Great Falls, MT Car
Accident Attorney

The Great Falls car accident attorneys at Kovacich Snipes Johnson are based right here in Cascade County and represent people seriously injured in crashes across the Great Falls area. We handle the intersection and rear-end collisions that dominate 10th Avenue South, the wrecks where Interstate 15 funnels traffic onto the Missouri River bridges, the high-wind and winter crashes the open plains are known for, and the drunk-driving and hit-and-run collisions that leave you depending on your own insurance.

A serious crash in Great Falls can leave you with lasting injuries, mounting medical bills and an insurance company looking for any reason to pay you less. For more than three decades, Kovacich Snipes Johnson has taken on the insurance companies on behalf of injured Montanans, recovering more than $500 million in verdicts and settlements — and we do it from our home office right here in Great Falls.

Driving in Great Falls concentrates risk in a few predictable places. One corridor — 10th Avenue South — carries so much of the city’s traffic that the Great Falls Police Department reported it accounted for about 30% of all city crashes in 2024: 352 of 1,147. Add the way Interstate 15 funnels traffic across the Missouri River bridges, the commuter flow to and from Malmstrom Air Force Base, and the high winds and winter ice of the open Northern Plains, and the hazards stack up quickly. Montana’s traffic-fatality rate runs far above the national average — more than 200 deaths a year, with the state near the top in the nation for fatalities per capita and impaired driving a factor in over 40% of fatal crashes. When a serious wreck happens here, Benefis Health System is the region’s trauma and referral hospital, equipped with a dedicated air-ambulance program that brings in the most badly injured patients from across North-Central Montana.

Why Great Falls Sees So Many Car Accidents

No discussion of crashes in Great Falls starts anywhere but 10th Avenue South. It is the city’s dominant commercial arterial — once ranked the second-busiest street in all of Montana — lined with signalized intersections, shopping and constant turning traffic and frequently shared with semi-trucks. It was one of the first streets in the state built with a center median and dedicated left-turn bays, but the sheer volume keeps the crash numbers high: The roughly 30% of city crashes that occur there are spread across dozens of intersections, with junctions like 10th Avenue South at 39th Street and at 17th Street seeing repeated serious wrecks.

The interstate compounds the problem. Interstate 15 runs north and south but bypasses downtown to the west, so traffic bound for the city funnels off at Exit 278 onto the short I-315 business spur, crosses the Missouri River and feeds directly onto 10th Avenue South. That interstate-to-arterial transition — fast highway speeds giving way to a congested signalized strip within a mile — is exactly the kind of abrupt change that produces rear-end and merging collisions.

Then there is the river itself. Great Falls straddles the Missouri River, and traffic is concentrated onto a handful of bridge crossings — the 10th Avenue South bridge and the Central Avenue bridge among them. Bridges ice over before the surrounding roads do, and a crossing backed up with traffic gives a distracted or speeding driver little room to react. East of the city, commuter traffic to and from Malmstrom Air Force Base — the area’s largest employer — adds a steady flow of vehicles along the southeast corridors toward the base.

Finally, geography and weather. Great Falls sits on the exposed Northern Plains east of the Rockies, where high winds — strong enough to push a high-profile vehicle around and gusting well above highway speeds in the worst conditions — combine with sudden winter ice. Stretches of I-15 south of the city, around Ulm and Sieben, are recurring trouble spots when snow and ice move in.

Common Types of Car Accidents in the Great Falls Area

The way traffic moves through Great Falls produces a few recurring categories of crashes our attorneys handle:

Intersection and left-turn collisions are the signature Great Falls crashes, concentrated along 10th Avenue South and the city’s other signalized arterials. A driver turning across oncoming traffic or running a light causes a severe side-impact (T-bone) crash — the dominant pattern on a corridor built around left-turn bays and constant cross-traffic.

Rear-end collisions cluster wherever 10th Avenue South backs up at lights and where I-15 traffic slows coming off the Exit 278 ramp onto the business loop. Even at moderate speeds, rear-end impacts cause whiplash, herniated discs and concussions that may not be obvious at the scene.

Pedestrian crashes are a real danger on the busy commercial stretches of 10th Avenue South, where foot traffic crosses a high-volume road. These collisions are among the most catastrophic, and Great Falls has seen serious — sometimes hit-and-run — pedestrian wrecks on that corridor.

Wind and winter rollover crashes are shaped by the open-plains setting. High crosswinds can push high-profile vehicles out of their lane, and ice on the bridges and on I-15 south of town causes vehicles to lose control — single-vehicle rollovers and weather pileups are a recurring cold-season pattern.

Drunk-driving crashes remain a persistent threat in a state that ranks among the worst in the nation for impaired driving. When a bar or restaurant overserves the at-fault driver, it may share liability under Montana’s dram-shop law.

Distracted-driving and hit-and-run crashes are both common on the city’s busy corridors. The dense commercial frontage along 10th Avenue South means surveillance and traffic cameras frequently capture what happened — footage that has helped identify drivers who were texting or who left the scene.

Montana Car Accident Law: No Damage Cap, Three-Year Statute

Modified comparative negligence under Montana Code Annotated § 27-1-702 lets you recover damages, even if you were partly at fault, as long as your share of the blame is not greater than the other drivers’ combined fault — in practice, 50% or less. Your compensation is reduced by your percentage of responsibility, so in a disputed intersection crash on a corridor like 10th Avenue South, how fault is apportioned directly changes what you collect. Insurers routinely try to push blame onto the injured driver to cut what they pay.

No cap on compensatory damages. Montana does not cap economic or noneconomic damages in standard personal-injury cases. There is no artificial ceiling on what a jury can award for medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, or diminished quality of life — which matters when trauma care, an air-ambulance transport and a long recovery run into six or seven figures.

Punitive damages are available when the evidence shows the defendant acted with actual fraud or actual malice — a standard often met in drunk-driving cases. Montana caps punitive damages at the lesser of $10 million or 3% of the defendant’s net worth.

Three-year statute of limitations. Under MCA § 27-2-204, you have three years from the date of the crash to file a personal-injury lawsuit or wrongful-death claim; property-damage claims must be filed within two years. Insurance claims move on a much shorter clock, and camera footage and vehicle data can disappear within days — so the sooner an attorney starts preserving evidence, the stronger your case.

Who Can Be Held Liable in a Great Falls Car Accident?

Liability is not always limited to the other driver. Depending on the facts, several parties may share responsibility:

• The at-fault driver is the most common defendant — for speeding, running a light, failing to yield, distracted driving, or driving while impaired.
• An employer can be liable when the at-fault driver was working — a delivery driver, a rideshare driver, a commercial or service-truck driver, or anyone else acting within the scope of his or her job.
• A bar, restaurant or social host may be liable under Montana’s dram-shop law (MCA § 27-1-710) for serving alcohol to a visibly intoxicated person, or to a minor, who then causes a crash.
• A government entity such as the City of Great Falls, Cascade County or the Montana Department of Transportation may bear responsibility when a dangerous intersection, a missing or malfunctioning signal, or a poorly maintained roadway contributed to the crash. Claims against government bodies carry their own shorter notice deadlines.
• A vehicle or parts manufacturer may be liable under product-liability law when defective brakes, tires, airbags, or other components caused or worsened the crash.

The Insurance Problem: Low Limits and Uninsured Drivers

Montana is an at-fault state, which means the driver who caused the crash — and that driver’s insurer — is responsible for your damages. But two features of Montana’s insurance system regularly leave injured people short.

First, the state’s minimum liability limits are low. Montana requires only 25/50/20 coverage: $25,000 in bodily-injury coverage per person, $50,000 per accident and $20,000 for property damage. A single day in intensive care or one major surgery can exhaust a $25,000 policy, leaving a seriously injured person with bills far beyond what the at-fault driver’s insurance will pay.

Second, some drivers carry no insurance at all — roughly one in 10. That risk is magnified in Great Falls, where I-15 runs as a major north-south route between Canada and the Southwest and where the Malmstrom community brings steady out-of-state and transient traffic, so a crash here often involves a driver from elsewhere whose coverage may be just as thin. When an uninsured or underinsured driver causes your crash, your own UM/UIM coverage becomes the difference between a real recovery and none. Montana requires insurers to offer UM/UIM coverage, though drivers can reject it in writing; if you carry it across more than one vehicle, you may be able to “stack” the limits. A UM/UIM claim means negotiating against your own insurer, which is where having an attorney matters most.

Evidence That Builds a Strong Car Accident Case

Which agency responds depends on where the crash happens — the Great Falls Police Department within the city, the Montana Highway Patrol on I-15 and the rural highways, and the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office in unincorporated areas — and that determines who writes the report and holds the evidence.

The police report documents the crash, identifies the drivers and witnesses, and records the responding officer’s initial assessment of fault. It is the foundation of most claims.

Event data recorders (EDRs). Many modern vehicles record speed, braking, throttle and seat belt use in the seconds before a crash. These “black box” data can confirm how fast the other driver was going or if he or she braked at all — but they can be lost when a vehicle is repaired or scrapped, so they must be preserved quickly.

Cell-phone records, camera footage and witness statements can establish that a driver was texting at impact, capture how a crash unfolded and pin down the timeline. Along 10th Avenue South in particular, business surveillance and traffic cameras often capture the collision — but that footage is frequently overwritten within days, so a preservation letter needs to go out fast.

What Your Great Falls Car Accident Claim May Be Worth

No two cases are alike, but the value of a serious car accident claim generally comes down to a few categories of loss:

• Medical expenses, from the emergency response and trauma care at Benefis — including the substantial cost of an air-ambulance transport when one is needed — through surgery, rehabilitation and any future care a catastrophic injury will require.
• Lost income and lost earning capacity, covering not just the paychecks missed during recovery but the long-term hit when an injury keeps you from the work you did before.
• Pain, suffering and diminished quality of life, which Montana law does not cap — there is no statutory ceiling on what a jury may award for the human cost of a serious injury.

Our car accident attorneys work on a contingency-fee basis, which means you pay nothing up front and no fee at all unless we recover compensation for you.

Talk to a Great Falls Car Accident Lawyer Today

Kovacich Snipes Johnson has built a reputation across Montana for taking on insurance companies and winning fair compensation for injured people — and Great Falls is our home. We know 10th Avenue South and the I-15 interchanges, the way Montana’s fault and insurance rules actually play out, and the tactics that adjusters use to undervalue claims. If you or a family member has been injured in a car accident in Great Falls, contact us for a free consultation. The sooner we begin investigating the crash and preserving evidence, the stronger your case will be.

What to Do After a Car Accident in Great Falls

• Get medical attention immediately. Even if you feel fine, internal injuries and concussions may not be obvious at the scene. Prompt treatment at Benefis Health System protects your health and creates the medical record your claim will need.
• Call 911, and request a police report. The Great Falls Police Department or Montana Highway Patrol — depending on where the crash happened — will document the scene, identify the parties and preserve initial evidence.
• Document everything with photos and video. Capture vehicle positions, damage, road and weather conditions, traffic signals, skid marks and any visible injuries before anything is moved.
• Get witness contact information. Collect names, phone numbers and email addresses of anyone who saw the crash. Witnesses are often hard to track down later.
• Exchange information, but do not admit fault. Get the other driver’s license, insurance and license-plate details. Avoid apologizing or speculating about cause — those statements can be used against you.
• Be careful with the other driver’s insurer. An adjuster may call within days seeking a recorded statement. You are not required to give one. Politely decline, and refer the adjuster to your attorney.
• Contact a car accident attorney promptly. Camera footage and vehicle black-box data can disappear within days, and a dram-shop claim against a bar requires written notice within 180 days.

Great Falls’ Most Dangerous Roads and Intersections

A handful of corridors and intersections account for an outsized share of crashes in Great Falls:

Location	Why It’s Dangerous	Common Crash Type
10th Avenue South (corridor)	Busiest commercial strip; ≈30% of all city crashes	Intersection/rear-end
10th Avenue South & 39th Street	High-volume signalized junction	Intersection/side-impact
10th Avenue South & 17th Street	Dense commercial frontage and foot traffic	Pedestrian/turning
I-15 Exit 278/I-315 spur	Interstate-to-arterial funnel onto 10th Avenue South	Merging/rear-end
Missouri River bridges	Traffic concentrated on crossings; ice forms first	Rear-end/lane-departure
Southeast corridors toward Malmstrom	Steady base commuter traffic	Intersection/left turn
I-15 south (Ulm-Sieben)	Exposed plains; high winds and winter ice	Rollover/lane-departure

Car Accident Claims vs. Truck Accident Claims

With I-15 carrying heavy freight and semis sharing 10th Avenue South, some crashes in Great Falls involve a commercial truck rather than another car, and that changes the case substantially — more potential defendants, far higher insurance limits and a layer of federal regulation. If your crash involved a semi or other commercial truck, see our Great Falls Truck Accident Attorney page.

Factor	Car Accident Claim	Truck Accident Claim
Liable parties	Usually the at-fault driver (sometimes an employer, bar or government entity)	Driver plus the trucking company, maintenance provider, cargo loader and parts manufacturer
Insurance coverage	Montana minimums as low as 25/50/20	FMCSA minimum of $750,000; often $1 million or more
Governing law	Montana traffic and insurance law	State law plus federal FMCSA regulations (49 CFR Parts 350–399)
Critical evidence	Police report, EDR data, phone records, camera footage and witness statements	All of the above plus electronic logging device entries, the truck’s event recorder, driver qualification files and maintenance records
Investigation timeline	Days to weeks to preserve footage and vehicle data	Hours — a spoliation letter must go out immediately
Typical injury severity	Ranges from minor to catastrophic	Catastrophic — occupants of the smaller vehicle bear the worst of it

Where Great Falls Car Accident Cases Are Filed

Car accident lawsuits arising from crashes in Great Falls are typically filed in Cascade County District Court, the Eighth Judicial District, located at 415 2nd Ave. N., Great Falls, MT 59401. This is the trial court of general jurisdiction for Cascade County, where personal injury cases are heard before a judge or jury — and, as a firm based in Great Falls, it is our home court.

In some cases, federal court is the right venue — particularly when the at-fault driver or a corporate defendant is based out of state and the amount in controversy supports diversity jurisdiction, which comes up given the interstate and transient traffic through the area. Choosing the right forum is one of the strategic decisions your attorney makes in the first weeks of a case. You can confirm current court information through the Cascade County Clerk of District Court.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long do I have to file a car accident lawsuit in Montana?

Three years from the date of the crash for a personal-injury or wrongful-death lawsuit, which in Great Falls is generally filed in Cascade County District Court. Property-damage claims have a shorter two-year deadline, and claims against a government entity carry their own shorter notice requirements. Because evidence and witness memories fade quickly, it is wise to consult an attorney well before the deadline.

Can I still recover if I was partly at fault?

Yes. Under Montana’s modified comparative negligence rule, you can recover as long as your share of fault is 50% or less. Your award is reduced by your percentage of responsibility, and at 51% or more, you cannot recover — which is why insurers work so hard to shift blame onto you, especially in disputed intersection crashes on corridors like 10th Avenue South.

What if the driver who hit me had no insurance?

Roughly one in 10 Montana drivers is uninsured, and on I-15 or near Malmstrom, you may be hit by an out-of-state or transient driver whose coverage is just as thin. If you carry UM/UIM coverage, your own policy can compensate you when the at-fault driver cannot. These claims are made against your own insurer, so having a lawyer to push back on a low offer matters.

Can a bar be held responsible if a drunk driver hit me?

Sometimes. Under Montana’s dram-shop law (MCA § 27-1-710), a bar, restaurant or social host that served alcohol to a visibly intoxicated person or to a minor may be liable for the resulting crash. These claims have strict deadlines, including written notice within 180 days, so act quickly.

Why is 10th Avenue South so dangerous?

It is the busiest commercial corridor in Great Falls — once the second-busiest street in the entire state — with dozens of signalized intersections, constant turning traffic and semis sharing the road. The Great Falls Police Department reported that 352 of the city’s 1,147 crashes in 2024, about 30%, happened on 10th Avenue South. A Great Falls car accident case is generally filed in Cascade County District Court at 415 2nd Ave N.

What if I was hit on 10th Avenue South specifically?

Crashes on 10th Avenue South are typically intersection, rear-end and turning collisions, and the Great Falls Police Department usually responds. Because so much of the corridor is lined with businesses, surveillance and traffic-camera footage often exists — but it can be overwritten within days, so it is important to have an attorney send a preservation request quickly. A resulting lawsuit is generally filed in Cascade County District Court.

What if I was hit by an out-of-state or military driver?

It happens often, given the I-15 corridor and the Malmstrom community. You can still pursue an out-of-state driver, and if his or her coverage falls short, your own UM/UIM coverage can help. When the at-fault party is an out-of-state company or driver and enough money is at stake, the case may belong in federal court under diversity jurisdiction rather than state court — a call your attorney makes early.

Related Montana Car Accident Resources

Car accident cases across Montana share the same fault and insurance rules, the same highway corridors and the same insurer tactics, with local variations. If your case touches more than one area, these resources may help:

• Montana Car Accident Lawyer — Statewide guidance on fault rules, insurance coverage, deadlines and compensation.
• Helena Car Accident Attorney — The capital sits down I-15 from Great Falls, where congested arterials like North Montana Avenue and the climb over MacDonald Pass shape its crash patterns.
• Butte Car Accident Attorney — Further down I-15, where the interstate meets I-90 and the Continental Divide passes drive the crash risk.
• Great Falls Truck Accident Attorney — If your Great Falls crash involved a commercial truck, the claim follows different rules and deadlines.