If you were harmed by a crime, you can file your own civil lawsuit against the person responsible and, in many situations, against a property owner, business, or employer whose negligence helped make the crime possible. Civil settlements for victims of crime can cover medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and in some cases punitive damages, and they move on a separate track from any criminal prosecution. You do not need a conviction to win, and you can sue even when the prosecutor declined to bring charges.
A Civil Case Doesn’t Depend on a Criminal Conviction
Criminal cases require the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Civil cases only require you to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it is more likely than not the defendant caused your harm. That is a much lower bar, and it is why cases that fail in criminal court routinely succeed in civil court.
The two proceedings run independently. A criminal case belongs to the government and aims to punish. A civil case belongs to you and aims to compensate. You can file before, during, or after a criminal case, or in place of one that never happened. A criminal conviction can sometimes help your civil case as evidence, but an acquittal does not block it.
Who You Can Sue
The obvious defendant is the person who committed the crime. Claims against the perpetrator are usually framed as intentional torts — battery, assault, false imprisonment, and similar deliberate acts. You do not have to prove the defendant intended to break the law, only that the harmful contact or threat was deliberate.
The practical problem with suing the perpetrator alone is that many have no money and no insurance. That is why third-party claims often matter more for actual recovery.
Property Owners and Businesses
A property owner or business can be liable when its negligence created the opportunity for the crime. The textbook example is an apartment complex that ignored broken entry locks and inadequate lighting after reports of criminal activity on the grounds. The legal theory is that the owner owed a duty to maintain reasonably safe conditions, breached that duty, and that breach contributed to the harm. These defendants typically carry liability insurance, which is often where meaningful recovery actually comes from.
Employers
Under a doctrine called respondeat superior, an employer can be liable for crimes an employee commits in the course of employment. The question is whether the employee was acting within the scope of their job duties when the harm occurred.
Government Entities
Suing a government entity is harder. Sovereign immunity protects government defendants, and while every state has a tort claims act that waives immunity in limited circumstances, those statutes come with strict conditions. You almost always have to file a formal notice of claim with the specific agency within a short window, sometimes as little as 60 to 180 days, before you can file suit. The notice must identify the incident, injuries, and dollar amount claimed. Miss that deadline and the claim is barred regardless of its merits. Many tort claims acts also cap damages against government defendants well below what you could recover from a private party.
What You Can Recover
Damages in a crime-victim civil case fall into three categories, each addressing a different kind of loss.
Economic damages cover financial losses you can put a number on: hospital bills, physical therapy, prescriptions, and other out-of-pocket medical costs, plus lost wages for time you missed. If your injuries reduce your long-term ability to earn, you can also claim loss of future earning capacity. Lost wages compensate for specific paychecks missed; lost earning capacity compensates for diminished earning ability over your working life, even if you were not employed at the time of the crime.
Non-economic damages compensate for harm that does not come with a receipt — pain, suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and the psychological fallout of being victimized. PTSD is common among crime victims, and long-term counseling costs and functional impairment often form a substantial part of the claim.
Punitive damages are different. They are not meant to compensate you. They punish the defendant for outrageous or malicious conduct and deter similar behavior. Courts reserve them for cases involving deliberate cruelty or reckless disregard for your safety. Many states cap punitive damages, often at a multiple of compensatory damages (commonly two or three times) or a fixed dollar amount, whichever is greater.
Wrongful Death and Survival Actions
When a crime results in death, the victim’s family has two possible claims. A wrongful death claim compensates surviving relatives for their own losses: lost companionship and support, emotional suffering, lost financial contributions, and funeral expenses. A survival action is the personal injury lawsuit the victim would have brought if they had lived, recovering medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering the victim personally experienced before death. Survival action proceeds go to the estate and pass through to heirs; wrongful death damages go directly to eligible family members.
Deadlines to File
Every state has a statute of limitations that sets a hard deadline for filing. Miss it and you lose the right to sue permanently. For personal injury claims, deadlines range from one year in some states to as long as six years in others, with two to three years the most common. Claims specifically for assault or battery often have shorter windows, typically one to two years.
The clock usually starts on the date of the crime. Some states apply a discovery rule that delays the start until you knew or should have known about the injury, which matters for delayed symptoms, concealed abuse, and victims who were minors at the time. Many states toll the limitations period for minors so the clock does not start until the victim reaches the age of majority.
If any defendant is a government entity, the notice-of-claim deadline is usually much shorter than the general statute of limitations. Check both deadlines early. That one step protects more cases than any other.
How the Lawsuit Moves
You start the case by filing a complaint and summons with the court clerk and paying a filing fee. Federal district courts currently charge $405 for a new civil case. State court fees vary widely. If you cannot afford the fee, federal law allows you to proceed in forma pauperis by submitting an affidavit of inability to pay, and most state courts have similar waiver programs.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 28 – Section 1915
The defendant then has to be formally served with the summons and complaint, usually by a process server or sheriff’s deputy. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the defendant has 21 days to respond.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12 – Defenses and Objections State rules generally allow 20 to 30 days. If the defendant does not respond, you can ask the court for a default judgment.
Discovery follows. Both sides exchange documents, answer written questions under oath, and take depositions. In crime-victim cases, discovery often reaches the defendant’s financial records, employment history, and insurance information, which is how you learn whether there is money to collect. Most civil cases settle before trial, often through mediation, because the costs mount quickly and jury outcomes are unpredictable for both sides.
Getting Paid After You Win
A judgment or signed settlement does not automatically put money in your hand. That is especially true against individual perpetrators, who may be incarcerated, unemployed, or broke.
If the defendant has assets, several tools can force payment. Wage garnishment directs the defendant’s employer to withhold a portion of each paycheck. Federal law caps garnishment for most debts at 25 percent of disposable earnings, and wages below 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage per week are fully protected. You can place a lien on real property the defendant owns, blocking a sale until the debt is paid. Bank levies can seize funds in the defendant’s accounts. If you do not know where the defendant works or banks, courts generally let you compel disclosure through written questions or an in-court examination under oath.
When the defendant genuinely has nothing, they are judgment-proof. No tool can take money that does not exist. Judgments do not vanish right away, though. Depending on the state, they stay enforceable for six to twenty years and can often be renewed. Someone judgment-proof today may later inherit property, start a business, or begin earning real income. Recording the judgment as a lien positions you to collect when that happens.
Claims against property owners, businesses, or employers are far more likely to actually pay out because those defendants typically carry liability insurance, and the insurer handles the settlement or judgment up to policy limits.
Taxes on Your Settlement
How much of a settlement you keep depends partly on how the IRS classifies the money. The tax treatment turns on what the payment compensates for, not on how the settlement agreement is labeled.
Compensation for physical injuries or physical sickness is excluded from gross income under federal law.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 26 – Section 104 That covers medical expense reimbursement, pain and suffering tied to a physical injury, and lost wages recovered as part of a physical injury claim. If the crime caused physical harm and your settlement compensates for that harm, the compensatory portion is generally tax-free.
Damages that are not rooted in physical injury are treated differently. Settlements for emotional distress, defamation, or humiliation that do not stem from a physical injury are taxable as ordinary income.4Internal Revenue Service. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments One narrow exception: if you incurred actual medical expenses to treat emotional distress and did not previously deduct them, that reimbursement portion can be excluded.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 26 – Section 104
Punitive damages are almost always taxable, regardless of whether the underlying case involved physical injury.4Internal Revenue Service. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments Pre- and post-judgment interest is taxable too. How the settlement agreement allocates the total across these categories affects your tax bill directly, so the allocation deserves attention during negotiations.
Protecting SSI, Medicaid, and Other Benefits
A large settlement can wipe out means-tested benefits like Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid, and this surprises many victims. SSI treats a lump-sum settlement as unearned income in the month received, which can zero out that month’s payment. After that, the money sits in your account as a countable resource. The SSI resource limit in 2026 remains $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple.5Social Security Administration. 2026 Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Fact Sheet A settlement of almost any size pushes you past that threshold and suspends benefits until your resources drop back below the limit.
Medicaid faces the same pressure, and state Medicaid agencies have the legal right to recover what they paid on your behalf by placing a lien against your settlement. That lien has to be satisfied before you see any money.
Legal tools can protect your eligibility if they are set up before the money arrives. A first-party special needs trust can hold settlement funds without them counting toward resource limits, provided the trust is for a disabled individual under age 65 and names the state Medicaid agency as the remainder beneficiary.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 42 – Section 1396p The trust pays for disability-related expenses benefits do not cover without disqualifying you.
ABLE accounts are another option for people whose disability began before age 26. These tax-advantaged accounts allow annual contributions up to $19,000 in 2026 without affecting benefit eligibility, so long as the account stays within program limits.7Social Security Administration. Spotlight on Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Structured settlements, which pay out in installments rather than a lump sum, can also be designed to keep monthly income below SSI thresholds. All of these strategies require planning before the settlement is finalized. Once the money hits your account as a lump sum, the damage to benefits eligibility is already done.
How the Money Actually Reaches You
Once a settlement is reached, you sign a release of liability that bars future claims against the defendant for the same incident. The funds go to your attorney’s trust account, not directly to you. From that account, the attorney pays outstanding liens: medical providers who treated you on a lien basis, health insurers with reimbursement rights, and Medicaid agencies with subrogation rights all get paid first.
The attorney’s fee comes out next. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency, taking a percentage of the recovery rather than billing hourly. One-third of the gross settlement is a common fee for cases that resolve before trial, often rising to 40 percent if the case goes to a jury verdict. Litigation costs — filing fees, expert witness fees, deposition transcripts, process server charges — are deducted from the settlement or your share, depending on your fee agreement.
You receive what remains, usually within 30 to 60 days of the signed settlement agreement, with most of that time spent confirming and negotiating lien amounts. If you receive government benefits, a special needs trust or structured settlement arrangement needs to be in place by this point.
State Crime Victim Compensation as a Parallel Option
Every state runs a crime victim compensation program that reimburses eligible victims for certain expenses without requiring a lawsuit. These programs, funded in part through the federal Crime Victims Fund administered by the Office for Victims of Crime, pay for medical treatment, mental health counseling, lost wages, funeral expenses, and relocation assistance.8Office for Victims of Crime. Victim Compensation
They come with real limits. Maximum payouts vary by state but commonly fall between $25,000 and $75,000, which will not cover catastrophic injuries. They function as payers of last resort, covering only expenses not paid by insurance, Medicaid, or other sources. Property damage and theft losses are usually excluded. Most programs require you to report the crime to law enforcement and apply within one to three years.
Victim compensation is still worth pursuing. It moves faster than litigation and does not depend on the perpetrator’s ability to pay. You can apply for it while also pursuing a civil lawsuit, though any civil recovery for the same expenses may have to be repaid to the program.