When a Drunk Driver Kills Your Loved One and Runs — The Criminal Sentence Is Not the End of the Story
You sat in that courtroom in Odessa. You watched a jury decide how many years a person gets for driving drunk, hitting someone you love, and driving away. You heard the evidence — the windshield, the changed story, the medical examiner saying there was nothing anyone could do. You heard the sentence. And you are sitting with the fact that it does not feel like enough.
We are not going to tell you it should. A ten-year sentence for taking a life — a life that was building a family, that was someone’s everything — is a real thing, and it is also not the whole thing. The criminal system punished the person who drove drunk and fled. It did not compensate the family he left behind. It did not identify the bar that served alcohol to someone who was not old enough to drink. It did not examine whether someone handed car keys to a teenager they should not have trusted with them. It did not open the insurance policies that may cover what happened. It did none of that — because the criminal system is not designed to. That work belongs to a civil case, and as of this moment, nobody has done it for you.
That is the gap we are going to talk about. Not because we are here to sell you something — we are here because the law gives your family rights that the criminal process never touched, and those rights are on a clock that is already running. Alex Bingham was killed on October 27, 2024. Under Texas law, the deadline to file a wrongful death claim runs approximately two years from that date — which means it falls in late October 2026. That window is narrowing. And the evidence that would tell us who else shares responsibility for his death — the bar receipts, the cell-phone location data, the title on that vehicle — is disappearing with every month that passes.
If your family is living through this, we want you to understand exactly what the law gives you, what the evidence still shows, what the insurance company is already doing, and what a real civil case looks like when the person who caused the death has already been convicted. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle wrongful death claims and catastrophic injury cases across Texas. And the first thing we want you to know is this: the criminal conviction does not close your case. It opens it.
The Gap Between Criminal Punishment and Civil Justice in Odessa
The Ector County jury did its job. Twelve people from this community listened to the evidence, weighed the conduct, and sentenced a drunk driver who killed a man in front of his own home and then drove away. The district attorney presented the case. Judge Low presided. The system worked — for what it is designed to do.
But here is what the criminal system cannot do, by design: it cannot pay the family. It cannot replace the income of a 25-year-old who was the center of his family’s life. It cannot cover the medical bills from Medical Center Hospital, the funeral costs, the years of support his children will grow up without. It cannot hold accountable the establishment that served alcohol to a teenager — if one did. It cannot reach an insurance policy. It cannot force the owner of the vehicle, if that is a different person, to answer for handing the keys to someone who should not have had them.
The criminal case answers one question: what does society do to punish this person? The civil case answers a different question: who owes this family compensation for what was taken, and how do we make them pay it?
These are not the same question, and they do not have the same answer. A criminal conviction can produce a prison sentence. A civil case can produce accountability that actually reaches the people and companies who share responsibility — and the money that holds a family together after the worst thing that has happened to them.
Here is the thing that most families in this position do not realize: the criminal conviction is not the end of the story. For a civil case, it is the beginning — and a powerful one. When someone pleads guilty to intoxication manslaughter, that guilty plea establishes, near-conclusively, that they were drunk, that they drove, that they hit and killed a person, and that they fled. In a civil case, you do not have to re-prove any of that. The liability battle is essentially over before it begins. The entire civil case shifts to two questions: who else is responsible, and where is the money to compensate this family?
That is the gap. That is what we are here to talk about. And it starts with understanding what Texas law actually gives you.
Texas Wrongful Death and Survival Claims After Intoxication Manslaughter
Texas law provides two separate legal claims when someone is killed by another person’s wrongful conduct. They are distinct, they are filed together, and they compensate different losses.
The Wrongful Death Claim
A wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving family members — the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the person who was killed. Under Texas’s wrongful death statute, each eligible beneficiary has their own claim for the losses they personally suffered. The damages available include:
- Lost earning capacity — the income the person would have earned over their working life, projected forward. Alex Bingham was 25 years old. His work-life expectancy could span 40 years. This is not a guess; a forensic economist builds this number from federal labor data, education, work history, and age.
- Lost care, maintenance, support, counsel, and society — the value of what the person provided to the family that no longer exists. For a man described as his partner’s “everything” and the children’s everything, this is not a token line item. It is the center of the claim.
- Mental anguish — the grief, the loss, the emotional devastation. Texas recognizes this as a real, compensable loss — not a footnote.
- Loss of inheritance — what the person would have accumulated and passed to their family over a natural lifetime.
The Survival Claim
A survival claim belongs to the estate of the person who was killed. It carries forward the claim the decedent would have had if they had survived — the pain and suffering experienced between injury and death, plus medical expenses and funeral costs. The medical examiner in this case testified that Bingham’s injuries were non-survivable — that “there was no possibility that Alex was going to make it.” That testimony may limit the conscious-pain-and-suffering component, but it does not eliminate it. If Bingham experienced any awareness between the impact and death — and the physical evidence on the windshield suggests a violent, high-force collision — that interval is compensable. Medical expenses incurred at Medical Center Hospital and funeral expenses are recoverable regardless.
Exemplary Damages
Texas allows exemplary — punitive — damages when a defendant’s conduct demonstrates gross negligence. The legal standard is “conscious indifference” to the safety of others. Driving while intoxicated, striking a pedestrian, and fleeing the scene without rendering aid is the textbook definition. And the false carjacking claim — Contreras initially told authorities he was carjacked, then changed his story — is evidence of consciousness of guilt, not a momentary lapse in judgment. He knew what he did. He tried to cover it up. Then he admitted it.
“How did you not know you had Alex on your windshield when there was evidence on the windshield from Alex’s body? Like, how did you not know that?”
That question, asked by a family member at sentencing, is not just a question. It is the gross-negligence argument in one sentence. You do not drive away with a human being’s biological evidence on your windshield without knowing you hit someone. You flee because you know. And knowing, and fleeing anyway, is conscious indifference.
The Statute of Limitations
Texas imposes a two-year statute of limitations on wrongful death and survival actions, running from the date of death. Alex Bingham died on October 27, 2024. The deadline falls in approximately late October 2026. There is no generous margin here. There is no extension because the criminal case took 18 months. The civil clock runs on its own schedule, and it does not pause for the criminal process.
If you are reading this and that date is approaching, the single most important thing you can do is talk to a lawyer now — not in September 2026, not “after things settle down,” now. Because the evidence that tells us who else is responsible is disappearing on its own clock, and that clock is faster than the statute of limitations.
Who Can Be Held Liable Beyond the Driver
This is the section that matters most. Because if the only defendant in the civil case is the 19-year-old who drove drunk and went to prison, the reality is harsh: a young person with a criminal conviction likely has minimal personal assets, and the auto liability coverage — if any exists — may be modest, and the insurer may argue that intoxication and criminal conduct trigger policy exclusions.
But the driver is almost never the only defendant worth pursuing in a case like this. Here is the map of who else may share responsibility:
The Alcohol Provider (Dram Shop Liability)
This is where the case can change from a small recovery to a meaningful one. Texas law provides a civil cause of action against licensed alcohol providers — bars, restaurants, retailers — who serve alcohol to someone who then causes injury or death. And there are two paths to liability under the Texas Dram Shop Act:
Path 1: Service to an obviously intoxicated adult. A provider is liable if it served alcohol to a person who was obviously intoxicated to the extent that they presented a clear danger to themselves or others, and the intoxication was a proximate cause of the harm.
Path 2: Service to a minor. A provider is liable if it served alcohol to a person under 21 years of age — a minor under Texas law — and that service was a proximate cause of the harm. The “obvious intoxication” requirement does not apply to service of a minor. The mere act of serving alcohol to someone who is underage creates liability exposure if that service contributed to the harm.
Jose Contreras was 17 or 18 years old on October 27, 2024 — underage. If any licensed establishment served him alcohol that night, that establishment may be liable for Bingham’s death under the underage-service theory. This is not a creative legal theory; it is a statutory cause of action designed for exactly this situation. And alcohol providers carry liability insurance — often substantially more than an individual driver’s auto policy.
The question is: where did Contreras get the alcohol? That is a discovery question. The answer lives in point-of-sale records, surveillance footage, credit card receipts, cell-phone location history, and Contreras’s own statements. The criminal case may have already developed some of this evidence. The civil case has the power to subpoena what the criminal case did not pursue.
Texas also recognizes a “safe harbor” defense for establishments that had written policies and trained staff on responsible alcohol service, if the employee who served the minor violated those policies. But the defense is the establishment’s burden to prove — and it does not apply if no such policies existed or training was never conducted.
The Vehicle Owner (Negligent Entrustment)
If the vehicle Contreras was driving did not belong to him, the owner may be liable under a negligent entrustment theory. The legal principle: if you give someone access to a dangerous instrument — a car — and you knew or should have known that person was likely to use it carelessly or while intoxicated, you share responsibility for what happens.
A teenager with a known pattern of drinking. A vehicle handed over without inquiry. An owner who looked the other way. Each of these facts, if discovery uncovers them, opens a separate defendant with separate insurance. The vehicle’s title and registration — obtainable through discovery — tell us who owned it. And the owner’s insurance policy may provide coverage even when the driver’s does not.
The Auto Liability Insurer
Even if the driver is the only defendant, the auto liability policy — if one exists — is the first layer of recovery. Texas requires minimum liability coverage, and one night in a hospital can pass the state minimum. But the policy may be larger, and there may be excess or umbrella layers above it. The insurer will likely raise intoxication and criminal-act exclusions, arguing that the policy does not cover damages caused by a driver who was drunk and fled the scene. Whether those exclusions apply, and whether the insurer still owes a duty to defend, depends on the specific policy language and Texas case law on intentional-or-criminal-act exclusions — an issue that is fought policy by policy.
This is why the dram shop and negligent-entrustment tracks matter so much. They open different defendants with different insurance towers — towers that are not gated by the intoxicated-driver exclusion fight.
What the Criminal Conviction Does for Your Civil Case
The guilty plea to intoxication manslaughter is not just a criminal outcome. It is a civil weapon. Here is why:
Negligence Per Se. Texas law recognizes that when a person violates a statute or regulation designed to protect a class of people, and a member of that class is injured by the violation, the violation itself constitutes evidence of negligence — and in many contexts, negligence per se. The criminal statutes Contreras violated — intoxication manslaughter, failure to stop and render aid — are designed to protect the public, including pedestrians on residential streets in Odessa. His guilty plea is an admission that he violated those statutes. In the civil case, the family does not have to prove he was drunk, that he hit Bingham, or that he fled. The conviction establishes those facts. The only remaining liability questions are whether additional defendants share responsibility.
Collateral Estoppel. In some applications, the criminal conviction can preclude the defendant from re-litigating the facts established by the guilty plea. He admitted he was intoxicated. He admitted he struck a pedestrian. He admitted he fled. He cannot come into civil court and argue he was sober, or that he did not hit Bingham, or that he stopped to help. The issue is closed.
Gross Negligence. The combination of intoxication, flight, and the false carjacking claim — an initial lie to law enforcement followed by a changed story — is the clearest possible fact pattern for gross negligence. He drove drunk. He hit a man. He saw the evidence on his windshield. He drove away. He lied about being carjacked. Then he admitted what he did. That is not an accident. That is a series of choices, each one demonstrating conscious indifference to human life.
What this means practically: in a civil case against Contreras, liability is not the fight. The fight is about damages and collectibility. And the fight about collectibility is really a fight about identifying additional defendants — the dram shop, the vehicle owner — who have insurance and assets that the criminal defendant does not.
The Evidence Clock — What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Disappears
This is the section that should create urgency. Because the criminal case is over. The sentencing is done. And when a criminal case closes, the evidence that was gathered for it begins to age, archive, and disappear. A civil case has to freeze that evidence before it is gone — and the only way to freeze it is with a preservation letter, sent by a lawyer, to every person and entity that holds it.
Here is the evidence map, system by system:
Contreras’s Vehicle
The vehicle is the single most important piece of physical evidence. The windshield carries biological evidence from Bingham’s body — evidence that was referenced at trial. The body panels, the undercarriage, the damage pattern — all of it tells a reconstruction engineer exactly how the collision happened: the speed, the angle, the force, whether the brakes were applied, whether the driver swerved. A forensic reconstructionist can quantify the impact forces and corroborate the windshield evidence with physical measurements.
But the vehicle may be released from police impound or defense custody at any point post-sentencing. The criminal case is closed. There is no ongoing reason for law enforcement to hold it. Once it is released, it can be repaired, sold, or scrapped — and the evidence is destroyed. A preservation letter demanding that the vehicle be maintained in its current condition, sent to the owner, the impound facility, and any defense counsel who retained custody, is the only protection. Once that letter is on file, destruction of the vehicle becomes spoliation — and a jury can be told that the destroyed evidence would have been unfavorable to the party who destroyed it.
Toxicology and Blood-Alcohol Results
Contreras’s blood-alcohol level was obtained during the criminal investigation. That number is critical to the civil case — it quantifies the degree of impairment, supports the gross-negligence claim, and, if a dram shop defendant is identified, helps establish how much Contreras was served and how obviously intoxicated he was when served. Certified copies of the toxicology results must be secured from the criminal court file before the file is archived. Once the criminal case is administratively closed, records can be moved to storage and become harder to obtain.
Medical Center Hospital and Medical Examiner Records
The hospital records establish the medical expenses incurred before Bingham’s death — a recoverable element of the survival claim. The medical examiner’s records establish the cause and manner of death, the injury mechanism, the non-survivability finding, and any evidence of conscious pain and suffering in the interval between impact and death. These records are retained per regulatory schedule, but they should be obtained immediately to prevent loss, incomplete production, or administrative archiving.
Bar/Restaurant Receipts, Surveillance, and Point-of-Sale Data
If Contreras was served alcohol at a licensed establishment, the evidence of that service is on a fast clock. Point-of-sale data — receipts, credit card records, transaction logs — may be retained anywhere from 90 days to one year depending on the vendor. October 2024 data is already at the edge of availability. Surveillance footage from any bar, restaurant, or store Contreras visited that night is almost certainly already gone — most commercial CCTV systems overwrite on a 14-to-30-day loop. But if any footage was preserved by law enforcement during the criminal investigation, it must be secured now.
Cell Phone Records and Location Data
Contreras’s cell-phone location history for the hours before the crash can show where he was, whether he was at a bar or restaurant, how long he was there, and potentially who he was with. Carrier retention for location data varies — some carriers retain it for 90 days, others up to a year. October 2024 data may still be obtainable with a subpoena, but the window is closing. Social media content — posts, messages, check-ins — can be deleted by the user at any time and must be preserved by litigation hold or direct subpoena.
Police Crash Report, DA Prosecution File, and Trial Transcripts
The Ector County DA’s prosecution file contains witness statements, reconstruction findings, Contreras’s statements and changed stories, and the full evidentiary record from the criminal trial. This is public record, but it must be formally requested and compiled. The sentencing completion means the file is now administratively closed and may be archived. Trial transcripts — including the medical examiner’s testimony, the family’s statements, and the evidence presented about the windshield — are essential to the civil case and must be ordered before they become difficult to locate.
The pattern is the same for every item on this list: the evidence exists, it is aging, and the only thing that stops it from disappearing is a formal legal demand. That demand does not go out on its own. It goes out when a lawyer sends it. The day you call is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
What This Case Is Worth — An Honest Assessment
We are not going to promise you a number. What we will do is walk you through how a number is built, what makes it larger or smaller, and what the honest range looks like for a case like this one.
The damages justify a seven-figure evaluation. A 25-year-old with a projected 40-year work life, described as the primary support for his partner and children, killed by a drunk driver who fled the scene and lied about it — the lost earning capacity alone, projected by a forensic economist using federal labor data, is a substantial number. Add the loss of care, counsel, society, and support. Add mental anguish. Add funeral expenses and medical costs. Add exemplary damages for gross negligence. The liability and damages components of this case support a seven-figure evaluation.
The collectibility question is binary. The wide range in actual recovery comes down to one variable: who can we collect from?
Against Contreras alone — a 19-year-old with a criminal conviction and likely minimal personal assets — recovery is limited to any applicable auto liability policy limits and whatever personal assets exist. The realistic range in that scenario is $50,000 to $250,000. That is not a number anyone wants to hear, and we will not pretend otherwise. It is the floor.
If a dram shop defendant is identified — particularly given the underage-service theory, which carries heightened liability and potentially deeper insurance coverage — the recovery range shifts dramatically. An establishment that served alcohol to a minor who then killed someone carries liability insurance that is typically far larger than an individual auto policy. In that scenario, the realistic range is $2,000,000 to $5,000,000, depending on the coverage tower, the severity of the service violation, and the establishment’s safety record.
If the vehicle was owned by someone other than Contreras — a parent, a relative, a friend — and that owner knew or should have known of Contreras’s propensity for intoxication or reckless operation, the negligent-entrustment track opens another defendant with another insurance policy. That policy may carry substantially higher limits than the driver’s.
The case value is not a single number. It is a range that depends on what discovery reveals about who else is responsible and what insurance stands behind them. The answer to that question is what separates a $50,000 case from a $5,000,000 case — and the answer is sitting in records that are disappearing.
For more on how we evaluate what a case is worth, Ralph Manginello breaks down case valuation in a way that explains exactly how the number is built — and why the adjuster’s first offer is a fraction of it.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook — and How We Counter Each Move
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before he came to this side of the table. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows the plays because he used to run them. Here are the ones we see in cases like this — and the counter to each.
Play 1: The “Criminal Case Is Enough” Deflection
The adjuster’s tone will be sympathetic. They will acknowledge the criminal conviction. They will say the system handled it. And they will gently suggest that the family has already gotten justice — so what is the civil case really about?
The counter: The criminal case punished the driver. It did not compensate the family. It did not identify the bar that served a teenager. It did not open the insurance policies. The civil case is about accountability that actually reaches the people and companies who share responsibility — and the money that holds a family together. The adjuster is not your ally. The adjuster is the person whose job is to close this file for the smallest number possible.
Play 2: The Intoxication Exclusion
The auto liability insurer may deny coverage, arguing that the policy excludes damages caused by intentional or criminal conduct — and intoxication manslaughter is a crime. They will tell you there is no coverage, so there is nothing to pursue.
The counter: Whether the exclusion applies depends on the specific policy language and Texas case law on criminal-act exclusions. Some exclusions have been struck down; others have been enforced. This is a policy-by-policy fight, not a blanket denial. And more importantly, the exclusion fight only applies to the driver’s auto policy. It does not reach a dram shop defendant’s liability coverage. It does not reach a vehicle owner’s policy. The adjuster is narrowing the conversation to the one policy where they have the strongest argument — because they do not want you looking at the other ones.
Play 3: The Fast Settlement Offer
A check may arrive quickly, with a release attached, before the family has had time to understand the full scope of what happened, who else is responsible, or what the case is actually worth. The amount will be small — a fraction of the policy limits, pitched as “help during a difficult time.”
The counter: That check is designed to close the case before anyone investigates the alcohol source, the vehicle ownership, or the full damages. Once the release is signed, every other defendant — the bar, the vehicle owner, every insurance policy — is gone. There is no second case. There is no “we found out later.” The release is final. This is why the first thing a family should do before signing anything — before talking to the adjuster, before accepting a check, before providing a recorded statement — is talk to a lawyer who can tell them what they are actually giving up.
Play 4: The Recorded Statement
Someone friendly will call to “check on the family” and ask the family to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording. Every word will be transcribed and used to pin down the family’s story before they have had time to process the trauma, before they know the full facts, and before any lawyer has reviewed the evidence.
The counter: You do not have to give a recorded statement to the at-fault driver’s insurance company. You should not. The adjuster is not calling to help you. They are calling to build a defense file. What you should not say to an insurance adjuster is not a matter of being dishonest — it is a matter of not handing the other side the tools to devalue your case before it starts.
The Medicine of a Fatal Pedestrian Impact
A reconstruction engineer and a trauma specialist would each look at this collision and see the same truth from different angles. The physical evidence described at trial — biological evidence from Bingham’s body on Contreras’s windshield — tells a specific story about force, speed, and the mechanics of a vehicle striking a human being.
When a vehicle strikes a pedestrian, the injury pattern depends on the speed of the vehicle, the height of the vehicle’s front end relative to the pedestrian, and whether the driver braked before impact. A pedestrian struck by a vehicle at speed typically undergoes three collisions: the bumper striking the legs, the body wrapping onto the hood and windshield, and the body falling to the ground or being thrown forward. Biological evidence on the windshield means the second collision occurred — the body came up onto the vehicle’s front end and struck the windshield glass. That happens at significant speed. A vehicle traveling at 25 or 30 miles per hour may not launch a pedestrian onto the windshield with enough force to leave biological transfer. At higher speeds, the body goes up and over.
The medical examiner’s testimony — that there was “no possibility that Alex was going to make it” — tells us the injuries were catastrophic. The most common cause of death in high-speed auto-pedestrian collisions is severe head injury, often combined with internal organ rupture and skeletal fracture. The brain injury may be the primary cause, or it may be internal bleeding from ruptured organs — the liver, the spleen, the aorta. The medical examiner’s report will specify the mechanism, and that report is evidence that must be preserved.
For the survival claim, the question is whether Bingham experienced any conscious awareness between impact and death. The medical examiner’s non-survivability finding does not eliminate this element — it may limit it, but if Bingham was aware for any interval, even seconds, that experience is compensable. The evidence on the windshield — the fact that his body was on the vehicle — and the medical examiner’s injury description will inform this analysis.
The medicine matters because the damages are built from it. The hospital records quantify the medical expenses. The medical examiner’s report establishes the cause of death and the injury mechanism. A life-care planner would have projected the cost of Bingham’s care if he had survived — but because he did not survive, the damages shift to the wrongful-death framework: the lost earning capacity, the lost support, the mental anguish of the family, the exemplary damages for the conduct that caused the death.
How a Case Like This Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk — what happens from the day you call to the day the case resolves. This is not a summary. It is the actual sequence.
Week One: The Preservation Letter Goes Out
The first thing that happens is not a lawsuit. It is a series of letters — preservation demands — sent to every entity that holds evidence. The vehicle owner. The impound facility. The Ector County DA’s office. Medical Center Hospital. The medical examiner. Every bar or restaurant that cell-phone data suggests Contreras visited that night. The cell-phone carrier. The letters order each recipient to freeze all evidence related to the incident and to preserve it for litigation. Once the letter is on file, destruction of evidence becomes spoliation — and the jury can be told to assume the worst about what was destroyed.
Weeks Two Through Four: The Records Are Demanded
Formal records requests go to the Ector County DA’s prosecution file, the Odessa Police Department crash report, the medical examiner’s office, and Medical Center Hospital. Certified copies of the toxicology results, the crash report, and the trial transcripts are ordered. The vehicle title and registration are pulled from Texas DMV records to identify the owner. If the owner is not Contreras, the negligent-entrustment track opens.
Months One Through Three: The Dram Shop Investigation
This is the highest-value investigative work in the case. Subpoenas go out for Contreras’s cell-phone location history for the hours preceding the crash. Credit card records are obtained. Any bar, restaurant, or store that appears in the location data is identified, and subpoenas are served for point-of-sale records, surveillance footage, and employee statements. If an establishment served alcohol to Contreras — who was 17 or 18 at the time — the dram shop claim is built from the establishment’s own records.
A forensic toxicologist is retained to opine on Contreras’s blood-alcohol level, the degree of impairment it represents, and the relationship between that level and any service point. If the BAC was high, the toxicologist can work backward to estimate how many drinks were consumed and over what period — which tells us whether the service was a single drink or a sustained pattern of over-service to a minor.
Months Three Through Six: The Experts Are Retained
An accident reconstructionist is retained to examine the vehicle (if it has been preserved), quantify the impact forces, determine the speed at impact, and corroborate the windshield evidence. A forensic economist is retained to project Bingham’s lost earning capacity over a 40-year work-life expectancy, using federal labor data, his education, his work history, and his age at death. If there are children, the economist projects the lost support, counsel, and society they will grow up without.
Months Six Through Twelve: Discovery and Depositions
If the case has been filed, written discovery goes to every defendant. Depositions follow — the driver, the vehicle owner, the bar employees, the establishment’s corporate representative. Under oath, the safety director or the bar manager explains the establishment’s hiring, training, and service practices. The gaps between what the law required and what the establishment actually did are the gaps where liability lives.
The Resolution
Most cases resolve before trial. Some go to trial. In Ector County, a jury that hears this evidence — a drunk underage driver, a man killed in front of his own home, a windshield that carried the evidence of the impact, a false carjacking claim, and potentially a bar that served a teenager — will respond to the conduct. Ector County juries are generally conservative on civil damages, but they respond strongly to egregious conduct like intoxication and hit-and-run, particularly when a victim is killed in front of their own home. The community that sat on the criminal jury and delivered a conviction is the same community that would sit on a civil jury and decide what the family is owed.
Your First 72 Hours — A Practical Roadmap
If you are reading this in the days or weeks after a loss like this, here is what you should do — and what you should not do.
Do:
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Get the medical records and the death certificate. These are the foundation documents. The medical examiner’s report and the death certificate establish the cause and manner of death. The hospital records quantify the medical expenses. These are obtainable through formal records requests, and a lawyer can handle this for you.
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Preserve everything you have. Photos of the scene. The police report number. The name of the investigating officer. Any correspondence from the DA’s office. The victim’s employment records, pay stubs, and benefits statements. Do not throw anything away. Do not delete text messages or social media posts.
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Do not sign anything from any insurance company. No release. No settlement agreement. No authorization for medical records. Nothing. If an adjuster sends you a form, do not fill it out. If a check arrives, do not cash it. Every document the insurance company sends you is designed to close your case for the smallest amount possible, and once it is signed, it is final.
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Talk to a lawyer. Not a generalist. A lawyer who handles wrongful death cases and knows Texas dram shop law. The consultation is free. The lawyer will tell you whether you have a case, who the defendants may be, and what the evidence clock looks like. You are not obligated to hire anyone. You are gathering information. But do it now — not in six months, not next year. The clock is running.
Do Not:
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Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company. Not the driver’s insurer. Not the vehicle owner’s insurer. Not any insurer. You have no obligation to do this, and everything you say will be transcribed and used to limit your recovery.
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Do not post about the case on social media. Insurance adjusters and defense investigators monitor social media. Posts about the incident, the criminal case, the family’s grief, or financial circumstances can be taken out of context and used against you. Set your accounts to private and do not post about the case.
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Do not assume the criminal case took care of everything. It did not. The criminal case punished the driver. It did not compensate the family. It did not identify the alcohol provider. It did not open the insurance policies. Those rights are separate, and they are yours — but only if you pursue them before the deadline.
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Do not wait. The two-year statute of limitations runs from the date of death. The evidence that would identify additional defendants is disappearing. The vehicle may be released. The point-of-sale data may be purged. The cell-phone location history may be deleted. Every month that passes is a month of evidence that is gone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we still file a civil case even though the criminal case is already over?
Yes. The criminal case and the civil case are completely separate. The criminal case was the State of Texas against Jose Contreras. The civil case would be the Bingham family against Contreras and any other responsible parties — including potentially the alcohol provider and the vehicle owner. The criminal conviction actually helps the civil case because it establishes the driver’s liability. The civil case is about compensation, not punishment — and the deadline to file it runs approximately two years from the date of death, which means late October 2026.
The driver went to prison and probably has no money. Is a civil case even worth pursuing?
Against the driver alone, recovery may be limited to whatever auto liability insurance exists and whatever personal assets he has. But the driver is not the only potential defendant. If a bar or restaurant served alcohol to Contreras — who was underage at the time — that establishment may be liable under Texas dram shop law, and alcohol providers carry liability insurance that is typically far larger than an individual auto policy. If someone other than Contreras owned the vehicle, that owner may be liable for negligent entrustment. The question is not just “what does the driver have” — it is “who else shares responsibility, and what insurance stands behind them.” That is what a civil investigation determines.
How long do we have to file a wrongful death case in Texas?
Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for wrongful death and survival actions, running from the date of death. Alex Bingham died on October 27, 2024, so the deadline falls in approximately late October 2026. There is no automatic extension because a criminal case was pending. The civil clock runs independently. If the deadline passes, the claim is barred — no matter how strong the case is. This is why contacting a lawyer early is not just advisable; it is essential.
What is a dram shop claim and how does it apply here?
A dram shop claim is a civil claim against a business that served alcohol to someone who then caused injury or death. Texas law provides two paths to liability: service to an obviously intoxicated adult, and service to a minor (someone under 21). Because Contreras was 17 or 18 at the time of the crash, the underage-service theory applies — if an establishment served him alcohol, that establishment may be liable for Bingham’s death regardless of whether Contreras appeared intoxicated at the time of service. The key is identifying where the alcohol came from, which requires investigating cell-phone location data, credit card records, and point-of-sale data.
What if the vehicle was not owned by the driver?
If someone other than Contreras owned the vehicle, that owner may be liable under a negligent-entrustment theory. The legal principle: if you give someone access to a vehicle and you knew or should have known they were likely to use it carelessly or while intoxicated, you share responsibility for what happens. The vehicle’s title and registration — obtainable through discovery — identify the owner. The owner’s insurance policy may provide coverage even when the driver’s does not, and the owner’s policy may carry substantially higher limits.
Will the criminal conviction help our civil case?
Yes — significantly. A guilty plea to intoxication manslaughter establishes that the driver was intoxicated, that he struck and killed a pedestrian, and that he fled the scene. In the civil case, the family does not have to re-prove these facts. The conviction creates a negligence-per-se advantage — the violation of criminal statutes designed to protect the public is evidence of negligence. And the combination of intoxication, flight, and the false carjacking claim supports a gross-negligence finding, which opens the door to exemplary (punitive) damages under Texas law.
How much is a case like this worth?
The damages — lost earning capacity over a 40-year work life, lost care and support for a young family, mental anguish, funeral expenses, and exemplary damages for gross negligence — justify a seven-figure evaluation. The actual recovery range depends on who can be identified as a defendant and what insurance stands behind them. Against the driver alone, the range may be $50,000 to $250,000. If a dram shop defendant is identified, the range can shift to $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 or more. No honest lawyer can give you a specific number without investigating the facts — and anyone who does is not being straight with you.
What does it cost to hire a wrongful death lawyer?
We handle wrongful death cases on a contingency fee basis. That means we do not charge an hourly rate. We do not charge a consultation fee. We do not bill you for the cost of the investigation while the case is ongoing. Our fee is a percentage of the recovery — 33.33% if the case resolves before trial, 40% if it goes to trial. If there is no recovery, there is no fee. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free, confidential, and carries no obligation.
Why Attorney911
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — he knows how to find the story the evidence tells, and he knows how to tell it to a jury. He is admitted to the State Bar of Texas (Bar #24007597, licensed November 6, 1998) and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He built this firm to take the cases that demand everything — the wrongful death claims, the catastrophic injury claims, the cases where the other side has more money and more lawyers and expects the family to fold. Read more about Ralph.
Lupe Peña is the reason we know what the insurance company is going to do before they do it. He spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters set reserves, where claims are fed into valuation software that discounts pain it cannot see, where IME doctors are selected and surveillance is ordered. He sat at the defense table. Now he sits on your side of it. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — because every family in this community deserves to understand their rights in the language they pray in. Read more about Lupe.
Together, we have recovered more than $50 million for injured clients and their families. We handle car accident and injury cases, wrongful death claims, and DUI-related injury and death cases across Texas — including the Permian Basin, Ector County, and the communities along Interstate 20 and US Highway 385 that know what oilfield traffic and early-morning darkness can do on a residential street.
We also handle vulnerable road user cases — pedestrian fatalities, hit-and-run collisions, and the specific dangers that Odessa’s older neighborhoods present to people on foot during early-morning hours when lighting is poor and sidewalks are absent.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is different. What we guarantee is this: we will tell you the truth about your case, we will investigate every defendant who shares responsibility, and we will not close the file until every source of compensation has been identified and pursued.
Hablamos Español. Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish. If your family is more comfortable in Spanish, you will speak directly with an attorney who can explain every step of the process in your language — not through an interpreter, not through a summary, but person to person.
Call Now — The Clock Is Already Running
The statute of limitations runs in approximately late October 2026. The evidence that would identify the bar, the vehicle owner, and every insurance policy is disappearing. The vehicle may be released. The point-of-sale data may be purged. The cell-phone location history may be gone.
The day you call is the day the preservation letters go out. The day you call is the day the evidence starts being frozen instead of destroyed. The day you call is the day the insurance company knows this family has a lawyer — and that the file is not going to close quietly.
The consultation is free. The call is confidential. There is no fee unless we win your case.
1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911). 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A real person answers — not an answering service, not a voicemail tree. Contact us through the website, or call the hotline now.
Alex Bingham was killed in front of his own home. The criminal system delivered a sentence. The civil system is still available to his family — but only if someone picks up the phone before the clock runs out.