Rights of Drunk Driving Accident Victims in Massachusetts

Getting hit by a drunk driver is not an ordinary crash. You're dealing with an injury that never should have happened, a criminal case you don't control, and a Massachusetts insurance system that has its own rules about who pays and when. This page sticks to what Massachusetts law actually says, so you know your options before an adjuster or a defense lawyer frames them for you.

Massachusetts recorded 128,769 crashes in 2025, down from 135,439 the year before.¹ Most weren't alcohol-related, but the ones that are tend to be the worst. In 2023 the state had 343 traffic deaths, and 116 of them (34 percent) happened in crashes where a driver was alcohol-impaired at a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher; 85 of those deaths involved a driver at 0.15 or more, nearly double the legal limit.² The general concepts behind a drunk driving claim are covered on the national hub for this page. What follows is Massachusetts specifically.

Your first medical bills come from your own policy

Massachusetts is a no-fault state. Every auto policy carries Personal Injury Protection (PIP), and PIP pays the first $8,000 of your medical bills and lost wages regardless of who caused the crash.³ You file with your own insurer even though the drunk driver hit you. Once a treating physician sends notice of your injury, the insurer has to start paying within ten days or send you written notice that it won't, with a reason.³ Keep every bill and every wage record; PIP is the account those first costs draw from.

PIP is only the starting point for what a drunk driver owes you.

When you can sue the drunk driver for pain and suffering

No-fault limits when you can step outside the system and sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering. Under Massachusetts law you clear that threshold if your reasonable medical expenses top $2,000, or if the crash caused death, a fracture, permanent and serious disfigurement, or loss of sight or hearing.⁴ Any one of those is enough on its own. Serious drunk driving injuries usually meet the threshold without difficulty, which opens the door to a full bodily injury claim against the driver for the losses PIP doesn't cover.

Massachusetts places no cap on compensatory damages in a motor vehicle case. Your economic losses (medical bills, lost income, the cost of future care) and your noneconomic losses (physical pain and a diminished quality of life) are recoverable in full.

Fault sharing and punitive damages

Massachusetts uses modified comparative negligence. You can recover as long as your share of the fault is not greater than the driver's; if you're found more than 50 percent responsible you recover nothing, and any award is reduced by your percentage of fault.⁵ In a drunk driving case the impaired driver usually carries the overwhelming share, but expect the defense to hunt for any slice of blame to pin on you.

Punitive damages work differently than many people expect. In an ordinary negligence suit in Massachusetts they aren't available at all. The one place they are is a wrongful death case: if a drunk driver kills someone through gross negligence or willful, wanton, or reckless conduct, the estate can recover punitive damages of at least $5,000 on top of compensatory damages.⁶ Driving drunk is frequently argued as exactly that kind of gross or reckless conduct.

The bar that over-served may also be liable

A drunk driver is often not the only party at fault. Since 1982, Massachusetts has recognized a common-law claim against a commercial establishment that serves alcohol to a visibly intoxicated patron who then injures someone. In Cimino v. Milford Keg, Inc., the Supreme Judicial Court held a tavern liable where it kept serving a patron it knew or should have known was intoxicated, and that patron went on to cause a fatal crash.⁷ These "dram shop" claims matter because a bar's insurance can be the difference in a case where the driver has little coverage of their own. Proving one takes evidence (receipts, and the accounts of servers and other patrons) that gets harder to find as time passes, which is a reason not to wait.

When the drunk driver has little or no insurance

Impaired drivers are disproportionately underinsured, so this comes up often. For policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2025, Massachusetts raised its minimum liability limits to $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash for bodily injury and $30,000 for property damage, up from the old 20/40/5.⁸ The $8,000 of PIP sits on top of that.⁸

If the driver's limits fall short, your own policy can fill the gap. Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is mandatory in Massachusetts at the same limits as your bodily injury liability, so at least 25/50, and it pays when the at-fault driver has no insurance or flees the scene.⁹ Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage, which applies when the driver has some insurance but not enough, is optional; insurers have to offer it, and you can only be without it if you turned it down in writing.⁹ Check your own declarations page now for a UIM limit. When you're trying to line up the driver's coverage, a possible dram shop defendant, and your own UM or UIM, that's the point to talk to a lawyer.

Deadlines and the criminal case

You generally have three years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury or property damage lawsuit in Massachusetts.¹⁰ A wrongful death claim runs three years from the date of death.⁶ Miss the deadline and the claim is gone, so the sooner the evidence is preserved the better.

The driver's criminal case runs on a separate track from yours. Massachusetts treats operating with a BAC of 0.08 or higher as impaired per se (0.02 for drivers under 21), and prosecutors bring that OUI charge as the Commonwealth, not on your behalf.¹¹ A conviction can help your civil claim, but you don't need one to recover. Your case is decided on the lower "more likely than not" standard, so you can win compensation even if the criminal charge doesn't stick.

For the police report on your crash, see the Massachusetts crash report page. If your car was totaled or lost resale value, the diminished value and vehicle damage claim is separate from your injury claim and worth pursuing on its own.

This is general information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice about your specific situation.

Sources

1. thatcarhitme.com, Massachusetts Crash Report, 2025. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/massachusetts/statewide/2025-annual-report

2. NHTSA, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, "State Alcohol-Impaired-Driving Estimates: 2023 Data," Table 2 (FARS 2023 ARF). https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813726.pdf

3. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 90, § 34M. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter90/Section34M

4. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 6D. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleII/Chapter231/Section6D

5. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 85. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleII/Chapter231/Section85

6. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 229, § 2 (wrongful death damages and three-year limitation). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleII/Chapter229/Section2

7. Cimino v. Milford Keg, Inc., 385 Mass. 323 (1982). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2038751/cimino-v-milford-keg-inc/

8. Massachusetts Division of Insurance, "2025 New Motor Vehicle Mandatory Coverage Limits" (Acts of 2024, c. 275, effective July 1, 2025). https://www.mass.gov/doc/2025-a-new-motor-vehicle-mandatory-coverage-limits/download

9. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 175, § 113L. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXII/Chapter175/Section113L

10. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleV/Chapter260/Section2A

11. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 90, § 24. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter90/Section24