Rights of drunk driving accident victims in Maine

Two cases run at once after a Maine drunk-driving crash: the state's criminal prosecution and your own civil claim. Here is what Maine's statutes actually give victims, from the dram shop notice deadline to UM/UIM coverage.

ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial
Jul 13, 2026
6 min read

If a drunk driver hurt you or killed a member of your family on a Maine road, you are really dealing with two cases at once. One is the state's criminal prosecution of the driver. The other is your own civil claim for money, which you control. They run on separate tracks, with different deadlines, and winning one does not win the other. This page sticks to what Maine law actually gives victims, with the statute sections and dollar figures you can check yourself.

Maine treats operating under the influence as a strict-liability offense once a driver's blood alcohol concentration reaches 0.08, or when the driver is impaired to any degree.1 Alcohol remains a factor in a large share of the state's traffic deaths, which the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety tracks in its annual fatality analysis.2 For scale, alcohol-impaired crashes killed 12,429 people nationwide in 2023.3

The criminal case and your civil case are not the same

A prosecutor can charge the driver under 29-A M.R.S. § 2411. When a crash causes serious bodily injury, that is a Class C crime; when it causes death, it is a Class B crime, punishable by up to five and ten years in prison respectively.1 A conviction can feel like accountability, but it does not pay your bills. The sentencing judge may order the driver to pay restitution to you, and Maine gives crime victims the right to be notified of proceedings and to speak at sentencing.4 Restitution is limited to documented out-of-pocket losses and turns on what the driver can actually pay, so it seldom covers the full harm. Your civil claim is where the rest gets recovered, and the district attorney does not run it. You do.

The deadlines that can end your case before it starts

Maine gives you six years to file an ordinary injury lawsuit from a crash, counted from the date of the collision, under 14 M.R.S. § 752.5 That is more generous than most states, but it is firm. Miss it and the claim is dead.

If the drunk driver killed someone, the clock is much tighter. A wrongful death action has to be filed within three years of the death under 18-C M.R.S. § 2-807, with a limited extension to six years from discovery when the death resulted from a homicide.6 Impaired-driving deaths are often charged as homicides, so that extension can apply, but treating three years as your deadline is the safe course.

One rule traps more victims than any other. If any part of your case is against a bar, restaurant, or social host that served the driver, the Maine Liquor Liability Act requires written notice to that server within 180 days of the conduct, and the lawsuit itself within two years.78 Blow the 180-day notice and the dram shop claim can be lost before you ever see a courtroom, however strong the facts are.

When you can sue the bar or the host

Maine is a dram shop state. Under the Liquor Liability Act, a server is liable for damages caused by a patron's drinking if it negligently served someone "visibly intoxicated," which the statute defines as serving a person the server knew, or a reasonable and prudent person would have known, was visibly intoxicated.9 Reckless service carries even greater exposure. The rule reaches licensed bars and restaurants, and in some cases private hosts who furnish alcohol.

There is a ceiling. Damages against a server for everything except medical care and treatment cannot exceed $350,000 for any single accident or occurrence.10 Medical costs fall outside that cap. Any such claim still has to satisfy the 180-day notice requirement and the two-year filing limit.78

Punitive damages and the malice problem

Many people assume drunk driving automatically unlocks punitive damages. In Maine it does not. In Tuttle v. Raymond, the Law Court held that punitive damages require clear and convincing evidence the defendant acted with malice, meaning actual ill will toward the victim or conduct so reprehensible that malice can be implied.11 Recklessness by itself, which is how a lot of drunk driving is characterized, does not meet that standard. Punitive damages remain possible against a genuinely egregious drunk driver, but the proof is demanding, and in a wrongful death case any punitive award is separately capped at $500,000.611

How your own fault affects recovery

Maine uses modified comparative negligence. Under 14 M.R.S. § 156, you can still recover even if you were partly to blame, but not if a jury finds you "equally at fault" with the defendant, which is the 50 percent cutoff.12 If you are below that line, your damages are reduced by the share of responsibility assigned to you. Against a drunk driver your share is usually small or nothing, yet insurers routinely argue it up, so it pays to know where the line sits.

The coverage that usually pays

Maine is an at-fault state with no no-fault PIP system, so you pursue the impaired driver and that driver's insurer.13 The catch is that drunk drivers are often uninsured or carry only the legal minimum. In Maine that minimum is 50/100/25: $50,000 per person and $100,000 per crash for bodily injury, plus $25,000 for property damage.14 A serious injury exhausts those limits quickly.

This is where your own policy earns its keep. Maine requires uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on every auto policy, set equal to your liability limits, unless you signed a written rejection before the policy took effect, and even a reduced amount cannot fall below 50/100.15 When the drunk driver's coverage runs dry, your UM/UIM coverage is what pays the difference. Every standard Maine policy also includes at least $2,000 in medical payments coverage for costs incurred within one year of the crash, and you cannot waive it.16 The Maine Bureau of Insurance lays out how these pieces fit together in its consumer guide to auto insurance.13

If insurance and the driver both come up short, Maine's Victims' Compensation Program, run through the Attorney General's office, can reimburse eligible crime victims for out-of-pocket costs such as medical bills and lost wages, and victims of impaired-driving crimes can qualify.17

Your vehicle, your crash report, and finding help

Your car matters too. Even after a correct repair, a vehicle with a wreck on its history is worth less, and Maine's approach to that loss is covered on our Maine diminished value page. If you need the official report to document the collision, see how to get a Maine crash report.

A drunk-driving case can pull in the driver, a bar, your own insurer, and more than one policy at the same time, which is a lot to manage while you are healing. Most victims do better with a lawyer who handles these claims, and you can start with our legal directory.

This article is general information about Maine law, not legal advice.

Sources

  1. Maine Legislature, 29-A M.R.S. § 2411 (Criminal OUI). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-A/title29-Asec2411.html

  2. Maine Department of Public Safety, Bureau of Highway Safety, Crash Data. https://www.maine.gov/dps/bhs/crash-data/

  3. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Drunk Driving. https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving

  4. Office of the Maine Attorney General, Crime and Victims: Criminal Justice System (restitution and victim participation). https://www.maine.gov/ag/crime/criminal_justice_system.shtml

  5. Maine Legislature, 14 M.R.S. § 752 (limitation of civil actions, 6 years). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec752.html

  6. Maine Legislature, 18-C M.R.S. § 2-807 (wrongful death). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec2-807.html

  7. Maine Legislature, 28-A M.R.S. § 2513 (notice, 180 days). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/28-a/title28-Asec2513.html

  8. Maine Legislature, 28-A M.R.S. § 2514 (limitation of actions, 2 years). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/28-a/title28-Asec2514.html

  9. Maine Legislature, 28-A M.R.S. § 2506 (negligent service of liquor). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/28-a/title28-Asec2506.html

  10. Maine Legislature, 28-A M.R.S. § 2509 (damages, $350,000 limit). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/28-a/title28-Asec2509.html

  11. Tuttle v. Raymond, 494 A.2d 1353 (Me. 1985). https://law.justia.com/cases/maine/supreme-court/1985/494-a-2d-1353-0.html

  12. Maine Legislature, 14 M.R.S. § 156 (comparative negligence). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec156.html

  13. Maine Bureau of Insurance, A Consumer's Guide to Personal Auto Insurance. https://www.maine.gov/pfr/insurance/sites/maine.gov.pfr.insurance/files/inline-files/12.6.24Consumers%20Guide%20to%20Personal%20Auto%20Insurance.pdf

  14. Maine Legislature, 29-A M.R.S. § 1605 (financial responsibility limits). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1605.html

  15. Maine Legislature, 24-A M.R.S. § 2902 (uninsured vehicle coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/24-a/title24-Asec2902.html

  16. Maine Legislature, 29-A M.R.S. § 1605-A (medical payments coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1605-A.html

  17. Office of the Maine Attorney General, Victims' Compensation Program. https://www1.maine.gov/ag/crime/victims_compensation/detailed_program_description.shtml

About This Guide

Written by: ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial

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