Midland Intoxication Manslaughter: Your Family’s Civil Rights After a Fatal DUI Crash
You are reading this because someone you love was killed in a crash in Midland, and the person behind the wheel has been charged with intoxication manslaughter. The criminal case is in the news. A prosecutor is handling it. You may be sitting at a kitchen table in Midland or Odessa, looking at a phone that still has your loved one’s last text on it, and nobody from the system has explained to you what your family’s rights are in all of this. The district attorney does not represent you. The criminal case does not compensate you. And the evidence that could make or break a civil case — the bar’s surveillance video, the credit card receipts showing where she was served, the footage of how obviously intoxicated she was before she got behind the wheel — is disappearing on a clock that started the day of the crash, not the day you called a lawyer. Roughly two months have already passed. We need to talk about what that means.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle wrongful death claims and catastrophic car crash cases in Texas, including the Permian Basin. This page is not a sales pitch. It is the full, honest education we would give you if you were sitting across from us — the law that protects your family, the evidence that is dying right now, the insurance company’s playbook, and what a case like this is actually worth. Take what you need from it. If it helps you understand what you are in, it has done its job.
What the Intoxication Manslaughter Charge Actually Means
When the Midland County District Attorney’s Office files an intoxication manslaughter charge, it means law enforcement concluded that the driver was operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and, by reason of that intoxication, caused the death of another person. Under Texas law, intoxication manslaughter is a second-degree felony. The approximately two-month gap between the May crash and the July filing of charges is not unusual — it tells us that blood toxicology results and crash reconstruction findings were central to the charging decision, and that the investigation took time to build.
Here is what that criminal charge does for your family: it establishes, through the criminal justice system, that the driver broke the law. What it does not do is put a single dollar in your family’s hands. The criminal court can send the driver to prison. It can order restitution for certain out-of-pocket costs. It cannot compensate your family for the loss of the person — the income they would have earned, the companionship they would have provided, the life they would have lived. That is a separate fight, in a separate court, on a separate timeline, and it is entirely yours to bring.
The Criminal Case and the Civil Case Run on Parallel Tracks
This is the first thing every grieving family needs to understand, and it is the thing the system never explains. The criminal prosecution and the civil wrongful death case are two completely separate legal proceedings with different purposes, different standards of proof, and different outcomes.
The criminal case is the State of Texas versus the defendant. The prosecutor must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — the highest standard in the law. The result can be prison, probation, fines, and a permanent felony record. The prosecutor represents the State, not your family. You are a witness in their case, not a party.
The civil case is your family versus the defendant — and potentially against any business that contributed to the intoxication. The standard of proof is a preponderance of the evidence, meaning “more likely than not” — a far lower bar than beyond a reasonable doubt. The result is money: compensation for what was taken from you, and potentially punishment damages on top. Your lawyer represents you and you alone.
A criminal conviction or guilty plea for intoxication manslaughter is the single most powerful thing that can happen for your civil case. It conclusively establishes that the driver violated the law — which means a civil jury does not need to be convinced that the driver was at fault. The liability question is essentially locked in. What remains is the question of damages: how much the loss is worth, and who else shares responsibility. That is why we monitor the criminal prosecution closely and time our strategy to it — but we never wait for it to conclude before starting the civil investigation, because the evidence that makes the civil case valuable is disappearing while the criminal case proceeds.
Wrongful Death and Survival Claims Under Texas Law
Texas provides two separate remedies after a fatal injury, and they travel together but compensate different losses. Both are created by statute, and both are yours to pursue.
The wrongful death action belongs to the surviving family members — the spouse, children, and parents of the person who was killed. It compensates the family for what they lost: the decedent’s earning capacity, the care and maintenance and support they would have provided, the advice and counsel they would have given, the love and companionship and society that was taken, and the mental anguish the survivors endure. The wrongful death claim is the family’s claim, and it measures the family’s loss.
The survival action belongs to the decedent’s estate. It carries forward the claim the decedent would have had if they had survived — including conscious pain and suffering experienced between the crash and death, medical expenses incurred before death, and funeral and burial costs. The survival claim is the decedent’s claim, and it passes through the estate to the beneficiaries.
Under Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code Chapter 2, a licensed provider who sells or serves alcohol to an obviously intoxicated person who is a danger to self or others may be held liable for damages caused by that person’s intoxication.
Both claims are governed by Texas’s two-year statute of limitations for wrongful death and personal injury actions. The clock starts running from the date of death. Two years sounds like a long time when you are in the first weeks of grief. It is not. The investigation, the dram shop workup, the expert analysis, the preservation demands, and the case building all take months — and the deadline is absolute. Miss it, and the case is gone, no matter how strong it was.
Dram Shop Liability: When the Bar Shares the Blame
This is where a Midland intoxication manslaughter case can transform from a claim against a single driver with limited insurance into a case with real financial recovery — and it is the investigation that the criminal prosecution will not do for you.
Texas is one of the states that maintains a dram shop cause of action. Under the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code Chapter 2, a licensed alcohol provider — a bar, a restaurant, a liquor store, a nightclub — can be held civilly liable for serving alcohol to an obviously intoxicated person who presented a clear danger to themselves or others, if that intoxication caused the fatal crash.
The critical element is obvious intoxication at the time of service. The law does not punish a bar for serving a drink to someone who later becomes intoxicated. It punishes a bar for continuing to serve someone who was already visibly drunk — slurring speech, stumbling, inability to sit upright, aggressive behavior, or any combination of signs that a trained server should have recognized — and then letting that person walk out the door and get behind the wheel.
Proving obvious intoxication at the time of service requires evidence, and this is where the clock becomes your enemy. The battleground evidence includes:
Bar and restaurant surveillance footage — the single most powerful proof of obvious intoxication. Most surveillance systems overwrite on a rolling cycle of seven to thirty days. Approximately two months have already passed since the May crash. Unless law enforcement seized the footage during the criminal investigation, or a preservation letter was sent, the video that would show the defendant stumbling, slurring, or being cut off may already be gone — recorded over as if it never existed.
Credit card receipts and point-of-sale records — these establish where the defendant was drinking, when, and how much was served. Merchant retention policies vary widely, from ninety days to seven years. Some systems purge routinely. These records must be subpoenaed or preserved by formal demand before routine destruction erases them.
Witness testimony from patrons and employees — the bartender who served her, the server who carried the drinks, the other patrons who saw her leave. Memories fade rapidly. People move. Employees quit. The longer the investigation waits, the harder it becomes to find and lock in this testimony.
Blood alcohol concentration and retrograde extrapolation — the criminal investigation should have produced a BAC result from blood drawn at the scene or hospital. A forensic toxicologist can work backward from that BAC to estimate the level of intoxication at the time the defendant left the bar, which helps establish that she was obviously intoxicated when she was served.
The defendant’s social media posts — check-ins, photos, timestamps that may place her at a specific establishment and show her condition. These can be deleted at any time.
The dram shop investigation is the single most important value driver in a Midland intoxication manslaughter case. An individual driver may carry only minimum liability insurance — and one night in a hospital can exhaust it. But a bar or restaurant with a liquor license typically carries substantially higher liability coverage, sometimes in layers that reach seven figures. Finding the bar that over-served the driver can be the difference between a case that barely covers funeral costs and one that provides for a family’s future.
Who Can Be Held Responsible in a Fatal DUI Crash
The defendant map in a Midland intoxication manslaughter case extends beyond the driver. Each potential defendant represents a separate source of recovery, and each requires its own investigation.
The charged driver — directly liable for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and causing death. The criminal charge establishes negligence per se in the civil case, and the voluntary decision to drive drunk satisfies the gross-negligence standard for punitive damages. The driver’s auto liability insurance is the first layer of recovery, but it may be woefully inadequate — Texas’s minimum liability coverage is $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident, a figure that a single day in a trauma center can consume.
The alcohol provider — the bar, restaurant, or retailer that served the obviously intoxicated driver. Texas dram shop liability under TABC Chapter 2 is the most significant potential source of recovery, both because liquor-license holders carry higher coverage and because the over-service is an independent act of negligence that a jury can punish.
The vehicle owner — if the vehicle was owned by someone other than the driver, Texas common law recognizes negligent entrustment when the owner knew or should have known of the driver’s intoxication or history of impaired driving and still permitted them to operate the vehicle. A parent who hands keys to a child with a known drinking problem, or a friend who lends a car to someone who is already drunk, faces independent liability.
A potential employer — if the driver was acting within the scope and course of employment at the time of the crash, or if the vehicle was a company-owned fleet vehicle, the employer may face vicarious liability under respondeat superior, as well as direct negligence for negligent hiring, supervision, or retention. This theory requires discovery to develop, but in the Permian Basin — where the oilfield economy sends company vehicles onto the same corridors as everyone else — it is a question worth asking.
The Evidence Clock: Why Two Months Is Already Late
Every piece of evidence in a drunk-driving death case has a shelf life, and the shelf life started running the day of the crash — not the day you called a lawyer. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can legally disappear.
Bar and restaurant surveillance footage — held by the establishment. Most systems overwrite within seven to thirty days. Two months have passed. This evidence is likely already gone unless law enforcement preserved it or a preservation letter was sent. This is the fastest-dying and most valuable evidence in a dram shop case.
Credit card and point-of-sale records — held by the merchant and the payment processor. Retention policies range from ninety days to seven years. These records show where the defendant drank, what she paid for, and when — the documentary skeleton of the dram shop claim. They must be subpoenaed or formally preserved before routine destruction.
Vehicle event data recorder (EDR / black box) data — held in the vehicle itself, which is likely in the criminal evidence cache or a tow yard. The EDR captures pre-crash speed, braking, steering wheel angle, seatbelt status, and rollover dynamics — data essential to reconstruction and to the survival-damages analysis. The vehicle may be salvaged, auctioned, or destroyed if no one acts to preserve it. Access requires coordination with the criminal investigation.
Blood toxicology and BAC results — held in the criminal case file. These establish the driver’s level of intoxication and are central to negligence per se, gross negligence, and the dram shop obvious-intoxication element. They are generally preserved in the criminal record, but access requires a cooperative agreement with the prosecutor’s office or formal discovery.
Cell phone records and location data — held by the carrier. Location data retention varies from ninety days to one year. Cell records may reveal the driver’s movements, bar visits, communications, and potential distracted-driving overlays. A preservation letter to the carrier is needed immediately.
Witness statements — held in human memory, which degrades rapidly. Crash-scene witnesses, bar patrons, employees, and bystanders all hold pieces of the story. Memory fades, people relocate, and employees quit. Immediate canvassing is needed.
Defendant’s social media posts — held on platforms that allow deletion at any time. Posts from the day or night of the crash may show location check-ins, photos depicting intoxication, or admissions. A preservation letter and litigation hold must go out immediately.
The preservation letter is the single most important first step. It is a formal written demand that tells every person and entity in possession of evidence — the bar, the carrier, the vehicle owner, the social-media platforms — that litigation is anticipated and that they must preserve all relevant records. It converts routine, legal destruction into spoliation. If evidence is destroyed after a preservation letter is on file, the court can instruct the jury to assume the missing evidence would have been unfavorable to the party who lost it. That adverse-inference instruction can be the difference between a case that settles and a case that dies.
We send preservation letters the day a family calls us. Not the week. Not the month. The day.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Do Before You Call a Lawyer
Insurance adjusters who handle wrongful death claims involving intoxication are not your friends, and they are not waiting for you to hire a lawyer before they start working. The adjuster’s job is to pay as little as possible, as fast as possible, before the full scope of the loss becomes clear. Here are the plays you will see, and the counter to each one.
Play 1: The “just checking on you” recorded statement call. Within days of the crash, someone friendly will call to express sympathy and ask you to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording. That recording is built to be quoted against you later. If you say “I’m doing okay” or “she didn’t suffer,” those words will come back in a courtroom to minimize your mental anguish or your loved one’s pain. The counter: do not give a recorded statement to the at-fault driver’s insurance company. Not now, not ever. You have no obligation to do so, and nothing you say will help your case.
Play 2: The fast settlement check with a release buried in it. A check may arrive quickly — sometimes within weeks — accompanied by paperwork that, once signed, releases the driver and the insurance company from all further claims. The check may look substantial in isolation, but it is almost always a fraction of what the case is worth. Once you sign, the case is over. There is no undoing it. The counter: never accept a check or sign any document from an insurance company without having it reviewed by a lawyer who represents you. Not the other side’s lawyer. Yours.
Play 3: The broad medical-records authorization. The adjuster will ask you to sign a “standard” medical release that authorizes them to pull your loved one’s entire medical history — not just the records related to the crash. They are looking for pre-existing conditions, prior injuries, or anything they can use to argue the death was “not entirely caused by the crash.” The counter: sign nothing. Your lawyer will produce the specific, relevant records through formal discovery, not through a blanket authorization that hands the insurance company a fishing license.
Play 4: The “we need more time” delay. The adjuster may string you along for months, saying they are “still investigating” or “waiting for the police report.” The goal is to let the statute of limitations creep closer — and to let evidence disappear. The counter: the day you have a lawyer, the clock starts working for you instead of against you, because the preservation letters go out and the insurance company knows you are serious.
Play 5: The “your loved one was partly at fault” argument. If your loved one was not wearing a seatbelt, or if the defense can argue any share of fault, the adjuster will use it to reduce the value of the claim. Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule with a 51% bar — meaning your recovery is reduced by your loved one’s percentage of fault, and is barred entirely only if they were more than 50% at fault. Every percentage point they assign is money off their payout, which is exactly why they fight for every point. The counter: a thorough reconstruction that establishes the intoxication as the dominant cause, and a lawyer who knows how to keep fault allocation honest.
You can hear more about what not to say to an insurance adjuster in this video from our firm, where we break down the recorded-statement trap in plain language.
How a Wrongful Death Case Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of how a Midland intoxication manslaughter wrongful death case is constructed — not a summary, but the actual sequence of work, told by someone who has lived it.
Week one: the preservation letter goes out. The day you call, letters go to every bar and restaurant we can identify as a potential alcohol provider, to the driver’s insurance company, to the cell phone carrier, and to anyone holding the vehicle. Every letter demands that all evidence be frozen. This is the single most time-critical step in the entire case, because once evidence is gone, it is gone — and in a case that is already two months old, some of it may already be lost.
Weeks one through four: the dram shop investigation. We pull credit card records to identify every establishment where the defendant purchased alcohol. We canvass for witnesses — employees, patrons, bystanders. We request the criminal case file through cooperative agreements with the prosecutor’s office or through formal discovery. We locate and preserve any surviving surveillance footage. We hire a forensic toxicologist to perform retrograde extrapolation — working backward from the blood-alcohol concentration to estimate the level of intoxication at the time of service.
Weeks four through twelve: the crash reconstruction. We secure the vehicle’s EDR data — pre-crash speed, braking, steering inputs, seatbelt status, and rollover dynamics. We retain an accident reconstructionist who specializes in rollover crashes to determine the mechanism of the crash, the tripping point, the number of rolls, and whether the vehicle’s safety systems functioned as designed. This analysis drives the survival-damages question: did the decedent experience conscious pain and suffering between the crash and death?
Months two through six: the damages model. We retain a forensic economist to calculate lost earning capacity — the income the decedent would have earned over their working life, reduced to present value. We build the household-services valuation — the cost of replacing the unpaid work the decedent performed at home. We assemble the life-care plan if the survival period involved medical care. We quantify the funeral and burial costs. Every dollar figure is backed by a named expert and a defensible methodology.
Months six through twelve: the discovery phase. If the case is in litigation, we take depositions — the bartender who served the driver, the establishment’s owner or manager, the driver herself (if she is willing to talk, or through her criminal counsel), the investigating officers, the toxicologist, the reconstructionist. We serve document demands on every defendant. We build the gross-negligence narrative that supports punitive damages.
The Stowers demand. Once liability is locked in — ideally after a criminal conviction or guilty plea — we serve a Stowers demand on the at-fault driver’s insurance company. Under Texas’s Stowers doctrine, when a plaintiff offers to settle for the policy limits or less, and a reasonably prudent insurer would accept the offer given the liability and damages, the insurer must accept. If it refuses and the case goes to trial and the verdict exceeds the policy limits, the insurer is personally liable for the excess — not just up to the policy limits. This is the most powerful leverage tool in Texas wrongful death practice, and it is particularly devastating in a case where liability is established by a criminal conviction and the damages are the death of a human being.
The Money: Insurance Coverage and What a Case Like This Is Worth
Let us talk honestly about dollars, because that is what you need to know and nobody else will tell you straight.
The driver’s auto liability insurance. Texas requires every driver to carry at least $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident in bodily injury liability coverage, plus $25,000 in property damage. That is the floor. Many drivers carry more — $100,000, $300,000, or $500,000 in liability limits, sometimes with an umbrella or excess policy on top that adds another $1 million or more. But many drivers carry only the minimum, and some carry none at all. The driver’s coverage is the first layer, and it may be the only layer if no dram shop defendant is identified.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. If the at-fault driver was uninsured or underinsured, your loved one’s own auto policy — or the policy on the vehicle they were in — may carry UM/UIM coverage that steps into the shoes of the at-fault driver’s insurance. This is coverage you or your family already paid for, and it is separate from the at-fault driver’s limits.
The dram shop defendant’s coverage. A licensed alcohol provider typically carries liquor liability insurance that is substantially larger than a personal auto policy — often $500,000 to $1 million or more, sometimes layered in excess towers that reach several million dollars. This is why the dram shop investigation is the single most important value driver in the case. Finding the bar that over-served the driver can multiply the available recovery many times over.
The case value range. Based on the factors we can see — the criminal charge establishing liability, the potential for a dram shop defendant, the decedent’s earning capacity, the availability of punitive damages, and the insurance coverage — a case like this can range from approximately $100,000 on the low end (minimum individual auto coverage, no umbrella, no dram shop recovery, limited economic damages) to $5,000,000 or more on the high end (a viable dram shop defendant with substantial liquor liability coverage, the driver’s umbrella or excess policy, significant lost earning capacity for a young or high-earning decedent, and a punitive damages award). The honest reality is that collectibility is the primary deflator: an individual defendant with minimum coverage and no assets caps practical recovery unless a deep-pocket dram shop defendant is identified.
These are not promises. They are the arithmetic of what these cases can be worth, driven by the facts and the coverage. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can tell you is that the dram shop investigation — finding the bar, proving the over-service, reaching the liquor liability coverage — is the single most important step in moving a case from the low end of that range toward the high end.
Why Midland County Juries Matter to Your Case
Midland sits in Midland County, in the heart of the Permian Basin — an oil-and-gas economy that has shaped everything about how people live, drive, and drink in this region. The major traffic corridors — Interstate 20 running east-west, State Highway 191 connecting Midland to Odessa, Loop 250, US Highway 385, and State Highway 349 — carry a mix of commuter traffic, oilfield-service trucks, and commercial vehicles that contributes to elevated accident rates. The Permian Basin’s oilfield economy has historically correlated with increased alcohol consumption and DUI incidence in the Midland-Odessa area, a pattern well documented in regional public-safety reporting.
Felony cases like intoxication manslaughter are prosecuted by the Midland County District Attorney’s Office and venued in the 238th or 318th District Court. Civil wrongful death actions would be filed in Midland County district courts, where the jury that decides what your loved one’s life was worth will be twelve people from your own community.
Midland County juries tend to be conservative on damages in general — they are not a county that hands out runaway verdicts in ordinary negligence cases. But drunk-driving facts are different. When a jury hears that a defendant made a voluntary choice to drink and drive, and that choice killed someone, the same conservative jurors who might question a slip-and-fall verdict tend to respond strongly. The intoxication element amplifies both the compensatory-damages component and the punitive-damages narrative — particularly where the intoxication is corroborated by a criminal conviction. This is why the criminal case matters so much to the civil case: a Midland County jury that hears the defendant already pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter does not need to be convinced the driver was at fault. The only questions left are how much the loss is worth and who else shares the blame.
The Rollover Mechanism: What the Crash Reconstruction Shows
A rollover crash is not a single impact — it is a sequence of violent events, each of which produces its own injury pattern. Understanding the mechanism is essential to the survival-damages analysis and to the reconstruction that supports it.
A rollover typically begins with a tripping mechanism — the vehicle’s tires strike a curb, a soft shoulder, a guardrail, or another vehicle, and the lateral force causes the vehicle to rotate. Once the vehicle is on its side or roof, it may roll multiple times, with each rotation producing impacts between the occupants and the interior of the cabin. The forces involved are enormous: a vehicle rolling at highway speed generates centrifugal forces that can fling an unrestrained occupant against the roof, the door, the window, or out of the vehicle entirely.
The injuries that result depend on whether the occupants were belted, the number of rolls, the speed at the time of tripping, and whether the vehicle’s roof structure maintained its integrity. Roof crush — the roof deforming downward into the occupant compartment — can produce cervical spine fractures, traumatic brain injuries, and fatal head trauma. Ejection — being thrown from the vehicle — carries a dramatically higher fatality rate than remaining inside, and is almost always associated with failure to wear a seatbelt.
The vehicle’s EDR captures the pre-crash data that tells the reconstruction story: the speed at the moment of tripping, whether the driver braked, the steering inputs that preceded the rollover, and whether the seatbelts were engaged. This data, combined with the physical evidence at the scene — gouge marks, debris fields, the resting position of the vehicle, the distance of any ejected occupant from the vehicle — allows a reconstructionist to build a moment-by-moment account of the crash.
For the survival-damages question, the reconstruction matters because it helps establish whether the decedent was conscious after the crash and before death. If the EDR shows the seatbelt was engaged, if the roof did not crush, if the impact forces were survivable in the initial roll but fatal in a subsequent one, there may be evidence of conscious pain and suffering. That evidence supports the survival claim — a separate line of damages that can be substantial in a case where the decedent lived for minutes or hours after the crash.
What to Do in the First 72 Hours (and What Not to Do)
If you are reading this and the crash was recent — or even if it was two months ago and you are just now starting to think about your rights — here is the practical roadmap.
Do not talk to the at-fault driver’s insurance company. Not a recorded statement, not a casual call, not a “quick question.” Everything you say will be transcribed, taken out of context, and used to reduce what they pay you. If they call, take the adjuster’s name and number and say you will have your attorney call back. Then call us.
Do not sign anything. Not a release, not a medical authorization, not a settlement offer, not a “proof of loss” form. Do not accept a check. Do not cash a check. Anything you sign can extinguish your rights permanently.
Do not post about the case on social media. Not about the crash, not about your grief, not about the driver, not about the criminal case. Insurance companies and defense lawyers monitor social media, and a post that seems innocent — “feeling a little better today” or “she went quickly, thank God” — can be used to minimize your mental anguish or your loved one’s pain. Tell your family to do the same.
Do not discuss the case with anyone except your lawyer. Friends, extended family, coworkers, and the defendant’s friends are not privileged. Anything you say to them can be discovered and used.
Do preserve everything you have. Your loved one’s phone, their medical records, their employment records, their pay stubs, their tax returns, their benefit statements, photos of them with the family, videos of them living their life — all of this is evidence of who they were and what the loss means. Put it in a safe place and do not delete anything.
Do call a lawyer. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. The dram shop investigation starts. The criminal case is monitored. The evidence that is still alive gets frozen before it can die. Contact us — the call is free, the consultation is free, and you pay nothing unless we win your case.
Gross Negligence and Punitive Damages in Intoxication Manslaughter Cases
Texas law treats the voluntary decision to drink and drive as more than ordinary negligence — it treats it as gross negligence, which unlocks punitive (exemplary) damages under Chapter 41 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code.
Gross negligence in Texas means an act or omission involving “an extreme degree of risk, considering the probability and magnitude of the potential harm to others,” of which the defendant had “actual, subjective awareness” but proceeded with conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others. Getting behind the wheel while intoxicated — choosing to drink, choosing to drive, choosing to put every other person on the road at risk — satisfies this standard. It is not a close question. The defendant did not accidentally become intoxicated and accidentally drive. She made a series of voluntary choices, each of which increased the danger, and the law permits a jury to punish those choices with money.
Punitive damages in Texas are governed by a ratio limitation relative to compensatory damages, and the standard of proof is clear and convincing evidence — higher than the preponderance standard for compensatory damages, but far lower than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard in the criminal case. A criminal conviction or guilty plea for intoxication manslaughter satisfies the clear-and-convincing standard conclusively. This is why the criminal case is so valuable to the civil case: it locks in both the liability and the punitive-damages predicate in one proceeding.
Punitive damages matter not just because they increase the recovery but because they change the insurance dynamics. A Stowers demand that includes punitive exposure forces the insurer to evaluate the full range of risk — not just the compensatory value of the death, but the punishment a jury may impose on top. That pressure is what moves settlements from the low end of the range toward the high end.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I file a wrongful death lawsuit if the drunk driver is also facing criminal charges?
Yes — and the two cases are completely separate. The criminal case is the State of Texas prosecuting the driver for intoxication manslaughter. Your wrongful death case is your family suing the driver (and potentially the bar that served her) for money damages. They run on parallel tracks. The criminal case does not block the civil case, and the civil case does not interfere with the criminal case. In fact, a criminal conviction or guilty plea is the strongest possible evidence for your civil case — it conclusively establishes that the driver broke the law.
How long do I have to file a wrongful death claim in Texas?
Texas’s wrongful-death statute of limitations gives you two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death action. The same two-year deadline applies to the survival action. Two years can pass quickly when you are grieving and the investigation takes months to build. The dram shop investigation, the preservation letters, the expert work, and the case preparation all take time — which is why the single most important thing you can do is talk to a lawyer early, not late.
What is a dram shop claim and how does it work?
A dram shop claim under the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code Chapter 2 holds a licensed alcohol provider — a bar, restaurant, or retailer — civilly liable if it served alcohol to an obviously intoxicated person who was a danger to self or others, and that intoxication caused the fatal crash. The key is proving the person was obviously intoxicated at the time of service — visibly drunk, slurring, stumbling, or showing other signs a trained server should have recognized. This is proven through surveillance footage, credit card receipts, witness testimony, and retrograde BAC extrapolation. The dram shop claim is often the most valuable part of a DUI wrongful death case because liquor-license holders carry substantially higher insurance coverage than individual drivers.
How much is a wrongful death case worth?
The value depends on the decedent’s age, occupation, earning capacity, health, and family relationships (which drive the economic damages), the availability of punitive damages (which the intoxication element supports), and the insurance coverage available from all defendants. A case with only a minimum-coverage driver and no dram shop defendant may be worth $100,000 or less. A case with a viable dram shop defendant, an umbrella policy, significant lost earning capacity, and punitive damages can reach several million dollars. The dram shop investigation is the single most important factor in moving a case from the low end to the high end.
What if the drunk driver only has minimum insurance?
Texas requires drivers to carry at least $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident in bodily injury liability. If the driver carries only the minimum, that may be all that is available from her policy — unless she has an umbrella or excess policy, or unless a dram shop defendant is identified with deeper coverage. You should also check whether your loved one’s own auto policy carried uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, which can step in when the at-fault driver’s coverage is inadequate.
Can I still recover if my loved one wasn’t wearing a seatbelt?
Possibly. Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule with a 51% bar. Your recovery is reduced by your loved one’s percentage of fault — so if the jury finds the decedent 20% at fault for not wearing a seatbelt, the recovery is reduced by 20%. But the claim is barred only if the decedent was more than 50% at fault. In an intoxication manslaughter case, the driver’s voluntary decision to drive drunk is almost always the dominant cause, and the intoxication makes it extremely difficult for the defense to pin the majority of fault on the victim. A seatbelt issue may reduce the recovery somewhat, but it rarely eliminates the claim.
What happens to the civil case if the criminal case ends in a plea deal?
A guilty plea is arguably the best thing that can happen for your civil case. It conclusively establishes that the driver committed the offense — which means the civil jury does not need to be convinced the driver was intoxicated or at fault. The only questions left are damages (how much the loss is worth) and any additional defendants (the bar, the vehicle owner). We time our Stowers demand — the formal offer to settle for the policy limits — to follow a guilty plea or conviction, because that is when the insurance company’s exposure is clearest and its incentive to settle is strongest.
Should I talk to the drunk driver’s insurance company?
No. The at-fault driver’s insurance company is not on your side. Every conversation is recorded, every statement is transcribed, and everything you say will be used to minimize your claim. If they call, take the adjuster’s name and number and say your attorney will call back. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not sign a medical authorization. Do not accept a quick settlement check. The adjuster’s job is to close your claim for as little money as possible, as fast as possible — before you understand what it is actually worth.
What evidence disappears fastest in a drunk driving death case?
Bar and restaurant surveillance footage is the fastest-dying evidence — most systems overwrite within seven to thirty days, and two months have already passed since the May crash. Cell phone location data can be purged within ninety days to a year. Social media posts can be deleted instantly. Witness memories fade within weeks. Credit card and point-of-sale records may be destroyed under routine merchant retention policies. The preservation letter — a formal demand to freeze all evidence — is the only thing that stops the clock, and it must go out the day you call a lawyer.
Does pursuing a civil case interfere with the criminal prosecution?
No. The civil and criminal cases are entirely separate proceedings. The civil case does not interfere with the prosecution, and the prosecution does not prevent the civil case from going forward. In fact, the two can complement each other: the criminal investigation produces evidence (BAC results, crash reconstruction, witness statements) that the civil case can use, and a criminal conviction or plea locks in liability for the civil case. We coordinate with the prosecutor’s office to access the criminal file without disrupting their case.
Our Firm: Who Fights for You
Ralph Manginello is the managing partner of Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. He has been licensed to practice law in Texas for 27+ years, since November 1998, and is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Ralph was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he writes and argues with a reporter’s instinct for the fact that changes the story. He built this firm on the principle that a person in crisis deserves a lawyer who picks up the phone at 2 a.m. and means it. His full background is here.
Lupe Peña is an associate attorney who spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He sat in those rooms. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the valuation software discounts pain it cannot see, and how the quick check arrives with a release printed on the back before the medical results do. Now he uses that knowledge for injured people and grieving families. Lupe is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. His background is here.
We work on contingency. That means you pay nothing up front, and we are paid only if we win your case — a third before trial, forty percent if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. The preservation letters go out the day you call. The investigation starts immediately. And if we are not the right fit for your case, we will tell you — because the only thing worse than not having a lawyer is having the wrong one.
We serve families across Texas, including Midland, Odessa, and the entire Permian Basin. Hablamos Español. If your family prays in Spanish, we will sit with you in the language you think in.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. But if you are reading it at 2 a.m. because someone you love was killed by a drunk driver in Midland County, the next step is simple: call us.
1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.