A drunk-driving wreck on Sunset, on the 405 or after a gathering in a Westside home feels like a criminal case first, and it often is. The civil file is separate. It has its own defendants, its own insurance fights and a 1996 initiative that can take pain-and-suffering damages off the table in some situations. It also has a social-host statute that is narrower than many people hope when they look for someone else to sue besides the driver.
What the impaired driver still owes
A driver who hurts someone while impaired is still a negligence defendant. Official instruction CACI 405 compares fault. A drunk driver often carries a large share, but the instruction has no half-fault cutoff, and other defendants, including another motorist or, in a narrower set of facts, a public entity, can still be in the file. CIV 1431.2 makes each defendant’s share of noneconomic harm several only.
A criminal case, a plea or a conviction can become important evidence, and it can also trigger CIV 3333.4. That statute generally blocks an injured person from recovering non-economic losses in a motor-vehicle case if the injured person was operating a vehicle in violation of Vehicle Code 23152 or 23153 and received a conviction for that offense. It also blocks those losses if the injured person was an uninsured owner, or an operator who cannot establish financial responsibility, with a narrow exception when an uninsured owner was hurt by a motorist convicted of one of those DUI offenses. The Proposition 213 guide walks through the three categories. A sober passenger, a person on foot or a family bringing a death claim may be in a very different position from an impaired driver who was also hurt.
What Civil Code 1714 does, and does not do
CIV 1714 starts with a general duty of ordinary care. It then says, in subdivision (b), that the furnishing of alcoholic beverages is not the proximate cause of injuries resulting from intoxication. The consumption of those beverages is. Except as provided in subdivision (d), no social host who furnishes alcoholic beverages to any person may be held legally accountable for damages suffered by that person, or for injury to the person or property of, or death of, any third person, resulting from the consumption of those beverages.
Subdivision (d) leaves room for a claim against a parent, guardian or another adult who knowingly furnishes alcoholic beverages at his or her residence to a person whom he or she knows, or should have known, to be under 21 years of age. In that situation, the furnishing may be found to be the proximate cause of resulting injuries or death. A claim under that subdivision may be brought by, or on behalf of, the person under 21, or by a person who was harmed by the person under 21.
In short, a civil claim against a Westside host, based only on pouring drinks for an adult who later got behind the wheel, is not what this statute provides. A claim based on an adult who knowingly served a minor at a residence is the path the official text leaves open. Licensed sellers and other theories can involve different statutes, including business-licensing rules, that should be read in their current official text if they become part of the file. Do not stretch Civil Code 1714 past what the official text says.
Insurance, reports and crime-victim questions
The impaired driver’s liability policy, if it exists and is in force, is still the first policy in most civil files, with the current thirty / sixty / fifteen floor for policies first written or renewed from January 1, 2025 onward, under VEH 16056. If that policy is too small or is missing, uninsured or underinsured coverage on a household policy may apply, subject to INS 11580.2. Request the crash report along the official LAPD or CHP path in the report guide.
Some families also ask about crime-victim compensation. Eligibility, exclusions and deadlines for that program are official and specific. Confirm them on the current official compensation site before you treat a summary as enough. A compensation claim does not replace the two-year lawsuit date in CCP 335.1 or a six-month government claim under GOV 911.2.
What to do in the early days
Get medical care. Preserve photographs and witness names, including anyone who saw the driver at a gathering beforehand, without confronting people in a way that creates a second scene. Do not give an audio statement to an insurer you have not identified until you know who that insurer represents. If a death is involved, the fatal-crash guide is the better map of who may claim. If you talk with an attorney, bring the report number, any charging or conviction papers you already have, and the declarations page. Confirm the person’s California license.
A government claim can still arise in a DUI wreck if a public vehicle or a public-street theory is also in the file. The six-month date in GOV 911.2 does not pause because a criminal case is pending. Put that date on a calendar if a City or County defendant may be involved, and use the official desks named in the government-claims guide.
- Social host
- A person who furnishes alcohol in a private setting, generally protected by CIV 1714 except for the under-21 residential-furnishing path in subdivision (d).
- Non-economic losses
- The category CIV 3333.4 uses for pain, suffering and similar harm, which can be blocked in the uninsured or DUI-conviction situations the statute names.
- 23152 and 23153
- The Vehicle Code DUI provisions that CIV 3333.4 points to when a conviction is part of the civil analysis.