The mechanics are on uninsured and underinsured motorist claims.

A driver who leaves is still an uninsured motorist claim. Section 11580.2(b) requires physical contact, a police report within 24 hours, and a sworn statement within 30 days, covered on hit and run accidents.

What criminal restitution pays you

Restitution is money the criminal court orders a convicted driver to pay you for economic loss. Article I, section 28(b)(13) of the California Constitution gives every person who suffers loss from criminal activity the right to seek restitution from the person convicted, regardless of the sentence.

Penal Code 1202.4 carries that out. Subdivision (f)(3) reaches damaged property, medical expenses, mental health counseling, and lost wages. Non-economic losses appear only for felony child sexual abuse, so a DUI order pays bills and wage loss and nothing for pain.

Two subdivisions connect it to your civil recovery. Subdivision (i) makes the order enforceable as a civil judgment. Subdivision (j) credits restitution collected against any other judgment for the same losses. It is a second route to the same money, not a second recovery.

The California Victim Compensation Board is the backstop when there is nothing to collect. Its what is covered page lists medical and mental health treatment, funeral and burial, income loss, and relocation, states that the most it can reimburse a victim is $70,000, and calls itself a payor of last resort. Its eligibility page sets a seven year filing window.

If your own car was uninsured

Civil Code 3333.4, passed as Proposition 213, bars non-economic losses in three situations: you were operating in violation of Vehicle Code 23152 or 23153 and were convicted, you owned an uninsured vehicle in the crash, or you cannot establish financial responsibility. Bills and wage loss survive. Pain and suffering does not.

Subdivision (c) restores it in one situation. Where the uninsured owner was injured by a motorist who was operating in violation of section 23152 or 23153 and was convicted, the injured person shall not be barred from recovering non-economic losses. If your car was uninsured and the driver who hit you is convicted of DUI, your pain and suffering claim is restored.

The limit is narrow. Subdivision (c) speaks only to the uninsured owner, not to a plaintiff convicted of DUI himself. Riders face the identical rule, on our motorcycle accident page.

How long you have to file

Code of Civil Procedure 335.1 gives two years for injury to, or the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. Section 352(a) holds that deadline for someone under 18, and 352(b) removes the shelter where a claim goes to a public entity first.

A public entity turns up more often than people expect: an employee driving impaired on duty, or a road defect that combined with the driver. Present the claim within six months under Government Code 911.2. The entity's board has 45 days to act, and silence is a rejection under Government Code 912.4. Government Code 945.6 then allows six months from a mailed rejection.

A death changes who owns the claim. The heirs bring a wrongful death action, and the estate may bring a survival action, the deceased person's own claim carried on by the estate, as explained on our wrongful death page and its guide to who can file.

If you were his passenger

You have a claim. What you will hear is comparative fault, an argument about percentages rather than a defense. Comparative fault means the jury assigns each person a share and reduces the award by yours.

CACI No. 405 makes the defense prove that you were negligent and that your negligence was a substantial factor in causing your harm. If it does, your damages are reduced by your percentage. California replaced the all or nothing rule in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804.

Your own drinking is treated the same way. CACI No. 404 tells the jury that a person is not necessarily negligent merely because that person used alcohol. What sets the percentage is narrow: what you saw him drink, and whether you had another way home.

What to gather in the first weeks

Two government reports are yours to make. Vehicle Code 20008 requires a written report to the CHP, or to the police of the city where it happened, within 24 hours of a crash causing injury or death. Vehicle Code 16000 requires form SR-1 to the DMV within 10 days when anyone is hurt or damage passes $1,000.

A preservation letter is a written demand that a business hold specific evidence. We send them for bar surveillance, vehicle data, and doorbell footage. The video of him leaving is often the only proof of how much he drank.

Which prosecutor holds the file depends on the charge and the city. Government Code 26500 makes the district attorney the public prosecutor for the county, and Government Code 41803.5 lets a city attorney, with the district attorney's consent, prosecute a misdemeanor committed in the city. Your own case is filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, which has assigned Central District personal injury cases to Independent Calendar departments at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse since January 8, 2024, and publishes its rules through its civil division.

Why drunk driving injuries are worse

Impaired drivers often do not brake, which reshapes the injury pattern: higher speed at impact, head-on and wrong-way geometry, and no steering away at the last second.

A head strike, or a violent enough acceleration of the skull without one, belongs in front of a neurologist: see brain injury. Numbness or loss of bladder control is a surgical emergency, covered on spinal cord injury. Where the care never ends, it is a catastrophic injury case priced by a life care plan. People struck on foot are on our pedestrian accident page.

What a drunk driving case is worth

There is no verifiable average. What we can show is one of our own cases.

That case was a head-on collision that broke the client's elbow. A driver under the influence crossed the center line on a rural road, and careful documentation and witness testimony carried the claim to $550,000. The rest are on case results.

Economic damages are documented. Non-economic damages are argued from what the injury did to your year. The ceiling is usually the coverage available, not the injury.

When your claim works differently

These situations change the claim, and we would rather say so on the first call.

• The driver carries the minimum and owns nothing. The punitive claim is real and uncollectible, and your own coverage becomes the case.
• You were convicted of DUI in the same crash. Civil Code 3333.4(a)(1) takes your non-economic damages, and subdivision (c) does not give them back.
• He fled and was never identified. The claim moves onto your own policy, with contact, a 24 hour report, and a 30 day sworn statement.
• He was working, or driving for an app. An employer answers for an employee acting within the scope of employment under CACI No. 3720, and app coverage turns on the driver's status, covered on our Uber and Lyft page.

How we work a drunk driving case

1. 1
   Treatment first

   We get you seen and keep you seen. A gap in the record is the first thing an insurance adjuster counts.

2. 2
   Pull the criminal file

   The collision report, the arrest report, the chemical test, body camera video, and every hearing on the docket.

3. 3
   Find every policy and every asset

   His limits, your UM and UIM, your medical payments (med pay) coverage, an employer, and whether anything stands behind a punitive claim.

4. 4
   Handle the insurer

   We take the calls and the recorded statement request. The first offer is a negotiating position.

5. 5
   Track every deadline

   Two years from the crash, six months when a public entity is in the facts, and the deadline against your own insurer.

Our attorneys handle these files from the first call through trial, the responsible attorney is Josh Kohanim, and questions that are not about your case are answered on our frequently asked questions page.

What we need from you this week

Your civil case does not wait for the prosecutor, does not need a conviction, and carries damages an ordinary collision never reaches. What it needs from you this week is treatment, the report number, and the name of the place he had been drinking.

The rest is his limits, your coverage, what stands behind the punitive claim, and which deadline is running.