A drunk driving crash creates two separate cases. The state prosecutes the driver for the crime. You bring the civil claim for what the crash did to you. The two move on different tracks, under different rules, and your claim does not have to wait for the criminal case to finish.

The prosecutor represents the State of Missouri, not you. No one in the criminal case is responsible for getting your medical bills paid.

How Is the DWI Case Different From My Injury Claim?

Missouri makes it a crime to operate a vehicle “while in an intoxicated condition” (RSMo 577.010). A separate offense covers driving with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or more, or .04 percent in a commercial vehicle (RSMo 577.012). When an intoxicated driver causes physical injury through criminal negligence, the charge becomes a felony. Serious injury or death raises the class further.

The criminal case asks one question: can the state prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt? The civil case asks a different one: is it more likely than not that the driver’s negligence caused your injuries, and what are those injuries worth? A driver can be acquitted, plead to a lesser charge or have the case dismissed on a technicality, and you can still win the civil case.

Criminal cases also take time. Hearings get continued. Plea negotiations stretch for months. Meanwhile your medical bills arrive, your paychecks may stop, and the evidence you need for the civil claim is being overwritten. You do not need the criminal case to end before you hire a lawyer, file an insurance claim or file a lawsuit.

How Does the Criminal File Help My Civil Case?

The police investigation can do much of the early proof for you. The pieces that matter most are:

  • Breath or blood test results. Missouri drivers are deemed to have consented to a chemical test after an arrest for an intoxication offense (RSMo 577.020).
  • The officer’s report: observations of slurred speech, the odor of alcohol, field sobriety tests and statements the driver made at the scene.
  • Dash-camera and body-camera video, which often shows the driver’s condition minutes after the crash.
  • A guilty plea. A plea to DWI is an admission, and it can be used in the civil case.
  • Receipts, credit card records or statements about where the driver had been drinking. These point to the bar.

Some of this is closed to the public while the investigation is open. Missouri law closes investigative reports and police video until the investigation becomes inactive (RSMo 610.100). But the same statute lets a person involved in the incident, or that person’s attorney, request closed records to investigate a civil claim. The agency must provide them within thirty days or ask a circuit judge to decide. People who appear in a police video, or their attorney, can request a complete copy of it.

How Do I Get the Crash Report?

The report comes from the agency that investigated the crash. In the St. Louis area that is usually one of three.

  • Missouri State Highway Patrol, for most crashes on the interstates and state highways outside the city. The Patrol posts preliminary reports of injury and fatal crashes it investigated on its Online Traffic Crash Reports page for 29 days. The official report is requested through the Patrol Records Division’s online request form, 10 days or more after the crash, for $6.00.
  • St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, for crashes inside the City of St. Louis. Requests go through the department’s online records portal, by mail to the Sunshine Law Unit at 1915 Olive Street, or in person there if you were involved in the crash.
  • St. Louis County Police Department, for crashes in unincorporated St. Louis County and the municipalities it patrols. Requests go through St. Louis County’s online records request portal or to Central Police Records at 7900 Forsyth Boulevard in Clayton.

Many St. Louis County municipalities run their own police departments. The exchange-of-information slip you received at the scene names the agency and the report number. If you were taken from the scene by ambulance and never got one, we find it.

Can the Bar or Restaurant Be Held Responsible?

Sometimes, and only under narrow conditions. Missouri’s general rule, stated in the statute itself, is that furnishing alcohol is not the proximate cause of injuries inflicted by intoxicated persons. The exception is RSMo 537.053, Missouri’s dram shop law.

Under that law, an injured person, or the family of a person killed, may sue a business “licensed to sell intoxicating liquor by the drink for consumption on the premises” when it is proven by clear and convincing evidence that the seller:

  • knew or should have known it was serving someone under 21, or
  • knowingly served intoxicating liquor to a visibly intoxicated person.

The statute defines “visibly intoxicated” as inebriated to such an extent that the impairment is shown by “significantly uncoordinated physical action or significant physical dysfunction.” A blood alcohol number alone is not prima facie proof that someone was visibly intoxicated, though it can be admitted as evidence of intoxication.

Three limits matter. First, the law reaches bars, restaurants and other on-premises sellers. It does not create a claim against a package liquor store or a gas station. Second, it applies only to licensed sellers, so a private host who poured drinks at a party is not liable under it. Third, an intoxicated adult cannot use it to sue a bar for injuries from his or her own voluntary intoxication. Clear and convincing evidence is a higher standard than in an ordinary injury case, so the proof has to be gathered deliberately.

What evidence proves a dram shop claim?

  • Itemized receipts and the bar’s point-of-sale records: how many drinks, what kind and at what times.
  • The bar’s surveillance video, inside and in the parking lot, showing how the driver walked, stood and left.
  • Witnesses: other patrons, rideshare drivers, friends who were there, and employees.
  • The server’s and bartender’s training in responsible alcohol service, the bar’s written policies and whether anyone tried to cut the driver off.
  • Credit card statements and phone location data that place the driver at the bar and fix the timeline.
  • Toxicology, which a qualified expert can use to estimate how much the driver drank and how impaired he or she would have appeared.
Bar video is the most important evidence in a dram shop case, and it is usually the first to disappear.

Why a preservation letter matters

Most bar and restaurant camera systems record on a loop. When the hard drive fills, the system records over the oldest footage. On many systems that happens within days or weeks. Nobody has to delete anything on purpose. The evidence simply ages out.

A preservation letter is a written demand that the business keep specific evidence: video from named cameras for a defined window, receipts, staff schedules and incident logs. Once a business is on notice of a claim, destroying that evidence can carry consequences in court. The letter has to be sent fast and to the right entity, which may be a holding company rather than the name on the sign. The same applies to nearby businesses whose cameras caught the crash itself.

Can I Get Punitive Damages Against a Drunk Driver?

Possibly. Punitive damages punish conduct, rather than repay losses. In Missouri you must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant intentionally harmed you without just cause or acted with “a deliberate and flagrant disregard for the safety of others” (RSMo 510.261). Choosing to drive drunk is the kind of conduct a jury may weigh under that standard.

You cannot ask for punitive damages in the first petition. You must later ask the court for permission, with evidence showing a reasonable basis for the claim, generally at least 120 days before the final pretrial conference or the trial date (RSMo 510.261).

Missouri caps punitive damages against any defendant at the greater of $500,000 or five times the net judgment against that defendant (RSMo 510.265). The cap does not apply if the defendant pleads guilty to, or is convicted of, a felony arising out of the same acts. An injury-causing DWI is charged as a felony, so the outcome of the criminal case can matter to the civil one. The Missouri Supreme Court has also held the cap unconstitutional as applied to at least one kind of common-law claim (Lewellen v. Franklin, 2014). Whether the cap applies in a given case is a question for your lawyer, not the adjuster.

What if the Drunk Driver Has Little or No Insurance?

Missouri requires drivers to carry only $25,000 for injury to one person and $50,000 per crash (RSMo 303.190). Drivers with DWI histories often carry exactly that, or nothing. A single night in a trauma unit can use it up.

Your own policy is the next place to look. Every auto policy issued in Missouri must include uninsured motorist coverage at no less than those same minimum limits (RSMo 379.203). Underinsured motorist coverage, which pays when the drunk driver’s coverage is too small, is optional, and many people carry it without knowing. Missouri courts have allowed uninsured motorist coverage to be stacked across the vehicles on a household’s policies, and policies issued to family members you live with may also cover you. We read every policy in the household before anyone tells you what your claim is worth.

Other sources can include the owner of the car, if someone lent it to a driver they knew was impaired; an employer, if the driver was working; and the bar, if the dram shop law applies.

Isn’t Restitution in the Criminal Case Enough?

Usually not. A criminal court may order a convicted driver to pay restitution for the victim’s losses due to the offense (RSMo 559.105). Restitution is paid through the prosecuting attorney or circuit attorney’s office, often in installments over probation or parole (RSMo 559.100). It is tied to what the defendant can pay.

Restitution is aimed at your losses from the crime, such as medical bills and lost wages. A civil claim can also seek damages for pain, disability, disfigurement and the loss of the life you had, and it can reach insurance policies that restitution never touches. Take restitution if it is offered. Do not treat it as your whole recovery.

What if Someone Was Killed?

Missouri’s wrongful death statute allows the spouse, children, grandchildren of a deceased child, or parents to bring the claim. If none survive, siblings or their descendants may bring it, and failing them, a court-appointed plaintiff ad litem (RSMo 537.080). The claim must be filed within three years of the death (RSMo 537.100).

Missouri juries may consider the “aggravating circumstances attending the death” in deciding wrongful death damages (RSMo 537.090). A death caused by a driver who chose to drive drunk is the kind of case where that language matters. Damages also include lost financial support, funeral expenses, the value of lost companionship, guidance and care, and the pain the person suffered before death.

How Common Are These Crashes in Missouri?

In 2024, 263 people died in Missouri crashes involving a driver with a blood alcohol content of .08 or higher. That was 27 percent of the state’s 955 traffic deaths, according to federal crash data. In 177 of those deaths, a driver was at .15 or higher.

MoDOT’s preliminary count for 2025 is 909 traffic deaths statewide. The department reports that substance-impaired fatalities were among the largest declines from 2024. In 2023, the most recent year of county data the Highway Patrol has published, St. Louis County recorded 700 crashes involving alcohol or drugs, 20 of them fatal.

What Should I Do Now?

  • Get medical care and keep every appointment. Gaps in treatment are used against you.
  • Write down the responding agency and report number, and anything the driver said at the scene.
  • Report the crash to your own insurer, and ask for a copy of your full policy, including the declarations page.
  • Do not give a recorded statement to the drunk driver’s insurer.
  • Ask the prosecutor’s office, in writing, to notify you of court dates, plea hearings and sentencing. Missouri gives crime victims that right (RSMo 595.209).
  • Call a lawyer before the bar video is gone. The Injury Counsel sends preservation demands, requests the criminal file and identifies every policy that applies.

Most injury claims in Missouri must be filed within five years (RSMo 516.120). The evidence will not last that long. Call The Injury Counsel at (314) 727-7220 for a free, confidential consultation.