Midland Intoxication Manslaughter: Your Rights After a Fatal DUI Rollover
The call came at an hour nobody is ever ready for. Someone you love was on a highway around Midland — Loop 250, SH 158, the Andrews Highway — and a person who had no business behind the wheel took their life in a rollover crash that never had to happen. The police have charged the driver with intoxication manslaughter. That word — manslaughter — tells you the criminal justice system is moving. What it does not tell you is whether anyone is moving for your family. That is the gap this page exists to fill.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle wrongful death claims and drunk driving crash cases across Texas, and we are writing this page for the person reading at 2 a.m. with a folder of funeral bills and a crime-report number, trying to understand whether the criminal charge means anything for their family’s future. It does. But not the way most people think. The criminal case and your civil case are two entirely separate fights — and the clock on your rights is already running.
What Intoxication Manslaughter Means — and What It Does Not
Intoxication manslaughter is a second-degree felony under Texas law. It means the state has accused a driver of operating a vehicle while legally intoxicated — a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher, or the loss of normal mental or physical faculties due to alcohol or drugs — and that intoxication was a causal factor in a death. In Texas, a second-degree felony carries a potential prison sentence of two to twenty years. The charge is serious. The prosecution will pursue it.
But here is what intoxication manslaughter does not do: it does not write your family a check. It does not pay the funeral home. It does not replace the income your loved one was earning. It does not compensate you for the years you expected to share. A criminal conviction — even a prison sentence — sends the driver to a cell. Your family’s financial recovery comes from a separate civil lawsuit, and the criminal case, while powerful evidence for that lawsuit, is not a substitute for it.
This distinction is the single most important thing to understand in the days after a drunk driving death. The prosecutor represents the State of Texas. We represent you. The prosecutor’s job is punishment. Our job is accountability measured in what your family actually lost — and making the people who caused that loss pay for it.
The Criminal Case and Your Civil Case: Two Separate Fights
The criminal charge of intoxication manslaughter and your family’s wrongful death claim run on parallel tracks. They share evidence — the blood alcohol test, the crash report, the witness statements — but they have different purposes, different standards of proof, and different deadlines.
In the criminal case, the state must prove the driver’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In your civil case, we must prove the driver’s negligence by a preponderance of the evidence — a much lower bar. “Preponderance” means more likely than not. A jury does not need to be certain beyond a reasonable doubt to hold the driver financially accountable for your family’s loss. It only needs to be convinced that the driver’s intoxication more probably than not caused the crash that killed your loved one.
The criminal conviction, if it happens, creates something called negligence per se in your civil case. That doctrine means: when a person violates a criminal statute designed to protect the public — and Texas DWI law is exactly that — the violation itself establishes civil negligence. The driver cannot argue “I was driving carefully” when the law already says that driving with a 0.08 BAC is, by definition, negligent. The burden shifts to the defendant to show the intoxication did not cause the crash, which is a remarkably difficult thing to prove in a rollover fatality.
But negligence per se only works if we have the criminal conviction or, at minimum, the criminal charge supported by admissible evidence. That is why we monitor the criminal case closely — but we do not wait for it. The criminal case can take eighteen months or more to resolve. Your civil deadline does not pause while the prosecution works.
Texas gives families two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death lawsuit. That is the statute of limitations, and it is unforgiving. If the crash happened more than two years ago and no civil claim was filed, the deadline may have already passed — though certain tolling exceptions can extend it in narrow circumstances. This is why timing is the first question we answer when a family calls. The criminal case can take its time. Your civil rights cannot.
Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Drunk Driving Death in Midland
Most families assume there is one defendant — the drunk driver — and one source of recovery — that driver’s auto insurance. In reality, a thorough investigation often reveals a wider net of responsibility. Here is who we look at:
The intoxicated driver. This is the primary defendant. The driver’s auto insurance is the first layer of recovery. In Texas, the legal minimum is $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident — numbers that a single night in a trauma center can exceed. Many drivers carry more, but many carry exactly the minimum, and some carry none at all. The driver’s personal assets, if any, are a secondary source. For a driver facing criminal charges and potential prison, the motivation to settle the civil case can be significant — but only if there are assets or insurance to settle with.
The alcohol-serving establishment. Texas has a Dram Shop Act that creates a civil cause of action against licensed providers — bars, restaurants, clubs — who serve an obviously intoxicated person who presents a clear danger to themselves or others. If a bar in Midland, on Andrews Highway or near Loop 250, continued serving a patron who was visibly intoxicated and that patron then drove and killed your loved one, the bar can be held financially responsible.
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code § 2.02 provides a civil cause of action against licensed providers who served an obviously intoxicated person who presented a clear danger to self or others.
This is often the most important defendant in a drunk driving death case, because bars and restaurants carry liability insurance that is typically far larger than the driver’s personal auto policy — sometimes $1 million or more. Finding the bar is the single biggest value driver in many of these cases.
The employer, if the driver was on duty. Midland is oilfield country. The roads around Midland — SH 158 toward Goldthwaite, the Andrews Highway toward the Permian Basin oilfields, Rankin Highway toward the south — carry a steady stream of workers driving company vehicles to and from drilling sites, frac sites, pipeline jobs. If the intoxicated driver was operating a company vehicle, was returning from a work function, or was on the clock when the crash happened, the employer can be held liable under a doctrine called respondeat superior — the employer is responsible for the negligence of its employee acting within the scope of employment. Employer liability transforms the case, because companies carry far more insurance and have far deeper pockets than individual drivers.
The vehicle owner, if different from the driver. If someone other than the driver owned the vehicle and knew or should have known the driver was intoxicated or had a history of DWI, they can be held liable under negligent entrustment. This applies to parents who let a known-drinking teenager use the family car, employers who hand keys to a driver with a known substance problem, or friends who loan a vehicle to someone visibly impaired.
The Dram Shop Investigation: Following the Alcohol to the Source
The dram shop investigation is where the case often transforms from a tragic event with limited recovery into a meaningful accountability action. But it requires fast, specific work.
Here is what we look for and how we find it:
Credit card receipts. When a drunk driver paid for drinks with a card, the receipts create a paper trail that identifies exactly which establishment served them, how many drinks they purchased, and over what time period. We subpoena the driver’s credit card records for the twenty-four hours before the crash and match them against TABC-licensed establishments in the Midland area.
Point-of-sale data. Bars and restaurants using modern POS systems record every drink ordered, the server who rang it in, the table or tab it was assigned to, and the timestamp. This data can survive for tax-audit periods — often years — and it is the single most detailed record of what the establishment actually served.
Surveillance footage. The bar’s own cameras may show the driver’s visible condition — stumbling, slurring, being served while visibly intoxicated. This is the gold standard of dram shop proof: the bar’s own video showing it served someone who was obviously drunk. But CCTV footage is typically overwritten on a 7-to-30-day cycle. If the bar is not put on a preservation notice quickly, the footage is gone. For a crash that happened in 2021, that footage is almost certainly lost — but for a recent crash, a preservation letter sent within days can freeze it.
TABC records. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission maintains records on every licensed establishment, including prior violations for over-service, violations for serving minors, and complaint history. A bar with prior over-service violations has already been warned — and that history is powerful evidence that the over-service was not a one-time mistake but a pattern.
Witness statements. People who were at the bar — other patrons, the server, the bartender, the bouncer — may have observed the driver’s condition and can testify to obvious intoxication. The criminal investigation may have already interviewed some of these witnesses. Those statements, if preserved in the criminal case file, are discoverable in the civil case.
The dram shop claim is what turns a $30,000 minimum-policy case into a case worth millions. But it is also the most time-sensitive part of the investigation — because the evidence that proves over-service is the evidence that disappears fastest.
What Your Family Can Recover: Wrongful Death and Survival Damages in Texas
Texas law provides two separate causes of action after a fatal crash, and understanding the difference matters because they compensate different losses for different people.
The wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving family — the spouse, children, and parents of the person who was killed. This claim compensates the family for what they lost when their loved one died. The damages available include:
- Mental anguish — the grief, sorrow, and emotional suffering of losing a spouse, parent, or child. This is real, compensable, and often the largest component of a wrongful death verdict in Texas.
- Loss of the decedent’s earning capacity — the income your loved one would have earned over their working life, projected forward. A forensic economist calculates this from the person’s age, occupation, education, and earning history, reduced to present value.
- Loss of care, support, maintenance, and companionship — the practical and emotional contributions the person would have made to the family — guidance, advice, household services, the companionship that is the fabric of a family.
- Funeral and burial expenses — the actual costs of laying your loved one to rest.
The survival claim belongs to the decedent’s estate. It compensates for what the deceased person suffered between the injury and death — their pain, their fear, their conscious suffering. In a rollover crash, the survival period can be brief or it can be agonizingly long. If the victim survived for minutes, hours, or days before succumbing to injuries, the conscious pain and suffering during that interval is compensable. Medical expenses incurred during that survival period are also recoverable here.
A trauma surgeon, working from the autopsy report, EMS run sheets, and hospital records, can reconstruct the survival period and testify to what the victim experienced. This is not speculation — it is medical reconstruction from documented evidence.
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. This means your family’s recovery is reduced by the decedent’s percentage of fault, if any — but recovery is only barred if the decedent was found 51% or more at fault. In a drunk driving case where the at-fault driver crossed a lane, ran a red light, or lost control and rolled, the decedent’s fault is typically zero. But the defense will look for any angle — an unbuckled seatbelt, a distraction, any factor they can use to shift percentage points. Every percentage point they pin on your loved one is money subtracted from your recovery.
Exemplary Damages: When Drunk Driving Becomes Punishment
Texas allows exemplary damages — what many people call punitive damages — when a defendant’s conduct rises to gross negligence. Driving while intoxicated is the textbook definition of gross negligence under Texas law. The decision to drink and then drive is not a mere accident; it is a conscious choice to disregard a known, extreme risk to other people’s lives.
Under the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, exemplary damages require a separate finding by the jury, and they are subject to statutory caps. The cap structure generally limits exemplary damages to the greater of (a) two times the amount of economic damages plus an amount equal to non-economic damages up to $750,000, or (b) $200,000. The exact arithmetic depends on the specific facts, and we work through it with our damages experts — but the point is that exemplary damages are available, they are real, and the intoxication element of the case is what unlocks them.
The availability of exemplary damages matters even if the caps limit the final number, because it changes the leverage. An insurer facing a case with exemplary damages exposure knows the verdict range is wider, the jury’s anger is engaged, and the settlement value is higher. The Stowers doctrine in Texas — which requires an insurer to accept a reasonable settlement demand within policy limits or face exposure for a verdict that exceeds those limits — becomes a sharper tool when exemplary damages are on the table.
The Evidence Clock: What Proves Your Case and How Fast It Disappears
Every piece of evidence in a drunk driving wrongful death case exists on a timer. Some timers are long. Some are brutally short. Here is what we need, who holds it, and how fast it can legally die.
Blood alcohol toxicology. The criminal case required a blood draw or breath test, and those results are preserved in the criminal court file. This is the single most important piece of evidence in your civil case — it proves intoxication, and it triggers negligence per se. The blood sample itself may be available for independent retesting, but crime lab destruction protocols can apply. If a civil case is filed, we demand the sample be preserved for our own expert to analyze.
The vehicle’s event data recorder. Modern vehicles carry a “black box” — an event data recorder that captures the seconds before impact: vehicle speed, brake application, throttle position, steering input, and seatbelt status. In a rollover, this data tells us exactly how fast the vehicle was traveling, whether the driver braked, and the forces involved. Under federal regulation, if the airbags deployed, the EDR data is supposed to be locked against overwriting. But if the airbags did not deploy, the data can be overwritten by the next hard event — and if the vehicle is sold at auction or crushed by a salvage yard, the data dies with it. For a crash that happened in 2021, the vehicle may already be gone. For a recent crash, a preservation demand to the insurance company and the salvage yard is urgent.
Bar and restaurant records. As discussed above, CCTV footage overwrites in 7 to 30 days. POS records survive longer for tax purposes. Credit card records are available through subpoena. The preservation letter to the bar must go out within days, not months.
The Texas crash report (CR-3). The investigating officer’s crash report documents the rollover mechanism, the point of departure, skid marks, road conditions, and the officer’s assessment of causation. This report is filed with the state and preserved in the criminal court file. It is durable evidence.
Witness statements. The criminal investigation likely included interviews with witnesses — people who saw the driver before the crash, at the bar, or at the scene. These statements, if preserved in the criminal case discovery, are available to us in the civil case. But witness memories fade, and people move. The most reliable statements are the ones taken closest to the crash date.
Cell phone records. The driver’s phone records from the hours before the crash can establish location data (proving where they were drinking), communications (identifying companions), and whether the phone was in use at the time of the crash (distraction evidence). Carrier retention policies vary, and historical records may still be available through subpoena for 2021 dates depending on the provider.
The scene itself. Skid marks fade. Debris gets cleared. Guardrail damage is repaired. The physical scene of the crash is gone within days of the incident. What remains is the documentation — photographs, measurements, the CR-3, and any reconstruction work done by law enforcement.
When a defendant lets required evidence die after we have put them on notice to preserve it, the law answers. An adverse-inference instruction allows the jury to assume the lost evidence was as damaging as we say it was. Sanctions are available. The leverage begins the moment the preservation letter is on file — which is why the letter goes out before the funeral, not after the insurance company calls.
Rollover Physics on Midland’s Highways: Why Speed and Alcohol Are a Deadly Combination
Midland’s highways are built for speed. Loop 250, SH 158, the Andrews Highway — these are flat, straight, high-speed corridors with speed limits of 60 to 75 miles per hour. They are also arteries for oilfield traffic: water haulers, frac sand transporters, crude tankers, pump trucks, and service vehicles that mix with passenger cars at highway speeds. The Permian Basin’s economic engine sends a steady stream of heavy trucks through these corridors, and the combination of high speeds, mixed traffic, and long straight stretches creates a specific rollover risk profile.
Here is what a reconstruction engineer understands about why a drunk driver rolls a vehicle on these roads:
A rollover begins with a loss of directional control. On a straight, flat highway, that loss typically comes from one of three mechanisms: the driver drifts off the road and the tires hit a soft shoulder or a pavement drop-off; the driver overcorrects a small drift and the sudden steering input trips the vehicle; or the driver swerves to avoid another vehicle or an obstacle and the sharp turn exceeds the vehicle’s stability margin.
Alcohol degrades every skill required to prevent these mechanisms from becoming fatal. Reaction time slows — a sober driver who drifts onto the shoulder corrects gently; an impaired driver jerks the wheel. Lane discipline degrades — the micro-corrections a sober driver makes unconsciously to stay centered are lost, and the vehicle wanders. Judgment is impaired — the speed that feels manageable to a drunk driver is actually far above what their degraded reflexes can handle. And vision is affected — at night on an unlit stretch of SH 158, an intoxicated driver’s peripheral awareness and depth perception are compromised.
The physics of a rollover are unforgiving. Kinetic energy scales with the square of speed — a vehicle at 75 mph carries more than twice the destructive energy of the same vehicle at 50 mph. When that vehicle trips — when the outside wheels dig into soft soil or the tire catches a drop-off — the energy that was carrying it forward converts into rotational force. The vehicle rolls. If the occupant is unbelted, they are ejected, and ejection from a rolling vehicle at highway speed is typically fatal. If the occupant is belted, the roof structure is what stands between their head and the ground — and roof crush in a multi-roll rollover at 70+ mph can exceed any vehicle’s structural capacity.
The vehicle’s event data recorder captures the last seconds before the rollover — the speed, the steering input, whether the brakes were applied. That data, read by a qualified reconstructionist, tells the story of exactly how intoxication translated into a loss of control and a fatal crash.
The Medicine of a Fatal Rollover: Understanding What Happened to Your Loved One
A family needs to understand what happened to the person they lost — not to relive the horror, but because the medical facts of the death are central to the damages case. The defense will minimize. The medicine does not.
In a fatal rollover, the mechanism of death is typically one of several patterns, each of which has implications for the survival claim:
Ejection and blunt force trauma. If the victim was not wearing a seatbelt — or if the forces exceeded what the belt could withstand — ejection from the vehicle is a common mechanism. An ejected occupant hits the ground at near-highway speed, and the injuries are catastrophic: severe traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, internal organ rupture, and massive skeletal fractures. Death may be rapid, but it is rarely instantaneous. The survival period between ejection and death is measurable in the EMS and autopsy records.
Roof crush and cervical spine injury. In a belted occupant, the roof of the vehicle descending onto the head and neck during a rollover can cause catastrophic cervical spine fractures — injuries to the upper spine that can sever the spinal cord and compromise breathing. A C1-C2 fracture can cause respiratory arrest. The victim may survive for minutes to hours, depending on the specific injury and the EMS response time.
Head and brain injury. Even without ejection or roof crush, the violent acceleration and deceleration of a rollover can cause diffuse axonal injury — the tearing of nerve fibers throughout the brain as it rotates inside the skull. A severe diffuse axonal injury can cause loss of consciousness and death, and the survival period may include a documented interval of agonal breathing or brainstem activity.
Internal bleeding. The blunt force of a rollover can rupture the liver, spleen, or other solid organs, causing internal hemorrhage that may not be immediately fatal but leads to hypovolemic shock and death over a period of minutes to hours.
A trauma surgeon, working from the autopsy report, the EMS run sheet, and any hospital records, can reconstruct the sequence of injuries and the survival period. This reconstruction is what establishes the survival damages — the conscious pain and suffering your loved one experienced between the crash and death. It is documented, it is medical, and it is not speculation.
What a DUI Wrongful Death Case Is Worth in Texas
Every case is different, and the value of any specific claim depends on facts we can only assess after a full investigation. But the framework for valuing a DUI wrongful death case in Texas has recognizable tiers, driven primarily by who is collectible and how much insurance or assets stand behind them.
The lower range — $250,000 to $500,000 — applies when the only collectible defendant is the driver, who carries minimum-limit auto insurance ($30,000 per person / $60,000 per accident in Texas) and has no meaningful personal assets, no dram shop defendant is identified, and no employer liability applies. In this scenario, the recovery is limited by what the insurance policy pays plus whatever the driver can contribute, which is often very little. The criminal conviction provides powerful liability proof but does not create money where none exists.
The higher range — $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 or more — applies when the investigation identifies a dram shop defendant (a bar or restaurant with substantial liability coverage), an employer who was on the hook because the driver was on duty, or the driver carried high-limit insurance and had meaningful personal assets. In these cases, the combination of wrongful death damages, survival damages, and exemplary damages within the statutory caps can produce a recovery that actually reflects the magnitude of the loss.
The primary value drivers are collectibility and the dram shop investigation. A criminal conviction creates near-conclusive liability — but it does not create recovery without a solvent defendant or an insurer. That is why the dram shop investigation is not an optional add-on; it is often the single most important work in the case.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. These ranges are illustrative frameworks, not predictions. The specific value of your case depends on the decedent’s age, earning capacity, family relationships, the survival period, the collectibility of the defendants, and the venue — Midland County juries, drawn from a community that lives with the reality of highway deaths, can be remarkably fair to families who have lost someone to a drunk driver.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Do and How We Stop It
The insurance industry has a playbook for drunk driving death cases. We know it because Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, spent years on the other side — inside a national insurance-defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. Now he sits on your side of the table and uses that knowledge for the families the insurance industry was built to pay as little as possible.
Here are the plays the adjuster will run, and here is how we counter each one:
Play 1: The fast settlement offer. Within days of the crash, the driver’s insurance company may contact your family with a check and a release. The amount will be the policy limit — $30,000, perhaps $50,000. The release will be printed on the back of the check or attached to it. If you sign it, you give up the right to pursue the dram shop claim, the employer claim, the survival claim, and any other theory of recovery. This is the single most common and most damaging play in the playbook. Counter: Never sign anything from an insurance company in the days after a death. Do not cash the check. Do not return the call. Call us first. The time pressure is manufactured; your rights are not.
Play 2: The recorded statement request. A friendly adjuster will call and ask you to “just tell us what happened” on a recording. Everything you say is being transcribed for use against you. If you describe the crash and get a detail wrong — the time, the road, what your loved one was doing — the discrepancy becomes a defense tool. Counter: We handle all communications with the insurance company. You do not give a recorded statement. Ever. If a statement is genuinely needed, it is taken on our terms, with us present, and with the transcript controlled.
Play 3: The “shared fault” argument. The adjuster will look for any factor that could shift a percentage of fault onto your loved one. An unbuckled seatbelt. A phone in the victim’s hand. A claim that the victim “appeared” to be doing something distracting. Every percentage point of fault they can manufacture reduces your recovery. Counter: We build the liability case from the physical evidence — the EDR data, the crash reconstruction, the toxicology — not from the adjuster’s speculation. In a drunk driving case, the intoxication is the cause, and we prove it with science.
Play 4: The lowball valuation of non-economic damages. The adjuster’s valuation software — programs like Colossus — are designed to minimize the “soft” damages: mental anguish, loss of companionship, the human cost of a death. The software does not know what it meant to sit across the dinner table from this person, to hear their voice, to share their life. It assigns a number based on a formula that serves the insurance company, not your family. Counter: We do not let a computer value your grief. We build the damages case with a forensic economist, a life-care planner, and the testimony of the people who knew what this person meant — and we put that case in front of a jury of your Midland County neighbors, not a software program.
Play 5: The delay. The adjuster may simply stop returning calls, request documentation repeatedly, or drag the evaluation past the statute of limitations. Time is the insurance company’s ally. Counter: We set deadlines. We file suit when the deadlines pass. The Stowers demand — a formal settlement offer within policy limits that triggers the insurer’s duty to evaluate — creates bad-faith exposure for the insurer if they refuse a reasonable demand and the verdict exceeds the policy. We use the Stowers doctrine to make delay expensive for the insurance company, not just for your family.
How We Build a DUI Wrongful Death Case From Day One
The first thing we do is freeze the evidence. A preservation letter goes out to the driver’s insurance company, the bar or restaurant we have identified (or are investigating), the salvage yard holding the vehicle, and any other entity that holds evidence. That letter puts them on formal notice that the evidence must be preserved and that destruction will have legal consequences.
Then we pull the criminal case file. Every document the prosecution has — the crash report, the toxicology results, the witness statements, the dashcam or bodycam footage, the reconstruction report — is discoverable in the civil case. We do not reinvent the wheel; we use the state’s own investigation as the foundation of our liability case. The intoxication is already proven, or will be, by the criminal process. Our focus shifts to damages and collectibility.
The dram shop investigation runs in parallel. We subpoena the driver’s credit card records, identify the establishment, and demand the POS data, the CCTV, the employee records, and the TABC compliance history. If the bar has prior over-service violations, we find them. If the bar served a visibly intoxicated patron, we prove it.
Expert witnesses are retained early. A crash reconstructionist to analyze the rollover mechanism from the EDR data and the physical evidence. A forensic toxicologist to correlate the blood alcohol level with the degree of driving impairment. A trauma surgeon to reconstruct the survival period from the autopsy and EMS records. A forensic economist to project the lost earning capacity and reduce it to present value. Each expert builds a piece of the case that the defense cannot dismantle with speculation.
The Stowers demand goes out when the case is ready — a formal offer to settle within the policy limits, with a deadline, supported by the evidence. If the insurer accepts, the case resolves. If the insurer refuses and the verdict exceeds the policy limits, the insurer faces bad-faith exposure for the excess. That leverage is what makes a drunk driving death case settle for what it is worth rather than what the adjuster’s software says it is worth.
The First 72 Hours After a Fatal Drunk Driving Crash
If the crash was recent, here is what the first 72 hours should look like. If the crash happened months or years ago, much of this is behind you — but the principles still apply to what we do from here.
Hour 1-24: Protect your family. Get medical attention for anyone who was injured. Do not sign anything from any insurance company. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not post about the crash on social media. Do not discuss the crash with the driver’s family, friends, or representatives. If the police ask for a statement about the victim, you may provide it — but anything you say about the crash itself can be used by the defense.
Hour 24-48: Call a lawyer. The preservation letters need to go out. The criminal case file needs to be monitored. The dram shop investigation needs to begin. The vehicle needs to be located and the EDR data protected. Every hour you wait is an hour the insurance company is building its defense and the evidence is decaying.
Hour 48-72: Begin the investigation. We identify the driver’s insurance, the vehicle’s location, the establishment where the driver was served, and the witnesses who were present. We send the preservation demands. We pull the crash report. We start building the damages case — the earning history, the family relationships, the medical records.
If you have already been contacted by the driver’s insurance company, do not panic — but do not respond. Call us. We take over every communication from that point forward. Anything you have already said can be managed. The critical thing is to stop saying more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a criminal conviction for intoxication manslaughter automatically mean we win the civil case?
A criminal conviction creates negligence per se — the violation of the DWI statute establishes civil negligence as a matter of law, and the burden shifts to the defendant to prove the intoxication did not cause the crash. That is a powerful advantage. But “winning” the civil case also means proving damages and finding a collectible defendant. The conviction gives us liability; our investigation gives us recovery. They are different battles, and we fight both.
What if the drunk driver only has minimum insurance?
Texas minimum auto insurance is $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident — and one night in a trauma center can exceed that. If the driver carries only the minimum and has no meaningful assets, we look elsewhere: the dram shop defendant, the employer, the vehicle owner, and any excess or umbrella coverage. This is why the dram shop investigation is the most important work in a minimum-policy case — it is often the only path to a recovery that reflects the actual loss.
Can we sue the bar that served the drunk driver?
Yes — if the bar served a person who was obviously intoxicated to the point of being a danger to themselves or others, and that person then drove and caused the crash. Texas Dram Shop law creates this civil cause of action. The key proof is showing the bar knew or should have known the patron was intoxicated — through server testimony, CCTV footage, credit card records, and the TABC compliance history. The bar’s liability insurance is typically far larger than the driver’s auto policy.
How long do we have to file a wrongful death claim in Texas?
Two years from the date of death. This is a hard deadline — the statute of limitations for wrongful death in Texas runs from the day your loved one died, not from the day the criminal case concludes or the day you discovered the identity of the bar. If the crash happened more than two years ago and no civil claim was filed, the deadline may have already passed, though certain tolling exceptions may apply in narrow circumstances. This is the first question we answer when a family calls.
What if the drunk driver was working for an employer when the crash happened?
If the driver was on duty, driving a company vehicle, or returning from a work-related function, the employer can be held liable under respondeat superior. In Midland and the Permian Basin, where oilfield companies operate fleets and send workers on long drives across the basin, employer liability is a frequent and powerful theory. Employers carry far more insurance than individual drivers, and they can be held responsible for negligent hiring, retention, and supervision if they knew or should have known the driver had a substance abuse problem.
Will the criminal case delay our civil case?
No — and you should not let it. The civil case runs on its own timeline, and the two-year statute of limitations does not pause while the criminal prosecution plays out. We can file the civil case and proceed with discovery while the criminal case is pending. In some cases, the criminal conviction is obtained before the civil case goes to trial, which makes the liability case much stronger. But we do not wait for the criminal case to finish before we start building yours.
What if the driver was not convicted — can we still file a civil claim?
Yes. A not-guilty verdict in the criminal case does not bar a civil claim. The civil standard of proof — preponderance of the evidence — is much lower than the criminal standard — beyond a reasonable doubt. O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in criminal court and found liable in civil court. The same principle applies here: even if the criminal case does not result in a conviction, we can still prove intoxication and causation by a preponderance of the evidence and recover for your family.
How much does it cost to hire Attorney911?
Nothing up front. We work on contingency — we do not get paid unless we win your case. Our fee is 33.33% of the recovery before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. The investigation is free. The preservation letters, the expert retention, the court filings — all of it is fronted by us and paid from the recovery, not from your pocket. If we do not recover for your family, you owe us nothing.
What if my loved one was not wearing a seatbelt?
The defense will try to use this to reduce your recovery, arguing that the failure to buckle contributed to the death. Texas comparative negligence applies — the defense must prove that the unbelted status was a proximate cause of the death, not merely a condition. And even if they succeed, the reduction only applies to the percentage of fault assigned. In a drunk driving case, the intoxication is the primary cause, and an unbuckled seatbelt does not absolve the drunk driver of responsibility for choosing to drive impaired. We fight every percentage point.
Do we have to go to trial?
Most cases settle. The combination of the criminal conviction, the dram shop investigation, and the Stowers demand creates settlement leverage that resolves most cases without a trial. But we prepare every case as if it will be tried — because the only way to get a fair settlement is to be ready to win in court. If the insurance company will not offer what the case is worth, we try the case. And we try it well.
Why Attorney911 — and What Your First Call Costs You
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court. He is a journalist before he was a lawyer — he learned to find the truth by digging for it, and he brought that instinct into the courtroom. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. He does not like losing, and he does not take cases he cannot win.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to devalue claims like yours. He knows Colossus. He knows the IME doctors the insurers hire. He knows the surveillance tactics. He knows the delay strategies. He now uses that knowledge for the families the insurance industry was designed to pay as little as possible. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
We are a Texas personal injury firm that handles car accident, wrongful death, and insurance claim cases across the state. The Permian Basin’s highways — the roads around Midland, Odessa, and the oilfield corridor — are roads we know. The bars and establishments along those corridors are places we investigate. The Midland County courthouse is a venue we understand.
Your first call is free. Your consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911 — 1-888-288-9911. We answer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not an answering service — live staff. Hablamos Español.
If you are reading this at 2 a.m. because someone you love was killed by a drunk driver on a highway around Midland, the grief is yours. The fight is ours. Call us. Let us start freezing the evidence, finding the bar, and building the case that holds every person who contributed to this death accountable — not with words, but with the full weight of Texas law.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.