Lafayette Hit and Run Accident Lawyer

Most people hit by a driver who drove off assume the claim left with the car. For your injuries that assumption is usually wrong. A hit and run in Lafayette, Indiana is still a crash in Tippecanoe County. The driver owed you duties at the scene, your own policy may be the coverage that responds, and a deadline is already running — two years to file an injury lawsuit in most cases, and far less time than that to give notice if a government vehicle or road authority was involved.

The scale of it is on the record. Indiana Crash Facts 2024 records 26,804 hit-and-run collisions in 2024, 13% of all collisions in Indiana counties. The same report counts 6,560 collisions of every kind in Tippecanoe County in 2024, the sixth-highest total of Indiana’s 92 counties. In Lafayette, Indiana County Profiles 2023 counts 3,224 collisions of every kind in 2023. None of those numbers decides your claim; the two documents on this page do — the statute the driver broke, and the policy you already pay for.

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Why Lafayette Families Call Blackburn Romey After a Hit and Run

Personal injury and wrongful death law is all we do. A hit and run is the version where the claim has to be built while the other side is missing. Ryan Lindinger is one of our attorneys. He has been practicing law since 2006.

A Lafayette injury claim is a civil tort case. Tippecanoe County’s local rules let it be filed in the Tippecanoe Circuit Court, Tippecanoe Superior Court No. 1 or Tippecanoe Superior Court No. 2, unless the court assignment is otherwise determined by statute or rule. We handle crash claims in this county. The wider crash picture sits on our Lafayette car accident attorney page.

Who Brings a Wrongful Death Claim

Indiana splits this question in two, and the split has nothing to do with who was at fault: it turns on whether the law counts the person who died as a child. Where the person who died was not a child as Indiana defines one, IC 34-23-1-1 provides that the wrongful death lawsuit is brought by the personal representative of the person who died. That action has to be filed within two years.

Where the person who died was a child as Indiana defines one, IC 34-23-2-1 sets out who may bring the claim. The action may be maintained by the father and mother jointly. Either parent may also bring it alone, by naming the other parent as a codefendant to answer as to his or her interest. After a divorce or dissolution of marriage, it may be brought by the person to whom custody of the child was awarded. A guardian may bring it for a protected person. If the person who was awarded custody has since died, a personal representative is appointed to maintain the action.

“Child” in that section is a defined term with three gates, and all three have to be met. The person who died has to have been unmarried. The person has to have been without dependents. And the person has to have been either under twenty, or under twenty-three and enrolled in a postsecondary institution or a career or technical program that is not a postsecondary program. The term also includes a fetus that has attained viability. A child’s claim is not one to leave sitting: Indiana’s two-year injury deadline is the one to work to, so ask a lawyer about your own dates rather than assuming you have longer.

What Did the Law Require the Driver Who Left to Do?

Every duty the law put on that driver was owed to you. IC 9-26-1-1.1 required the driver who hit you to stop. The stop had to be at the scene, or as close to it as possible, and in a manner that does not obstruct traffic more than is necessary. Section 1.2 of the same chapter is the only exception the stop duty itself carries, and it does not reach a crash like yours. The driver then had to remain there, give their name, address and plate number, and show their license.

Because someone was hurt, the same section required more of that driver. They had to provide reasonable assistance to each person injured in or entrapped by the accident, as directed by a law enforcement officer, medical personnel or a 911 operator. They also had to give notice of the crash as soon as possible after the accident, or ensure another person gives notice, by the quickest means of communication. Notice goes to the local police if it happened inside a municipality, to the sheriff or nearest state police post if it happened outside one, or to a 911 operator.

The information that statute told the driver to hand over is what your claim needs, so they drove off with the starting point of your case. Our hit and run accident practice page covers how these claims are built.

Could the Law Ever Have Told the Driver to Move Their Vehicle?

Only in one narrow situation, and not on a crash like yours. The qualification is at IC 9-26-1-1.2. Where the vehicle stops in the traveled portion of a highway, the driver then has to move it off the traveled portion, as soon as safely possible, to a place as close to the accident as possible. It does not apply — and the driver must not move the vehicle — where the accident involved the transportation of hazardous materials, or where it resulted in injury or death or trapped someone in a vehicle.

Not moving the vehicle when that duty does apply is a Class C infraction, which is not a crime and carries a money judgment of up to $500 rather than any jail time. And moving the vehicle changes nothing else: the duties to give information, to provide assistance, and to notify the owner of a damaged vehicle or property all still apply, and failing to meet them knowingly or intentionally is still leaving the scene of an accident, carrying the same penalties. So on a crash that injured someone, nothing in that exception allowed the driver to leave.

What Changes Once the Driver Is Identified?

What changes is evidence. Before identification, your claim runs on what you and the scene can prove. After it, there is a named driver, a liability insurance question that can be answered, and, if the case is charged, a court record.

The grade of the charge decides whether that record helps you. A driver who knowingly or intentionally fails to comply commits leaving the scene of an accident. The base offense is a Class B misdemeanor. It is a Class A misdemeanor when someone suffered bodily injury. It is a Level 6 felony when the injury was moderate or serious, or when the driver had a qualifying prior conviction within five years. Death or catastrophic injury makes it a Level 4 felony. And it is a Level 3 felony when the driver fled during or after drunk driving that caused serious bodily injury, death or catastrophic injury.

The same statute adds one more rule, and it reaches every one of those grades — including the Level 6 felony reached through a qualifying prior conviction rather than through injury. Wherever one of them applies, the driver commits a separate offense for each person whose injury or death resulted from the accident.

Does the Driver’s Conviction Help Your Civil Claim?

Under IC 35-50-2-7, a Level 6 felony in Indiana carries a fixed term of between six months and two and a half years, with an advisory sentence of one year, and a fine of up to $10,000 on top. That sentencing range is why a felony conviction is generally the level at which the driver’s guilty judgment can be used as evidence in your civil case. A court also has a discretionary power to enter judgment on a Level 6 felony as a Class A misdemeanor instead and sentence accordingly, but it is barred from doing so in the situations the statute lists — including where the person already had an unrelated felony entered as a Class A misdemeanor less than three years before — and where it does use the power it has to record its reasons in detail. Under IC 34-39-3-1 the conviction is admissible in your civil case to prove the facts the conviction rested on. That rule reaches only crimes punishable by more than a year, so a misdemeanor conviction does not qualify.

Who Pays If the Driver Is Never Found?

For your injuries, the coverage to look at first is your own uninsured motorist coverage. Whether an unidentified driver counts as “uninsured” under that coverage turns on your policy’s wording, because Indiana’s definition in IC 27-7-5-4 is expressly subject to the terms and conditions of that coverage.

That makes your policy, rather than the police file, the document that decides the injury question. The uninsured motorist section is worth reading before your insurer characterizes the claim for you. Nothing in that definition bars an injury claim simply because the driver was never identified. The rule people have in mind when they assume otherwise is the property damage rule, and its reach is different.

Does the Damage to Your Car Follow a Different Rule?

For damage to your car the statute is harder. Under IC 27-7-5-3, a property damage claim under uninsured motorist coverage must give the name and address of the at-fault operator, along with any other information establishing that the operator carried no motor vehicle liability insurance, and no liability is imposed on the insurer where the owner or operator of the other vehicle cannot be identified.

That bar is written narrowly. It governs the property damage claim made under uninsured motorist coverage, and it does not decide what any other part of your own policy pays for, so the repair is not a lost cause until your policy has been read. Identification matters twice over. If the driver is found later, the name and address the statute requires can finally be supplied. That is why a claim after someone hits a parked car and leaves so often turns on whether anybody took down a plate.

What Should You Do After a Hit and Run in Lafayette?

Our guide to what to do in a hit and run sets out the practical steps. Three points come straight from the statutes on this page.

IC 9-26-1-1.1 names where notice of a crash goes: the local police department if it happened inside a municipality, the office of the county sheriff or the nearest state police post if it happened outside one, or a 911 telephone operator. Those are the offices a report of this crash reaches.

If the driver is identified later, get their name and address, because IC 27-7-5-3 requires them — with any other information showing the operator was uninsured — in a property-damage claim under uninsured motorist coverage.

IC 34-11-2-4 gives you two years from when your claim arises to file an injury lawsuit. For most crash injuries that means two years from the day of the crash.

What If a Government Vehicle or Road Authority Was Involved?

The two years is not the first deadline where a government defendant is involved. Where an injury claim is a tort claim against a governmental defendant under Indiana’s Tort Claims Act, notice comes first: a claim against a political subdivision (a county, township, city, town, school corporation, state educational institution, city or county hospital, or another entity in the definition at IC 34-6-2.1-155) is barred unless notice is filed with its governing body (and, in the cases the statute specifies, with the Indiana political subdivision risk management commission) within 180 days after the loss occurs, and a claim against the state is barred unless notice is filed with the attorney general or the state agency involved within 270 days after the loss occurs. The notice must be in writing and delivered in person or by registered or certified mail.

Both windows are far shorter than the two-year lawsuit deadline, and the Act has narrow exceptions of its own — so if any government body may be involved, speak to a lawyer well before the notice window closes, and do not assume a missed window has ended the claim without asking. Those windows are set by IC 34-13-3-8(a) for a political subdivision and IC 34-13-3-6(a) for the state, with the form of the notice at IC 34-13-3-12. That is a live question in a hit and run, because the vehicle that left can be a government one — a municipal truck, a squad car, a school bus — or the road authority can be in the frame. The same notice rule reaches a wrongful death claim brought against a governmental defendant.

Frequently Asked Questions About Lafayette Hit and Run Claims

Talk to a Lafayette Hit and Run Accident Lawyer

A free confidential consultation is the place to start, whether or not the driver has been identified yet. Call 833-366-6595 or contact us and we will look at what happened and give you a straight answer about whether there is a claim worth bringing. An open investigation is not extra time; the two-year period is already running. More of what Blackburn Romey does here sits on our Lafayette personal injury lawyer page.