How Legal Marijuana Affects Personal Injury Claims

How legal marijuana affects personal injury claims. With the passing of Missouri Amendment 3
in late 2022, recreational marijuana became legal in St. Louis and throughout Missouri. While the amendment and the
discussion around it focused heavily on the criminal aspect of recreational marijuana, not much has been said about
how it will affect civil cases like personal injury claims.

When you’re injured because someone else broke the rules, you deserve compensation. At Burger Law, we fight hard for
our clients and don’t stop until they get the full financial recovery they deserve. If you have any questions about
a personal injury claim, you can discuss your case with a personal injury lawyer for free by calling us at
(314) 500-HURT or filling out our online contact form. We serve the injured in St.
Louis, Chicago, and throughout Missouri and Illinois.

Use our free personal injury calculator to see how much your
claim may be worth.

How Marijuana Affects Negligence and Liability

While the laws around the criminalization of marijuana changed with Missouri Amendment 3, the laws around personal
injury claims did not. Proving negligence in a
personal injury claim involves demonstrating that:

• Someone else owed you a duty of care
• They breached that duty
• Their breach caused your injuries
• Those injuries caused damages (making the other party liable for those damages)

While criminal penalties may no longer exist for recreational marijuana use in Missouri and Illinois, it can still
lead to someone being liable for someone else’s injuries. Like alcohol, we’re allowed to use marijuana in Missouri
and Illinois, but we must do so in accordance with the law and in a way that keeps others safe. If others don’t use
recreational marijuana safely and they injure you, you can hold them liable for your damages. For example, texting and driving is still legal in
Missouri. But, if a driver injures you while looking at their phone, you can still make a claim against them for
compensation.

Legal Marijuana and Car Accidents

It’s illegal to drive while impaired by marijuana. Marijuana impairs our ability to drive by:

• Slowing reaction time
• Impairing coordination
• Limiting our ability to make decisions

If someone who injured you is convicted of driving while high, they can be found liable for your injuries
automatically under negligence per se. But many
criminal defense lawyers have mentioned it’s hard for the state to get convictions for Marijuana impaired driving,
largely because there’s no reliable road side test, and the blood and urine tests for marijuana don’t show exactly
when someone smoked. So, how would that affect your car accident
case?

Not as much as you might think. The burden of proof for a
criminal conviction is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but in civil cases you only have to show that it’s most likely
that the driver was high. This is called a “preponderance of the evidence.”

Additionally, marijuana isn’t necessarily the direct cause of your accident. The cause could be that the driver
wasn’t paying attention, didn’t turn correctly, or anything else that might happen when a driver’s impaired. You
don’t necessarily have to prove the other side was high to get compensation for the harm they caused you. You just
have to show they didn’t drive safely, which caused your accident.

Recreational Marijuana in Other Personal Injury Claims

While it’s illegal to drive while impaired by marijuana, it’s generally not illegal to go into a store or elsewhere
in public after using it. But the same duty of care applies to any type of personal injury case.

What if I’m Injured by Someone Who Used Legal Marijuana?

Depending on the duty of care someone owed you, being impaired by marijuana may constitute a breach of duty. Like
alcohol, performing certain tasks or activities while high can be dangerous for others and can make someone liable
for your injuries.

For example, say you live in an apartment building and the superintendent is required to clear ice from the sidewalk
in the winter. If they don’t and you’re injured in a slip
and fall, if you can demonstrate that the super may have been impaired by marijuana (say, neighbors say they
smell it coming from the super’s apartment), you can use that to show the super may have forgotten to clear the ice
or did a bad job because they were high.

As another example, in a dog bite case, if you can demonstrate
that the dog’s owner smoked marijuana before you were bitten, you can use that to show that they weren’t taking
their responsibilities to control their animal seriously.

Recreational marijuana use is legal, but that doesn’t absolve anyone of the responsibility to act in a way that
doesn’t harm others.

What If I’m Injured After I Used Recreational Marijuana?

Similarly, just because you used (perfectly legal) marijuana, it doesn’t mean that other people can injure you and
you don’t have a right to get compensation for those injuries. Say, for instance, after using marijuana you were
burned when using a defective heating pad. Your marijuana use has nothing to do with the defective product or the manufacturer’s responsibility
to make a safe product, so it doesn’t affect your ability to get compensation.

However, depending on the situation, being impaired by marijuana can make you partially at fault for
your injuries. Let’s say that while impaired you were injured in a slip and fall because of a wet spot in a
grocery store. The store may try to argue that if you hadn’t used marijuana you would’ve seen the wet spot and
avoided it.

Placing blame on you may not allow them to completely escape liability, but the percentage of compensation you get
could be lowered by the percent of fault you share. For example, if your damages are $10,000 but it’s determined you
were 30 percent at fault, you would receive $7,000.

Shifting blame to an injured party is a common way businesses and insurance companies try to avoid paying claims.
It’s the job of your personal injury lawyer to limit your liability as much as possible to get as much money in your
pocket as they can.

Missouri and Illinois Personal Injury Lawyers | Burger Law

The reality is that how legal marijuana use affects personal injury claims may change as more lawsuits are brought
and courts offer new rulings. The important thing to remember is that if you were injured through someone else’s
negligence, you are owed compensation no matter what. When that happens, you need an aggressive and award-winning personal injury lawyer team to fight on your
behalf. Call Burger Law at (314) 500-HURT or contact us online for a free
consultation.

Gary Burger

Founder | Injury Attorney
Gary Burger has dedicated his career to standing up against bullies. The founder and principal attorney of Burger Law | St. Louis Personal Injury Lawyer has helped hundreds of Missouri and Illinois individuals and families recover th …
Years of experience: 30 years
Location: St. Louis, MO

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