Adam S. Kutner, Injury Attorneys · Las Vegas Valley
Las Vegas Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer
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In This Guide
Why Should You Hire a Lawyer for a Drunk Driving Accident Claim?
You should hire a drunk driving accident lawyer because a DUI case gives you legal advantages an ordinary crash claim does not, and none of them apply automatically. If the driver is convicted, Nevada treats that conviction as conclusive proof of liability. Punitive damages become available, and the cap that limits them in every other kind of case is switched off. Both of those depend on someone building the claim around them.
There is also a second case running alongside yours. The State prosecutes the driver, and you are a witness in that case, not a party to it. The prosecutor does not represent you and cannot recover your losses. Your claim is separate, and it is the only one you control.
What a DUI Conviction Does for Your Civil Claim
Under NRS 41.133, if the driver is convicted of the crime that caused your injury, that judgment of conviction is conclusive evidence of all facts necessary to impose civil liability. Not persuasive evidence. Not a strong start. Conclusive.
In an ordinary crash the first fight is whose fault it was. Here that fight is over before it begins, and the insurer knows it. What remains is the value of what happened to you: the treatment, the time you could not work, the permanent effects, and the parts of your life the crash took. That is a different negotiation, and it is the one we prepare for from the first week.
The conviction has to arrive for that to apply, and criminal cases move on their own schedule. Your Nevada injury deadline is two years from the crash (NRS 11.190(4)(e)). Do not assume the criminal case pauses it. Ask us before you wait on it.
Punitive Damages in a Nevada Drunk Driving Case
Punitive damages are the second thing a DUI case makes available. They are not compensation for a loss. They exist to punish the driver and to make an example, and Nevada allows them in drunk driving cases by name.
|
Rule |
What Nevada Law Says |
Why It Matters To Your Claim |
|---|---|---|
|
Conviction as proof |
A judgment of conviction for the crime that injured the victim is conclusive evidence of all facts necessary to impose civil liability. |
Liability stops being arguable. The claim becomes a question of value only. |
|
Punitive damages |
Where the defendant caused injury by operating a motor vehicle in violation of Nevada’s DUI statutes after willfully consuming or using alcohol or another substance, the plaintiff may recover punitive damages in addition to compensatory damages. |
A category of recovery that does not exist in an ordinary negligence claim. |
|
The cap does not apply |
“The provisions of NRS 42.005 do not apply to any cause of action brought pursuant to this section.” |
Nevada’s usual punitive ceiling is switched off for these claims. |
|
Deadline |
Two years from the crash to bring a Nevada injury claim. |
It runs independently of the criminal court’s timeline. |
The word willfully is in the statute and it does work. The claim is not that the driver willfully hurt you. It is that they willfully drank or used the substance before driving. That is what has to be shown, and it is usually shown with the same evidence the prosecution is already gathering.
What Is My Drunk Driving Accident Case Worth?
What your drunk driving case is worth depends on the severity and permanence of your injuries, what they cost you in treatment and lost earnings, how much insurance is available, and whether punitive damages are in play. That last factor is why DUI claims often resolve differently from comparable crashes with the same injuries.
Economic damages cover emergency and ongoing treatment, future care, lost wages, reduced earning capacity, and your vehicle. Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, disfigurement, and the changes to how you live. Our guide to the damages available in a Nevada injury claim covers each category.
“Somebody turned left, right into me from the opposite direction and totaled the car and I was actually unconscious for a short while and sure enough he got hauled off for a DUI and there I was with a totaled car going to the emergency room. Adam Kutner dealt with the case himself, personally, and it was just a great experience from beginning to end.”
Thom Ferman
Can I Sue the Bar That Served the Drunk Driver?
Almost certainly not, and this is where Nevada differs from most states people arrive from. Under NRS 41.1305, someone who serves alcohol to a person 21 or older is not liable for what that person then does. There is no dram shop claim against the bar, the casino, the restaurant, or the host.
The statute creates liability in one narrow situation: knowingly serving an underage person, or knowingly letting one drink on premises you control. Even there, subsection 3 removes the liability for anyone licensed to serve alcohol and for their employees acting in the course of business, and says such an act cannot be used to establish proximate cause and is not negligence per se. In a city where nearly every place that pours a drink is licensed, that closes the door in practice.
We tell you this early because the alternative is months spent chasing a defendant Nevada law does not make available. The recovery in these cases comes from the driver’s policy, from your own coverage, and where the facts support it, from punitive damages.
The Criminal DUI Case and Your Civil Claim Are Not the Same Thing
People are often told to wait and see what happens in court. Here is what the criminal case can and cannot do for you:
|
The Criminal DUI Case |
Your Civil Claim |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Who brings it |
The State of Nevada. You are a witness, not a party. |
You. You choose the lawyer and you decide whether to settle. |
|
What it is for |
Punishing the driver. |
Recovering what the crash cost you. |
|
What you can get |
The sentencing court may order restitution for each victim (NRS 176.033(3)). |
Medical costs, lost earnings, future care, pain and suffering, and punitive damages where the statute applies. |
|
Standard of proof |
Beyond a reasonable doubt. |
More likely than not, a lower bar. |
|
How they connect |
A conviction becomes conclusive proof of liability in your civil case (NRS 41.133). |
An acquittal does not end your claim. The civil standard is lower, so a case that fails as a crime can still succeed as a claim. |
Our page on how a case can be both criminal and civil goes through how the two proceed side by side.
Injuries in Drunk Driving Crashes
Alcohol-impaired crashes killed 11,904 people in the United States in 2024, about one every 44 minutes (NHTSA), and many more survived with serious injuries. A drunk driver often hits without braking and at speed, so the crashes tend to be more severe than an ordinary collision, and the injuries reflect that. The injuries we see most in these cases are the ones whose cost runs well past the treatment already in hand:
- Traumatic brain injury, including in people who never lost consciousness
- Spinal cord injury and paralysis
- Multiple fractures, including of the pelvis, ribs, and legs
- Internal bleeding and organ damage
- Facial and dental injuries, and eye injuries from glass
- Burns, where a fire or the airbag was involved
- Fatal injuries, where the claim becomes one for wrongful death brought by the family
The more serious and more permanent the injury, the more the claim has to account for future care and lost earning capacity, not just the bills so far. Documenting that fully is a large part of what we do, and it is why getting proper treatment and keeping the records matters from the first day.
What To Do After Being Hit by a Drunk Driver in Las Vegas
What matters most after a DUI crash is that the evidence tying the driver’s impairment to your injury is preserved while it still exists. Four things do most of that work:
- Get medical attention the same day.
A same-day record leaves no gap for an insurer to argue your injuries came from something else, and it starts the treatment history the claim is built on. If your regular doctor cannot see you the same day, go to an urgent care.assuming diminished value is covered. - Make sure police are called and get the report number.
The field sobriety test, the breath or blood result, and the arrest are recorded in the police investigation. That record is what a later conviction rests on, and the conviction is what makes liability conclusive. - Tell the officer what you saw and smelled, precisely.
Slurred speech, the smell of alcohol, open containers, how the car was being driven before impact. Your observations go in the report and they matter later, whether or not you feel certain at the time. - Say nothing to the driver’s insurer before you have advice.
Recorded statements are taken early for a reason. Anything you say about how you feel in the first days becomes their answer to how badly you were hurt. Send them to us instead.
Stay off social media about the crash while the claim is open. A photograph of you at a family event, posted with no context, is the kind of thing an adjuster will use to argue you were not as hurt as you say.
Were you hit by a drunk driver?
Call (702) 382-0000 and tell us what happened. If the driver was arrested, there are things worth doing now, while the criminal case is still moving.
Questions From Drunk Driving Accident Victims In Las Vegas
Talk to a Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer in Las Vegas
Tell us what happened, whether the driver was arrested, and what anyone from their insurance company has said to you so far. Our drunk driving accident attorneys have stood up for Las Vegas crash victims for more than 35 years, and you reach the same law firm day or night, not an answering service.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, talk to a qualified Nevada attorney.
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