Suing Someone After a Criminal Prosecution

In some cases, a person engages in bad conduct which injures someone and that conduct is also a crime. If someone drove drunk and injured or killed someone, or somebody dangerously maintained a construction site, the state may press criminal charges against the drunk driver or may charge a construction firm with criminally negligent homicide if someone is killed in a construction accident. How does a criminal prosecution against an injuring party affect someone’s personal injury case against those same defendants?

Collateral Estoppel/Issue Preclusion

Consider the case of a drunk driver who injures someone. Generally, if a person is injured by a drunk driver, he or she can sue him for the injuries even while the state is prosecuting the driver for a DWI. If the state prosecutor proves the facts of the drunk driver’s crime, this can help the injured party in a subsequent personal injury or wrongful death action against the driver. The state has to prove their case against the driver according to the strictest burden of proof, “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In contrast, a personal injury plaintiff only has to prove the elements of his claim by the “more likely than not” standard (“preponderance of the evidence”), which is a less burdensome standard of proof.

In a criminal case, such as our hypothetical DWI prosecution, there is a rule about the criminal court’s findings of fact regarding the circumstances of the drunk driving accident. If it was necessary for the court to make those findings to convict the DWI defendant, then a subsequent personal injury plaintiff may use those findings of fact in a subsequent civil case which arises out of the same incident. In other words, a personal injury plaintiff doesn’t have to re-prove the facts that the criminal court already established. This rule is called “collateral estoppel,” or “issue preclusion.”

It is noteworthy that if a criminal court judge makes superfluous findings of fact (meaning it decides facts which it did not help establish any of the elements of the criminal case), then those findings would probably not bind a subsequent personal injury case arising from the same incident.

Contact Rosenberg & Gluck

If you have been injured by someone’s criminally negligent conduct, you can always call the attorneys at Rosenberg & Gluck. Our firm is one of the largest and most successful personal injury firms in Suffolk and Nassau Counties. That’s because personal injury is all we do. For a free initial consultation, email us or call our office at 631-451-7900.