A Terre Haute drunk driving claim is a civil case filed in the Vigo Superior Court, and it belongs to you rather than to the State. The OWI charge the State brings against the driver is separate, and it is brought to punish the driver rather than to compensate you. If a drunk driver injured you, or killed someone in your family, the civil claim is where the medical bills, the lost income and the losses that never appear on a bill are pursued.
This page is about crashes where alcohol was involved. For a crash of any other kind in this city, see our Terre Haute car accident page, and for claims anywhere in the state, our car accident lawyer practice.
Where the person who died was not a child as Indiana defines one: the wrongful death lawsuit is brought by the personal representative of the person who died, and 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, or by either of them if they name the other parent as a codefendant to answer as to his or her interest; or, after a divorce or dissolution of marriage, by the person to whom custody of the child was awarded; or by a guardian, for a protected person.
If the person who was awarded custody has since died, a personal representative is appointed to maintain the action. 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.
That definition is narrower than the everyday word, and its three parts stack. To count as a child under IC 34-23-2-1 the person who died must have been unmarried, and without dependents. They must also have been either under twenty, or under twenty-three and enrolled in a postsecondary educational institution or in a career and technical education school or program that is not a postsecondary educational program. A married 17-year-old is therefore not a child on that test; an unmarried 21-year-old with no dependents who is still in college is.
Where a government body may be responsible for the crash, two years is not the first deadline in play — the notice deadline set out below comes first.
A firm that takes injury and wrongful death cases and nothing else. Personal injury and wrongful death law is the whole of what Blackburn Romey does.
Local rules differ from county to county, and Vigo’s are unusual. Chris Blackburn has trial experience in Vigo County, which is the county a Terre Haute crash claim is filed in.
Before a claim is open, the timing belongs to everybody else. The adjuster may call while you are still in treatment. The criminal case moves on the court’s schedule rather than yours. The bills arrive regardless. Once a claim is open, the case becomes a set of ordered questions: what the records show, who is responsible, and what the losses are worth. Call 833-366-6595 for a free, confidential consultation.
A civil injury claim from a Terre Haute crash is filed as a civil tort case in the Vigo Superior Court, and the county’s own rules — not you, and not the insurer — decide which division of that court receives it.
The structure is unusual. Under the county’s local rules, as amended on October 1, 2025, the Vigo Superior Court is made up of six divisions, and one of them, Division Three, “also serves as the Vigo Circuit Court,” along with the juvenile and magistrate roles the same rule gives it. It is one court under two names, which is why paperwork can refer to either.
Assignment then runs on what the rules call a “proportionate rotation,” and the share of filings a division receives depends on the type of civil case. A crash claim is filed as a civil tort action, and the tort rotation is weighted: a tort filing is twice as likely to be heard in Division Two as in any other division that takes them, a comparison derived from the shares the rule assigns rather than a ratio the rule itself states. In Vigo County, in other words, the type of civil claim you bring changes which court is most likely to hear it.
The rotation is applied when the case is filed, and neither you nor the insurer selects the division that receives it.
One thing you do not have to plan around: every Vigo Circuit and Superior Court sits in Terre Haute. There is no outlying division somewhere else in the county.
Vigo County recorded 3,292 collisions of every kind in 2024, the 16th-highest total among Indiana’s 92 counties, including 13 fatal collisions. Of that total, 49 collisions were alcohol-impaired — 1.5% of the county’s collisions, against a statewide share of 1.7% — and none of the county’s 13 fatal collisions that year was recorded as alcohol-impaired (Indiana Crash Facts 2024, Tables 8.1 and 8.4).
The state counts a collision as alcohol-impaired when at least one driver involved has a blood alcohol test result at or above 0.08 g/dL, and a driver BAC result greater than 0.59 g/dL is not included as impaired. The label also records that an alcohol-impaired driver was involved, not that alcohol caused the crash.
At city level in 2023, Terre Haute recorded 1,907 total collisions, 20 of them alcohol-impaired, or 1.0%, against a county-wide 3,037 collisions and 39 alcohol-impaired that year (Indiana County Profiles 2023).
These are counts of collisions rather than of people, and each figure covers a single year. None of that decides your own case: whether you have a claim depends on the evidence from your own crash — the report, the test results and the treatment records — not on how common these collisions are in the county.
A Terre Haute drunk driving claim covers the medical costs, the lost income and the personal losses the crash caused. Four Indiana rules shape what actually reaches you: the two-year filing deadline, your own share of fault, the cap on punitive damages, and evidence about a seat belt. Another decides who besides the driver can be made to pay at all.
Under IC 34-11-2-4(a), Indiana gives you two years from when your claim arises to file an injury lawsuit. For most crash injuries, Indiana’s filing deadline therefore means two years from the day of the crash. Two years is not always the first deadline you face, though: where a government body may be responsible for the crash, a much shorter written notice deadline comes first, and the section below sets out both windows.
Indiana compares fault in a claim against another driver, but not in a tort claim against a governmental entity or a public employee under Indiana’s Tort Claims Act, where the comparative fault chapter does not apply at all (IC 34-51-2-2). Where it does apply, your own share of fault reduces what you recover, and only a share greater than everyone else’s combined bars the claim entirely (IC 34-51-2-6(a), IC 34-51-2-5). How liability is established therefore does much of the work here.
Under IC 7.1-5-10-15.5, a bar, restaurant or private host who served the driver can also be responsible, but only if they actually knew the driver was visibly intoxicated when they served them, and that intoxication was a proximate cause (a direct legal cause) of the injuries you are claiming for.
Punitive damages are possible but never automatic: you have to prove the facts behind them by clear and convincing evidence (IC 34-51-3-2), the award is capped at three times the compensatory damages awarded in the case or $50,000, whichever is greater (IC 34-51-3-4), and by law 75% of it goes to the state’s violent crime victims compensation fund rather than to you (IC 34-51-3-6(c)). Punitive damages sit on top of the damages a claim can cover in any injury case.
Not wearing a seat belt is not fault under Indiana’s comparative fault chapter, and it does not limit an insurer’s liability. For claims arising after June 30, 2024, though (for most crashes, that is the crash date), non-use can be put in evidence to argue your damages should be reduced if you were 15 or older (IC 9-19-10-7(c)).
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 (IC 34-13-3-8(a)).
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 (IC 34-13-3-6(a)). The notice must be in writing and delivered in person or by registered or certified mail (IC 34-13-3-12).
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.
In Terre Haute. Every Vigo Circuit and Superior Court sits in this city, so there is no outlying division elsewhere in the county to travel to. Which division of the Superior Court receives the filing is a separate question, and the county’s local rules answer it rather than you.
Not entirely. The Vigo Superior Court has six divisions, and one of them, Division Three, “also serves as the Vigo Circuit Court” under the county’s local rules. It is one court under two names, which is why documents in a Vigo County case can refer to either without anything having gone wrong.
Whichever one the rotation gives it to. Vigo County’s local rules assign civil tort filings by what they call a “proportionate rotation,” which gives each of the divisions that hear tort cases a set share of them. Neither side selects the division. The same rotation applies to every civil tort filed in the county, drunk driving claims included.
Very little on their own. The county recorded 49 alcohol-impaired collisions out of 3,292 in 2024, and none of its 13 fatal collisions that year was recorded as alcohol-impaired. Those are county-wide counts for a single year. Your claim turns on the evidence from your crash.
No. The State brings the OWI case to punish the driver, and it moves on its own timetable. Your civil claim is separate, and it seeks compensation for what the crash cost you and your family. The two run on different tracks toward different ends.
Where the person who died was not a child as Indiana defines one: the personal representative, and that action has to be filed within two years — though where a government body may be responsible, a shorter notice deadline comes first. Where the person who died was a child as Indiana defines one, IC 34-23-2-1 sets out who may bring the claim instead, and the section above gives all three routes in full. Either way it is separate from a survivor’s injury claim.
Probably not. Indiana gives you two years from when your claim arises to file an injury lawsuit, so a claim a few months old is usually well inside that. One exception matters: where a government body may be responsible, a written notice deadline comes first — 180 days against a political subdivision, 270 days against the state — so ask a lawyer about your own dates. Evidence is the other pressing part: records, vehicle damage and witness memory get harder to secure with time.
The crash report, test results, the vehicles and witness memory are all easiest to secure early. A free, confidential consultation is the place to start: we will look at what happened and give you a straight answer about whether there is a claim worth bringing.
Call 833-366-6595 or contact us. Our Terre Haute personal injury practice covers the rest of this city’s injury work, and we serve the same kind of claim for families in Fort Wayne, Merrillville, South Bend, Indianapolis, Lafayette and Evansville.
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