Within days of a drunk driving crash in Louisiana, two very different processes begin. Law enforcement may pursue criminal charges under Louisiana’s OWI/DWI statute, La. RS 14:98. At the same time, insurance adjusters may already be calling, asking you for statements and pressuring you to take a settlement, even though no one’s explained what you’re actually entitled to in terms of compensation.

We see this confusion all the time. People assume a drunk driving arrest automatically guarantees compensation, or they think they have to wait until the criminal case is over before they can do anything. In reality, your right to pursue a civil claim follows its own track, with its own deadlines and rules of proof. At Clayton, Frugé & Ward, we’ve helped clients across Louisiana navigate that civil process, securing over a billion dollars in verdicts and settlements, including a record-setting $117 million single-injury verdict. That experience shapes how we guide drunk driving victims through the choices that matter in the first weeks and months after a crash.

Two Parallel Tracks: The Criminal Case & Your Civil Claim

When you're injured by a drunk driver in Louisiana, the state handles the criminal side and you handle the civil side, often with the help of a personal injury lawyer. The district attorney (DA) decides whether to charge the driver with operating while intoxicated (OWI) under La. RS 14:98 (also known colloquially as DUI or DWI) and, if so, prosecutes that case in criminal court. Your injury claim, by contrast, is a civil case where you seek money from the at-fault driver and their insurer.

You don’t have to wait for the criminal case to end before pursuing your civil claim. In many situations, waiting actually hurts you because key evidence can disappear: vehicles get repaired or scrapped for parts, surveillance video is overwritten, and witnesses become harder to locate. Our drunk driving accident attorneys typically start gathering records, interviewing witnesses, and dealing with insurers as soon as a client is medically stable, even while a DWI criminal case is just beginning.

The two types of cases, a criminal OWI case and a personal injury lawsuit, also carry different burdens of proof. In the criminal case, the prosecutor has to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the highest legal standard of proof. Your civil claim, by comparison, only requires a “preponderance of the evidence,” which means it’s more likely than not that the drunk driver caused your injuries. That lower standard is why a driver who avoids a criminal conviction or pleads to a lesser charge can still be found liable in civil court.

For you, this means a disappointing outcome in criminal court doesn’t end your chance at compensation. Your civil claim stands on its own, based on the evidence we can marshal and present under the civil rules.

How Louisiana Law Assigns Fault After a Drunk Driving Crash

Louisiana is a fault-based state. That means the person whose negligence caused the crash is responsible for the resulting harm. Driving under the influence is powerful evidence of negligence, but courts and insurers still look closely at how the collision actually happened: who had the right of way, whether anyone was speeding, where the impact occurred, and similar details.

For crashes that happen on or after January 1, 2026, Louisiana uses a modified comparative fault rule under Louisiana Civil Code Article 2323 as amended by HB 431. Under this rule, you’re barred from recovering any compensation if you’re found 51% or more at fault. If you’re 50% or less at fault, you can still recover, but your compensation will be reduced by your percentage of fault. In drunk driving cases where the other driver was provably impaired, it’s very rare for an innocent victim’s share of responsibility to approach that 51% bar.

Accidents that occurred before January 1, 2026, are evaluated under the older pure comparative fault system, where you could technically recover something even if you were mostly at fault, subject to a reduction by your percentage of fault. Either way, your conduct will be scrutinized, but a drunk driver’s impairment typically weighs heavily against them.

To establish fault in a civil drunk driving case, we rely on a combination of evidence, including:

Toxicology and BAC results from breath, blood, or urine tests performed after the crash
Field sobriety test records and officer observations of slurred speech, balance problems, or odor of alcohol
Police crash reports documenting traffic violations, witness statements, and diagrams of the scene
Dashcam or bodycam footage from law enforcement and any available surveillance video from nearby businesses or homes
Event data recorders and vehicle damage analyses that help reconstruct speeds, braking, and impact angles

Pulling these pieces together is what allows us to show, under the civil standard, that the drunk driver’s impairment and conduct caused your injuries, even if the criminal case has complications.

Types of Compensation You Can Pursue After a Drunk Driving Crash

In a civil car accident case, including one involving drunk driving, the law aims to make you financially whole, as much as money can do that. The main category’s compensatory damages, which cover both economic and non-economic harm.

Economic damages typically include:

Medical bills for emergency care, hospitalization, surgeries, medication, and rehabilitation
Future medical expenses when ongoing treatment, therapy, or assistive devices will be needed
Lost income from time you couldn’t work while recovering
Reduced earning capacity if your injuries limit the kind of work you can do or the hours you can sustain
Property damage to your vehicle and personal items damaged in the crash

Non-economic damages address harm that isn’t reflected on receipts:

Pain and suffering associated with your injuries and recovery
Emotional distress, including anxiety, depression, sleep problems, or PTSD-like symptoms
Loss of enjoyment of life when you can’t return to activities, hobbies, or family roles you valued before the crash

In drunk driving cases, Louisiana also allows for exemplary, or punitive, damages under Civil Code Article 2315.4. Punitive damages are designed not just to compensate you, but to punish the drunk driver and deter similar conduct. To obtain these, you must prove three things: that the defendant was intoxicated, that their intoxication was a cause in fact of your injuries, and that their conduct showed wanton or reckless disregard for the rights and safety of others. This is a higher standard than ordinary negligence, but in serious drunk driving crashes, the facts often support it.

Sometimes, the biggest fear victims have is that the drunk driver is uninsured or doesn’t carry enough insurance to cover the harm. In those situations, we examine whether you have uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, often called UM or UIM. UM/UIM coverage through your own auto policy can step in as a critical fallback when the at-fault driver can’t pay the full amount of your losses.

When a drunk driving crash is fatal, Louisiana law gives families two separate, though related, rights: a wrongful death action for the losses family members suffer because of the death, and a survival action that allows recovery for the decedent’s own losses between injury and death. Both claims have specific rules about which relatives can bring them and what types of damages are available.

Who May Be Liable Besides the Drunk Driver

The drunk driver is usually the primary defendant, but they aren’t always the only one who can be held financially responsible. Louisiana law recognizes that other parties may share liability, depending on the circumstances.

If the drunk driver was working at the time of the crash, their employer may be vicariously liable for the employee’s negligence under long-standing agency principles. For example, if a delivery driver leaves a bar during a work-related trip and causes a crash, the employer’s insurance may be on the hook in addition to the driver’s personal coverage.

Similarly, when the drunk driver was operating someone else’s vehicle with permission, the vehicle owner’s insurance is typically a primary or secondary source of coverage. Ownership can matter even if the owner wasn’t present at the crash scene, because Louisiana’s fault-based framework focuses on the vehicle and policy structure along with the driver’s conduct.

Many people also ask whether a bar or restaurant can be sued for overserving the drunk driver. Louisiana Revised Statute 9:2800.1 sharply limits this so-called "dram shop" liability. In general, bars, restaurants, and social hosts aren’t liable for serving alcohol to an adult who later causes a crash. The key exception involves minors: If an establishment serves alcohol to a minor who then causes a drunk driving crash, that business may face liability. We evaluate the facts carefully to see whether this narrow exception might apply.

How Insurance Companies Respond & Why Early Action Matters

Insurers move quickly after a drunk driving crash, often faster than your medical recovery. Adjusters may reach out within days with a recorded statement request or a small settlement offer “to help with your bills.” Accepting that early check almost always requires signing a release, which ends your ability to pursue additional compensation later, even if you discover serious injuries that weren’t obvious right away.

Time limits are another reason early action matters. For accidents occurring on or after July 1, 2024, Louisiana Civil Code Article 3493.11 gives you two years from the date of injury to file most personal injury claims. This change, enacted by Act No. 423 (HB 315), doubled the old one-year prescriptive period. If your crash happened before July 1, 2024, however, the old one-year deadline applies. Knowing which deadline governs your case is critical; missing it can completely bar your claim, regardless of how strong your evidence is.

Within those time limits, certain steps help protect your rights and strengthen your case:

Get law enforcement involved immediately. A prompt police response increases the chance that impairment is documented through field sobriety tests, BAC testing, or other forms of chemical testing.
Seek medical care right away. Emergency treatment and follow-up visits create a clear medical record that ties your injuries to the crash, which insurers and courts rely on.
Preserve evidence (if you can). Photos or videos of the vehicles, skid marks, debris fields, and surrounding area can be powerful proof of how the crash occurred.
Be cautious with insurer communications. You generally don’t have to give a recorded statement to the drunk driver’s insurer, and doing so without advice can harm your claim.
Consult our drunk driving accident attorneys in Louisiana promptly. Early legal involvement helps ensure that evidence is preserved, deadlines are tracked, and every potential source of recovery is identified.

Putting Louisiana’s Rules to Work After a Drunk Driving Crash

Louisiana law gives drunk driving victims meaningful tools: a civil path independent of any criminal conviction, the possibility of punitive damages in appropriate cases, a two-year prescriptive period for newer crashes, and, starting in 2026, a modified comparative fault system that rarely bars recovery for truly innocent victims. But those tools only help if they’re used in time, with evidence preserved and insurers held to account.

Our team at Clayton, Frugé & Ward has spent years handling complex, high-stakes injury cases across Louisiana, including cases that other firms turned away. We draw on that experience and our diverse backgrounds to present each case with the sensitivity and detail it deserves. If you or someone you love has been hit by a drunk driver, and you’re unsure what to do next, we can talk through your options and the specific timelines that apply. You can reach us at (225) 209-9943 to discuss how the civil side of your case might move forward with Clayton, Frugé & Ward on your side.