The other driver ran a red light and hit your vehicle. You suffered serious injuries and filed an injury claim. Then you were arrested and charged with DUI because you had alcohol in your system at the time of the crash. Now you’re wondering whether your criminal case just destroyed your civil claim.
Our friends at Kantrowitz, Goldhamer & Graifman, P.C. discuss how criminal charges complicate but don’t necessarily eliminate injury claims. As a car accident lawyer will tell you, the relationship between criminal cases and civil injury claims is complex, and the outcome of one doesn’t always dictate the outcome of the other.
Criminal And Civil Cases Are Separate Proceedings
Your criminal case and your injury claim operate under different legal systems with different rules, different burdens of proof, and different objectives. Criminal cases require proof beyond a reasonable doubt and can result in jail time or fines. Civil injury cases require proof by a preponderance of the evidence and result in monetary damages.
This separation means you can lose your criminal case but still win your civil claim, or vice versa. The famous O.J. Simpson cases demonstrated this principle. He was acquitted in criminal court but found liable in civil court for the same incident.
However, while the cases are technically separate, what happens in your criminal case significantly affects your injury claim in practical terms.
How Criminal Convictions Impact Liability
A criminal conviction related to the accident creates powerful evidence against you in your civil case. If you’re convicted of DUI, reckless driving, or another traffic offense, that conviction can be introduced as proof you were at fault for the accident.
Many jurisdictions allow criminal convictions to be admitted in civil trials as evidence of negligence. The jury hears that you were convicted of illegal conduct, which makes them far less sympathetic to your injury claims.
Even without a conviction, the criminal case generates evidence that insurance companies will use against you. Police reports, breathalyzer results, field sobriety test videos, and witness statements from your criminal case all become available to civil defendants.
The Fifth Amendment Complication
Your constitutional right against self-incrimination creates strategic problems. If your criminal case is pending when your civil case requires depositions or testimony, asserting your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent looks terrible to civil juries.
You might need to delay your civil case until the criminal matter resolves to avoid this dilemma. However, delaying can violate statutes of limitations or allow evidence to deteriorate. These timing conflicts require careful coordination between your criminal defense attorney and your injury lawyer.
Types Of Criminal Charges That Affect Cases
Different criminal charges impact injury claims differently. DUI charges are particularly damaging because they prove you were impaired, which establishes both fault for the accident and potentially bars recovery in some states with contributory negligence rules.
Reckless driving or vehicular assault charges demonstrate dangerous behavior that makes it difficult to argue the other party was primarily at fault. Hit-and-run charges destroy credibility and create consciousness-of-guilt issues.
Minor traffic citations like failure to yield or running a stop sign establish traffic violations but might not prevent recovery if the other driver also violated traffic laws or bore greater responsibility.
When You Can Still Recover Despite Criminal Charges
Having criminal charges doesn’t automatically destroy your injury claim. If the other driver was also negligent or bore greater fault, you might still recover damages under comparative negligence principles.
For example, if you were arrested for DUI but the other driver was texting while driving and ran a red light, both of you contributed to the accident. Depending on your state’s laws, you might recover reduced damages reflecting your percentage of fault.
Some accidents involve clear liability by another party even when you face criminal charges. If you were stopped at a red light and got rear-ended, your DUI arrest doesn’t change the fact that the other driver caused the collision by hitting your stationary vehicle.
States With Contributory Negligence Bars
A few states still follow contributory negligence rules where any fault on your part completely bars recovery. In these jurisdictions, criminal charges proving you violated traffic laws or drove impaired can eliminate your injury claim entirely.
Most states have moved to comparative negligence systems where your recovery gets reduced by your percentage of fault but isn’t eliminated unless you’re more than 50% or 51% responsible, depending on the state’s specific rule.
Understanding which system your state follows is vital for evaluating whether pursuing your injury claim makes sense given your criminal charges.
How Insurance Companies Use Criminal Cases
Insurance adjusters monitor criminal proceedings involving accident claimants. They obtain police reports, court records, and conviction information to use in denying or reducing civil claims.
When you’re arrested, the insurance company will:
- Immediately reduce their settlement evaluation
- Use the arrest as leverage in negotiations
- Wait to see if you’re convicted before making offers
- Introduce criminal case evidence if litigation occurs
- Argue you assumed risk through illegal conduct
Expect substantially lower settlement offers once criminal charges become known, even before conviction.
Coordinating Criminal And Civil Attorneys
Your criminal defense attorney and injury lawyer must communicate and coordinate strategy. Statements you make in one case can affect the other. Plea deals in criminal court might include admissions that destroy your civil claim.
These attorneys have different priorities. Your criminal lawyer focuses on avoiding jail time and criminal records. Your injury attorney wants to maximize financial recovery. Sometimes these goals conflict, requiring difficult strategic decisions about which case takes priority.
The Impact Of Plea Deals
Pleading guilty or no contest to criminal charges creates admissions that severely damage your injury claim. Even if the plea deal is advantageous from a criminal law perspective, it might make your civil case nearly impossible to win.
Before accepting any plea deal, consult with your injury attorney about civil implications. Sometimes fighting criminal charges makes sense even if it means taking risks in criminal court, because conviction will destroy a valuable injury claim.
When To Disclose Criminal Charges
You must disclose criminal charges to your injury attorney immediately. Hiding this information prevents proper case evaluation and strategy development. We need to know about charges early to coordinate with criminal counsel and adjust civil case strategy accordingly.
Insurance companies will discover your arrest through police reports and court records. Trying to hide it only makes things worse when they inevitably find out.
Dismissed Charges And Acquittals
If criminal charges get dismissed or you’re acquitted, your injury claim improves substantially but isn’t fully restored. The underlying facts that led to your arrest still exist and can be used against you even without a conviction.
Defense attorneys can still present evidence that you were drinking, speeding, or engaged in other dangerous behavior. They simply can’t introduce a conviction as proof. Juries hear the evidence and draw their own conclusions.
Arrested But Not Charged
Sometimes police arrest people at accident scenes but prosecutors decline to file charges. This scenario creates less damage than a conviction but still generates negative evidence including police reports documenting suspected violations and field sobriety test results or breathalyzer readings.
The absence of formal charges helps but doesn’t eliminate the civil liability issues created by the circumstances that led to your arrest.
DUI And Punitive Damages
In some states, DUI convictions open you up to punitive damages claims by the other party. If they were injured due to your drunk driving, they can seek damages designed to punish you beyond just compensating for their injuries.
This means your criminal conviction could result in you owing money to the other driver rather than receiving compensation for your own injuries, even if they also bore some fault for the accident.
How Arrests Affect Case Value
Criminal charges typically reduce case values by 50% to 100% depending on the charges’ severity and how directly they relate to accident causation. A DUI conviction when you caused a head-on collision might eliminate your claim entirely. A minor traffic citation when the other driver ran a red light might reduce your recovery by 10% to 20%.
Each case requires individual analysis based on the specific charges, the evidence, and the jurisdiction’s laws.
If you’re facing criminal charges related to your accident or you’ve been arrested and aren’t sure how it affects your injury claim, reach out to discuss the relationship between your criminal and civil cases, coordinate strategy between your defense attorney and injury lawyer, and determine whether pursuing compensation remains viable given your legal situation.
