In 2024, according to Indiana Crash Facts 2024, alcohol was a factor in 267 of Lake County’s collisions. That is 1.7% of the county’s total, the same share as Indiana as a whole. Where Lake County stood apart was severity: 12.5% of its fatal collisions were alcohol-impaired, against 10.0% statewide. If a drunk driver hurt you or someone you love in Merrillville, the civil claim runs on its own track from the criminal case, and it comes with an insurance fight, paperwork, and deadlines. Blackburn Romey takes on that side of it for the clients we represent.
Drunk driving injury claims are part of the Merrillville car accident work that Blackburn Romey handles for this community. Among the attorneys who take these cases is Frank Wolferd, a member of the Lake County Bar Association — the county a Merrillville claim is filed in. He started at Blackburn Romey as a litigation paralegal in 2006, went to law school in 2010, graduated with honors in 2013, and has practiced since that May. Founding partner Tom Blackburn has practiced law since 1977 and has worked exclusively on personal injury and wrongful death cases since 1985.
Personal injury and wrongful death law is all we do, statewide, through our car accident practice and in every city we serve.
Lake County recorded 267 alcohol-impaired collisions in 2024. In the report’s terms, a collision counts as alcohol-impaired when “at least one vehicle driver involved has a BAC test result at or above 0.08 g/dL,” with readings above 0.59 g/dL excluded from the count. That threshold is set by the state, not by the county. By that measure, alcohol was a factor in 1.7% of the county’s collisions, identical to the statewide share of 1.7%. On frequency, Lake County is not worse than the rest of Indiana. Where it does stand apart is severity: 5 of the county’s 40 fatal collisions in 2024 were alcohol-impaired, 12.5% of the total, against 10.0% statewide. These crashes happen here at the same rate as everywhere else in the state; when they happen, they are more often fatal.
At the town level, Merrillville logged 1,335 total collisions and 14 alcohol-impaired collisions in 2023. That is 1.0% of the town’s crashes, below Lake County’s 1.5% that year. Countywide in 2023, Lake County recorded 16,366 total collisions with 241 alcohol-impaired. These are scale numbers, not danger numbers: they show how many alcohol-impaired crashes actually happen in this specific place, not that Merrillville runs hotter than its surroundings.
A civil injury claim from a Merrillville crash is filed as a civil tort case in the Lake Circuit Court or the Lake Superior Court, Civil Division. It is not filed in a courthouse in Merrillville, because none exists. Under Lake County’s local rules, civil tort cases are distributed among the Circuit Court and Civil Division Rooms 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7; Room 3 does not take these cases. Those courts sit in Crown Point, the county seat, along with Hammond, East Chicago, and Gary. The Lake Circuit Court describes itself as hearing “all manner of civil cases, including personal injury.”
You do not choose which room hears your case, and neither do we. The local rule decides that once your claim is filed. Your case will be heard in another Lake County town rather than in Merrillville. For the clients we represent, we handle the filing and what follows it.
Indiana law gives an injured person a deadline to act, a rule for shared fault, a path to the bar or host who over-served the driver, and a separate track for the criminal case. None of these rules changes because the crash happened in Lake County, but each one shapes how your claim gets built.
You have two years to file an injury claim in Indiana. IC 34-11-2-4(a) requires an action for “injury to person or character” to be “commenced within two (2) years after the cause of action accrues.” For most crash injuries, that is the date of the crash.
If the crash was fatal, a wrongful death claim must be brought within two years as well, filed by the personal representative of the estate under IC 34-23-1-1.
Indiana also weighs your own fault. In a claim against another driver, under IC 34-51-2-6(a), you are barred from recovering anything if your share of fault is greater than the fault of everyone else combined. If your share is smaller, IC 34-51-2-5 reduces your award proportionately instead of barring it outright. Since July 2024, IC 9-19-10-7(c) has allowed evidence that a plaintiff aged 15 or older wasn’t wearing a seat belt to be used toward mitigating damages. That same statute still does not let seat belt non-use be used to establish fault.
Indiana’s dram shop law can reach further than the driver alone. Under IC 7.1-5-10-15.5, a bar, restaurant, or private host who furnished alcohol is liable only if they had “actual knowledge” the person was “visibly intoxicated” at the time they were served. That intoxication also has to be a “proximate cause” of your injury. The statute defines “furnish” as to “barter, deliver, sell, exchange, provide, or give away” alcohol, which reaches a private social host serving guests at home, not only a licensed bar or restaurant.
A restitution order in the driver’s criminal case does not close your civil claim. Under IC 35-50-5-3(e), restitution “does not bar a civil action for” other damages. Restitution itself only covers property damage, medical costs before sentencing, lost earnings, and funeral costs. It has no category for pain and suffering, which your civil claim pursues separately.
A conviction can also become evidence in your case, whether the driver was arrested at the scene or fled and was identified later. Under IC 34-39-3-1, a final guilty judgment for a crime “punishable by … imprisonment of more than one (1) year” is admissible in your civil case to prove facts that the criminal case has already settled. A misdemeanor OWI, capped at one year, does not qualify. A felony does: causing serious bodily injury while driving drunk is a Level 5 felony carrying one to six years, and causing a death is a Level 4 felony.
Where the facts support it, Indiana also allows punitive damages. IC 34-51-3-2 requires “clear and convincing evidence.” Any award is capped under IC 34-51-3-4 at three times your compensatory damages or $50,000, whichever is greater. By law, IC 34-51-3-6(c) sends 25% of a punitive award to you and 75% to the state’s violent crime victims’ compensation fund.
Indiana requires drivers to carry at least $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 in property damage coverage under IC 9-25-4-5, which is often not enough for a serious injury. That gap is why Indiana also requires insurers to make underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage available. Under IC 27-7-5-2(a), insurers “shall make available” UM/UIM coverage, with underinsured motorist limits of at least $50,000 unless you rejected that coverage in writing. If your own policy includes UM/UIM, it can fill the space between what the drunk driver’s insurer pays and what your injuries actually cost.
Your case is filed as a civil tort case in the Lake Circuit Court or the Lake Superior Court, Civil Division. Under Lake County’s local rules, it is distributed among the Circuit Court and six Civil Division rooms across the county. For the clients we represent, we handle that filing.
No courthouse in Merrillville hears civil cases. Lake County’s civil tort cases go to Crown Point, the county seat, or to Hammond, East Chicago, or Gary. You never choose the room; the local rule does.
Not on frequency. In the same 2024 crash data cited above, 1.7% of Lake County’s collisions were alcohol-impaired, the same share as Indiana overall. Lake County does stand out in severity: 12.5% of its fatal collisions were alcohol-impaired, against 10.0% statewide, so these crashes are equally common here but more often fatal when they happen.
Indiana law can hold a bar, restaurant, or private host responsible if they knowingly served someone who was visibly intoxicated, and that intoxication caused your crash. This reaches a host at a private party, not only a business with a liquor license, once the actual knowledge and causation elements are met.
It can, but only for certain crashes. Since July 2024, Indiana has allowed evidence that a plaintiff aged 15 or older wasn’t belted to be used toward mitigating damages, though it still cannot be used to establish that you were at fault for the crash itself.
Indiana’s minimum liability coverage is often too low for a serious injury, which is why insurers must make underinsured motorist coverage available at a minimum of $50,000 unless you rejected it in writing. If you carry UM/UIM coverage, it can cover the gap the driver’s policy leaves behind.
Indiana gives you two years to file an injury claim, generally from the date of the crash, and two years for a wrongful death claim filed by the estate’s personal representative. Evidence and insurance positions change quickly, so the sooner a claim is opened, the more there is to preserve.
Frank Wolferd joined Blackburn Romey as a litigation paralegal in 2006 and has practiced law since 2013. Crash reports, test results, and witness accounts are easiest to secure in the days right after a crash.
Our Merrillville personal injury practice also handles the everyday car accident claims this city sends us, and we serve the same kind of case for families in Fort Wayne, South Bend, Lafayette, Terre Haute, and Evansville. If a drunk driver hurt you or someone you love, call 833-366-6595 or contact us to talk about what happened and what Indiana law lets you do next.
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