There is a particular anger that comes with being hurt by someone who chose to drive drunk. It was avoidable. It was not a mistake in the ordinary sense. And then the criminal case moves forward without you at the center of it, and it becomes clear that the system handling the driver is not the system that will help your family recover.

Understanding why is the first useful thing.

Two Separate Proceedings

The criminal case is the State of Montana against the driver. Its purpose is to punish. You are a witness in it, not a party. The prosecutor represents the state's interest, not yours, and does not answer to you about how it is resolved.

Your injury claim is a separate civil matter that you bring, aimed at compensating your losses. It proceeds on its own schedule under its own standards.

The two interact, but neither substitutes for the other.

Restitution Is Not Compensation

A criminal court may order the driver to pay restitution, and families frequently assume that resolves the financial side. It usually does not.

Restitution tends to be limited in what it covers and is only as good as the driver's ability to pay it, which for many defendants means small payments over years, or nothing. It is not designed to make an injured person whole, and it does not preclude a civil claim.

If someone tells you that restitution has been ordered so your matter is handled, that is worth a second opinion.

The Conviction Helps, But Fault Is Not the Problem

A criminal conviction is useful in the civil case, and impaired-driving cases rarely turn on whether the other driver was at fault. That part is usually clear.

The actual constraint is almost always available insurance. Someone who drives drunk is disproportionately likely to carry minimal coverage, or none. A clear liability case against an uninsured defendant can still leave a family with nothing if nobody looks further.

Where to Look for Coverage

  • The driver's liability policy, which is often at the minimum.
  • Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, which exists for precisely this situation and which many people do not realize they have.
  • Other household policies, including umbrella coverage.
  • Other potentially responsible parties, depending on the specific facts of how the driver came to be on the road.

That second one is the most commonly missed. Reviewing your own policy is one of the first things worth doing, and it is not adverse to you to make a claim under coverage you have been paying for.

Conduct Can Affect the Claim's Value

Montana permits punitive damages in appropriate circumstances, and there are statutory constraints on them, including those addressed at MCA § 27-1-513. Whether they are available in a particular case is fact-specific and not something to count on, but the deliberate nature of impaired driving is relevant in a way that ordinary negligence is not.

Do Not Wait for the Criminal Case to Finish

This is the practical mistake families make most often. Criminal cases take months, sometimes longer, and people wait for them to conclude before doing anything about the civil side.

Meanwhile evidence degrades, witnesses become harder to find, and Montana's three-year injury-claim deadline (MCA § 27-2-204) runs regardless of what the criminal court is doing. The two tracks can and should proceed in parallel.

Our auto accident page covers how we handle these, and our wrongful death page addresses the worst outcomes.