Liability When Intoxicated Minors Cause Car Accidents

If you are hit by a drunk driver, and you were injured, you have options to receive compensation from the liable driver. But sometimes, that liable, drunk driver, ends up being a minor. When that happens, the case, and the parties potentially liable to compensate you, become a bit different.

Minors and DUI

One way that your DUI injury case involving an underaged driver is different is liability; a minor (under 21) only needs to have a blood alcohol level of .02, to be legally driving under the influence. Almost any amount of alcohol in a minors system at all, is often enough to meet that threshold.

Remember that while a breath test that shows .02 is ideal in proving liability, it isn’t necessary; so long as you can prove, by a preponderance of the evidence (in civil court), that the minor driver had alcohol in his or her system, and that it impaired his or her driving, it is possible to convince a judge or jury, that the other driver was driving while under the influence.

Vehicle Owner and Third Party Liability

When minors drive cars, they often don’t drive their own vehicles. They may drive their parents’ cars or friends’ cars. When they do, and they cause an injury because they’re driving under the influence, the owner of the vehicle can be sued for negligent entrustment; that is, they should not have allowed or trusted the minor to use the vehicle.

That is true, even if the owner of the car never intended for or wanted the driver to get behind the wheel drunk.

Even parents who allow a child in the household to use the parent’s car, can be liable for what the child does behind the wheel, including driving drunk.

Dram Shop and Social Hosts

When minors drive drunk, often, someone allows them access to alcohol, or access to alcohol and then access to the vehicle. This often happens when minors go to parties at people’s houses, are allowed access to alcohol and then allowed to drive home after, intoxicated. This is one reason why it is highly inadvisable for parents to have minors in the home, with access to alcohol (along with the many other reasons why that’s a bad idea).

When that happens, the person who provided the alcohol or allowed the minor to get behind the wheel may have what is known as social host or dram shop liability.

If There is no Criminal Conviction

Many minors do end up taking plea deals when they are charged with DUI. So long as there aren’t what the state feels are “serious injuries,” the state may offer a minor DUI driver a very favorable plea deal, especially if it’s the minor’s first offense.

But just because there is a plea deal, and thus no actual conviction, doesn’t mean that you cannot, in civil court, find the minor liable for injuring you. What happens in criminal court doesn’t affect your ability to sue any liable party for injuries caused by the DUI.

Injured by an intoxicated driver, adult or minor? Contact our Rhode Island injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700 for help.

Source:

dmv.ri.gov/node/1396