Los Angeles Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer

Los Angeles Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer

If a drunk driver hurt you or someone in your family, DK Law represents people in exactly that position across Los Angeles. We handle drunk driving injury cases often, and we know how they actually play out: the insurance adjuster who calls within days sounding helpful, the medical bills piling up while you can’t work, the pressure to accept a fast check that doesn’t come close to covering what’s ahead. Our job is to take that fight off your plate so you can focus on getting better.

In practice, that means we:

• Deal with the insurance companies directly, so the adjusters stop calling you.
• Pursue the full cost of your medical care, present and future, not just the bills you’ve already seen.
• Handle the medical liens against your case, so providers don’t quietly eat your settlement.
• Push back on the insurer’s liability and coverage arguments when they try to underpay or deny.
• Build and negotiate the pain and suffering part of your claim, the piece insurers most want to minimize.

One thing worth knowing right away, because it’s the fear that keeps people from calling at all: the criminal case against the driver and your own injury claim are two separate things. The district attorney handles the DUI charge. Your civil claim is yours, and the money that covers your bills, lost income, and what you’ve been through almost always comes from an insurance policy, not the driver’s bank account.

Can you sue a drunk driver in California if they’re already facing criminal charges?

Yes. The two cases don’t depend on each other. A criminal DUI prosecution exists to punish the driver, and the judge may order restitution, but restitution is narrow and rarely covers the full picture of a serious injury.

Your civil claim is the path to real compensation for medical costs, future care, lost wages, and pain and suffering, and it can move forward whether the driver is convicted, acquitted, or never charged. A conviction can even help you, since the evidence behind it often makes proving fault more straightforward. For how these cases work in the state, our guide to California DUI laws walks through it.

Can a drunk driving victim recover punitive damages in California?

Sometimes, and this is one of the few areas where a drunk driving case is genuinely different from a regular crash. 

Most injury cases pay only for your actual losses, your bills, your lost wages, your pain. Punitive damages (extra money meant to punish the driver, on top of those losses) are different, and the law sets a high bar for them. 

To win them, you usually have to show the driver did something worse than careless, what the law calls malice. An ordinary fender-bender doesn’t clear that bar. California’s Supreme Court decided, decades ago, that choosing to drink and then drive can be considered negligence, because a drunk driver consciously disregards a danger everyone understands.

Why it matters in practice:

• They’re awarded on top of what you’ve actually lost, because their purpose is to punish.
• They reach the driver’s own assets, since you can’t insure against being punished for your own misconduct.
• That exposure changes how a case is valued, and how willing the other side is to settle.

Is it worth suing a drunk driver who doesn’t have money to pay?

Because in most cases you’re not collecting from the person. You’re collecting from insurance, and the driver’s empty bank account has little to do with what you can recover. The money tends to come from one or more of these:

• The at-fault driver’s auto liability policy. Usually the first source, and often a limited one. California only requires $30,000 in bodily injury coverage per person, and a spinal injury or a long hospital stay can blow past that in a week.
• Your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. If the driver had no insurance, or only the state minimum against far larger injuries, this coverage on your own policy fills the gap. Worth knowing how an underinsured motorist claim works in California, including that it’s offset against what the driver’s insurer paid rather than stacked on top.
• A commercial policy, if the driver was working. A drunk driver behind the wheel of a delivery van, a rideshare car on the clock, or a company vehicle may be covered by a business policy with far higher limits than a personal one, and the employer may share responsibility.
• A government insurer, if a public employee or vehicle was involved. A drunk on-duty government driver, or a public agency vehicle, opens a claim against a public entity, which carries its own much more extensive coverage. These come with a tight catch: the deadline to file can be as short as six months, far less than the usual two years.

How long do you have to file a drunk driving injury claim in Los Angeles?

For most injury claims, the deadline is two years from the date you were hurt, under California Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Wait too long and the claim is gone, however strong it was. Two deadlines to keep straight:

• The standard two-year window covers a claim against the drunk driver and most private parties.
• A six-month deadline applies if a government entity played a role, say a city street or a public vehicle was involved, and missing it can end the claim before the two years are close.

Can you sue the bar or restaurant that served the drunk driver in California?

Usually not, and here California breaks sharply from what you may have read elsewhere. In many states, a bar that keeps serving an obviously hammered customer can be held responsible when that customer crashes. California rejected that by statute, treating the drinking, not the serving, as the cause of the harm. So a bar that over-served an adult is generally off the hook for your injuries even if it broke the law by serving them.

There’s one real exception:

• No claim for serving an intoxicated adult. Over-serving a visibly drunk adult can be a crime for the business, but it doesn’t give you a civil case against them.
• A claim for serving an obviously intoxicated minor. If a licensed establishment served alcohol to someone under 21 who was already obviously intoxicated, and that led to your crash, California law does allow a claim against that business.

Knowing which situation you’re in early matters, because it decides whether a third party is even part of your case.

Talk to DK Law

A drunk driving crash leaves you with pain, bills, and an insurance company that would prefer you handle this alone. You don’t have to. DK Law has handled these cases across California, and we’ll look at what happened, track down every policy that might cover you, and tell you honestly whether we can help. There’s no fee unless we win. Call DK Law today for a free consultation.