Filing a car accident lawsuit in Arkansas

After a crash on I-40 near Little Rock or a two-lane highway outside Fayetteville, two questions decide your case: how long you have to file, and how much the other driver's fault argument can cost you. Arkansas answers both with specific statutes. Here is what actually governs a car-accident claim in an Arkansas circuit court, provision by provision.

The deadline is three years, and it is already running

Arkansas gives you three years from the date of the crash to file a personal-injury lawsuit. The deadline comes from Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105, the state's catch-all three-year limitations statute covering "all actions founded on any contract or liability, express or implied." ¹ Arkansas has no separate personal-injury statute, so negligence claims from a wreck fall under this catch-all. Damage to your vehicle runs on the same three-year clock under the same section. ¹

Three years is more generous than the two-year window in several neighboring states, and that can make people complacent. Evidence disappears and witnesses move away. Miss the date by a single day and the court will dismiss the case no matter how badly you were hurt. Claims against a city, county, or state entity carry their own notice rules and can come due much sooner, so a government vehicle changes the math immediately.

How Arkansas splits the blame: the 50 percent bar

Arkansas uses modified comparative fault. Under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-64-122, the jury assigns a percentage of fault to everyone involved and reduces your damages by your share. ² The threshold is what matters. If your fault is "equal to or greater in degree" than the fault of the person you are suing, you recover nothing. ²

Here is the concrete version. Found 20 percent at fault on a $100,000 verdict, you collect $80,000. Found 50 percent at fault, you collect zero. That single point between 49 and 50 is where a lot of Arkansas cases are decided, which is exactly why an insurer works to push your share up to half.

The statute defines "fault" broadly to include "any act, omission, conduct, risk assumed, breach of warranty, or breach of any legal duty" that helped cause the harm. ² For riders that reach is real. Arkansas requires eye protection for every motorcyclist and a helmet for anyone operating or riding under age 21, and lane splitting is illegal, so a defense lawyer will use any violation to argue the rider carries part of the blame. ³

What you can recover, and the caps that do not exist

Here Arkansas is unusually friendly to injured people. There is no cap on compensatory damages in an ordinary car-accident case, economic or non-economic. Medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering are recoverable in full. The reason is constitutional. Article 5, Section 32 of the Arkansas Constitution forbids the General Assembly from limiting the amount recoverable for injury to a person. ⁴

The legislature tried anyway. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-55-208 set a punitive-damages cap of the greater of $250,000 or three times compensatory damages, up to $1 million. In Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck that cap down as a violation of the same constitutional provision. ⁴ Punitive damages are therefore uncapped as well, though they are available only when the defendant's conduct meets Arkansas's malice or reckless-indifference standard, the kind of case a drunk or fleeing driver can present.

The insurance you are actually fighting over

Most car-accident cases are really coverage disputes, so the state's minimums drive outcomes. Ark. Code Ann. § 27-22-104 requires every driver to carry at least $25,000 for bodily injury to one person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage, the 25/50/25 baseline. ⁵ Those figures are low, and a serious injury blows past $25,000 fast. That is why your own policy often decides what you actually collect.

Two first-party coverages carry the load. The first is medical benefits. Arkansas is not a no-fault state, but Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-202 requires every auto policy to offer at least $5,000 per person in medical and hospital benefits, plus income-disability and death benefits, paid regardless of fault for expenses incurred within 24 months of the crash. ⁶ You can reject it in writing; if you did not, it is there to cover early bills while the liability claim plays out.

The second is uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. Given how many drivers carry only the minimum, UM and UIM often separate a paper judgment from money you can collect. Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-403 requires insurers to offer uninsured-motorist bodily injury coverage, and § 23-89-209 governs the underinsured version. ⁷ You can reject both in writing, and here is the trap: that written rejection carries forward through every renewal until you withdraw it in writing. ⁷ Plenty of Arkansas drivers turned down UM and UIM years ago and have no idea it is still off their policy. Read your declarations page now, not after a crash.

Distracted and drunk drivers, and building the fault case

Showing that the other driver broke a specific Arkansas statute helps prove negligence. Two laws come up constantly.

The first is phone use. Paul's Law, Ark. Code Ann. § 27-51-1504, bans texting, email, and social media for every driver and prohibits any handheld phone use by drivers under 18. It is primary enforcement, so an officer can stop a driver for this alone, and fines reach $250 for a first offense and $500 after that, doubled when a crash results. ⁸ A citation, or phone records showing use at the moment of impact, is powerful evidence.

The second is who else pays when a drunk driver hits you. Arkansas dram-shop liability is narrow. A bar or store is civilly liable only if it knowingly served someone clearly intoxicated or sold to a minor, under Ark. Code Ann. §§ 16-126-103 and 16-126-104. ⁹ There is no social-host liability for serving adult guests, so the neighbor who over-poured at a cookout generally cannot be sued. The driver is a different story, and the uncapped punitive damages described above are on the table.

Your vehicle and the crash report

Property damage runs on the same three-year deadline as your injury claim. ¹ If your car was repaired but is now worth less on paper, that lost value is a separate item you can pursue; our Arkansas diminished value guide explains it. The official crash report, filed by the responding officer with the Arkansas State Police, anchors most claims, and you can order it through our Arkansas crash report page. ¹⁰

When to bring in a lawyer

Not every fender-bender needs one. But the 50 percent bar, the written UM/UIM rejection trap, and the low policy minimums are the exact spots where an insurer's framing quietly costs you money. If fault is disputed, injuries are serious, or the deadline is close, talk to an attorney early. You can start with our Arkansas legal directory.

This article is general information about Arkansas law, not legal advice for your situation.

Sources

Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105 (three-year limitation), Arkansas Code. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-56/subchapter-1/section-16-56-105/
Ark. Code Ann. § 16-64-122 (comparative fault). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-64/section-16-64-122/
Ark. Code Ann. § 27-20-104 (motorcycle helmet and eye protection); § 27-51-302 (lane position). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-2/chapter-20/subchapter-1/section-27-20-104/
Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518 (striking down the Ark. Code Ann. § 16-55-208 punitive-damages cap under Ark. Const. art. 5, § 32). https://law.justia.com/cases/arkansas/supreme-court/2011/10-1246-0.html
Ark. Code Ann. § 27-22-104 (minimum liability coverage). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-2/chapter-22/subchapter-1/section-27-22-104/
Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-202 (required first-party medical benefits). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-23/subtitle-3/chapter-89/subchapter-2/section-23-89-202/
Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-403 (uninsured motorist) and § 23-89-209 (underinsured motorist). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-23/subtitle-3/chapter-89/subchapter-4/section-23-89-403/
Ark. Code Ann. § 27-51-1504 (Paul's Law). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-4/chapter-51/subchapter-15/section-27-51-1504/
Ark. Code Ann. §§ 16-126-103, 16-126-104 (civil liability for furnishing alcohol). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-7/chapter-126/section-16-126-104/
Arkansas State Police, Crash Report Online Purchase System. https://crashreports.ark.org/

Filing a Car Accident Lawsuit in Arkansas