Odessa Hit-and-Run Wrongful Death: What Happens When a Drunk Driver Kills a Father of Three and Runs
You are reading this because someone you love was taken from you by a person who chose to drive drunk, chose to strike them, and then chose to run. The criminal case is over — the driver pleaded guilty, the jury sentenced him, the courtroom emptied. And now you are sitting at a kitchen table in Odessa, looking at three children who do not understand why their father is not coming home, and you are realizing that the criminal sentencing did not pay the rent, did not replace the paycheck that stopped, did not answer the question that keeps you awake at 3 a.m.: What happens to us now?
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle wrongful-death cases in Texas, and we are writing this for you: the spouse, the parent, the adult child, the family member who just learned that the criminal system punished the driver but did not make your family whole. That is a separate fight. It is a fight that has its own rules, its own deadlines, its own evidence, and its own money — and the clock on some of it is already running.
Here is the first thing you need to hear: the guilty plea is the most powerful thing your family inherited from the criminal case. It means the question of whether the driver was at fault is settled. The civil case — your case — is not about proving guilt. It is about finding every person and every company whose choices led to that moment, measuring the full cost of what was taken, and securing the financial future of the three children who lost their sole provider. That is a different case from the one that just ended in the Ector County courthouse. And it is the one that matters for the years ahead.
We are going to walk you through every piece of it — what the law allows, what the evidence shows, what the insurance company is already doing, what the bar that served the driver may owe, what your husband’s life was worth in dollars, and what happens in the first 72 hours after a death like this. Nothing here is a promise about your case. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But everything here is true, it is the law of Texas, and it is written so you can use it.
Negligence Per Se: How a Guilty Plea to Intoxication Manslaughter Eliminates the Liability Fight
In a typical wrongful-death case, the first battle is over fault. The defense argues the defendant was not negligent, or that the victim was partly at fault, or that the injury was an unavoidable accident. That battle consumes months of litigation, hundreds of thousands of dollars in expert fees, and endless deposition hours.
Your case is different. The driver pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle — a felony under Texas law. That guilty plea is not just a criminal matter. In the civil case, it operates as negligence per se — a legal doctrine that says when a person violates a statute designed to protect the public, and that violation causes the kind of harm the statute was meant to prevent, the violation itself establishes negligence. The plaintiff does not have to prove the defendant was careless. The criminal conviction does that work.
The Texas Wrongful Death Act permits recovery by the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the decedent — and a survival claim under the Texas Estates Code preserves the decedent’s own causes of action for pain, suffering, and medical expenses incurred between injury and death.
What this means practically: in your civil case, the defendant cannot contest whether he was at fault. He admitted it, under oath, in a courtroom, to a judge. The civil case starts with liability already established. Every dollar the defense would have spent fighting fault — every expert, every deposition, every motion — is redirected to fighting how much your family is owed, and whether anyone else shares responsibility (the bar that over-served him, the insurance company that is trying to cap the payout, the household policies that might stack coverage).
Texas also applies a modified comparative-fault rule with a 51% bar — meaning a plaintiff’s recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault, and barred entirely if they are 51% or more at fault. In your case, the driver’s guilty plea effectively forecloses any comparative-fault defense. He cannot argue the pedestrian was partly responsible when he has already admitted, under oath, that he was intoxicated and struck a person with his vehicle. That door is closed.
This is the single biggest advantage your civil case inherits from the criminal case, and it changes everything about how the case is built. Instead of spending the first year proving fault, we spend it finding every source of recovery — every insurance policy, every dram-shop defendant, every dollar of lost earning capacity — and building the evidence that proves the full measure of what your family lost.
Who Can Be Held Responsible in a Texas DUI Wrongful Death
When most people think about a drunk-driving death, they think about one person: the driver. The civil case is broader than that. Here is every potential defendant in a case like this:
The driver. Jose Contreras pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter. His guilty plea establishes negligence per se. He is the primary defendant. But his personal assets are almost certainly limited, which means his insurance policy — not his bank account — is the real target.
The driver’s auto liability insurer. The driver’s auto insurance policy provides coverage for damages he caused, up to the policy limits. Texas requires minimum liability coverage, but many drivers carry only the minimum — and a single night in an ICU can exceed it. The insurer’s duty is to pay up to the policy limits for covered losses. But the insurer also has a duty to its own insured: under Texas’s Stowers doctrine, if the plaintiff makes a reasonable settlement demand within the policy limits, and the insurer refuses and an excess verdict results, the insurer may be liable for the full excess — even beyond the policy limits. That is a powerful leverage point, and we will come back to it.
The dram-shop defendant. Any licensed establishment — a bar, restaurant, club, or liquor-licensed venue — that served the driver to the point of obvious intoxication before the crash. The dram-shop defendant carries liquor-liability insurance, which is typically separate from and sometimes larger than a standard auto policy.
The social host. If the driver became intoxicated at a private gathering rather than a licensed establishment, Texas social-host liability may apply. This is narrower than dram-shop liability and depends on the specific facts, but it is a theory we investigate.
The household UM/UIM carrier. Your family’s own auto insurance policy — or any policy covering a vehicle in the household — may carry uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. If the at-fault driver was uninsured or underinsured (which is common in DUI cases), UM/UIM benefits can provide additional recovery. UM/UIM claims are first-party claims, meaning you are making a claim against your own insurance company for benefits you paid for. Many families do not realize they have this coverage, and many insurers do not volunteer it. We demand the policy declarations page immediately and identify every resident-relative policy that might stack.
Finding every defendant is not a fishing expedition. It is the difference between a case that recovers the policy limits of one thin policy and a case that recovers from multiple sources — the driver’s auto policy, the bar’s liquor-liability policy, and stacked UM/UIM from household coverage. The guilty plea tells us the driver is liable. The investigation tells us who else is liable, and where the money actually is.
What a 25-Year-Old Sole Provider’s Life Is Worth in Lost Earning Capacity
This is the section where the case becomes arithmetic. Your husband was 25 years old. He was the sole financial provider for a family of five — himself, his spouse, and three young children. He worked, and his family depended on his income for everything: housing, food, clothing, medical care, childcare, transportation, and the future costs of raising three children to adulthood.
Lost earning capacity is not a guess. It is a calculation built by a forensic economist — a professional who projects what a person would have earned over their remaining work life, adjusted for inflation, wage growth, fringe benefits, personal consumption, and the probability of workforce participation. Here is how the number is built:
Worklife expectancy. A 25-year-old male in Texas had a statistical worklife of approximately 35 to 40 additional years — the number of years he was expected to actually be in the labor force, not just alive. This figure comes from Bureau of Labor Statistics increment-decrement models that account for unemployment spells, labor-force exits, and mortality. It is not a guess; it is actuarial math grounded in federal labor data.
Base earnings. Even at modest Permian Basin wages — and the Midland-Odessa region’s oil-industry wage base is actually above the national average for blue-collar trades — a 25-year-old’s projected lifetime earnings, with modest annual growth, easily reach into the seven figures. If the decedent worked in the oilfield, in construction, in trucking, or in any of the trades that dominate this region’s economy, the base earnings figure is likely higher than a national average would suggest.
Fringe benefits. A job is worth more than the paycheck. Federal data shows that for a typical private-sector worker, benefits — health insurance, retirement contributions, paid leave, employer-side payroll taxes — run close to 30% of total compensation on top of the wage. A complete earning-capacity calculation counts the benefits the family lost along with the wages, because the family lost the health insurance and the retirement match too.
Personal consumption deduction. In a wrongful-death calculation, the economist subtracts the share of income the decedent would have spent on himself — because the family’s claim is for the support they would have received, not the gross paycheck. This deduction is drawn from federal Consumer Expenditure Survey data, broken out by household size and income. It is a standard, defensible adjustment that makes the final number bulletproof.
Household services. The cooking, the childcare, the repairs, the driving, the household management a parent does for free has real economic value. The law measures it by the replacement-cost method — what it would cost to hire someone to do those tasks — using federal time-use data and local wage rates. For a parent of three young children, the household-services loss alone can be substantial.
Present value. Future losses must be reduced to a lump-sum present value, because money paid today earns interest. The discount rate is a contested number — the defense wants a high rate to shrink the present value, the plaintiff wants a low rate — and the Supreme Court has held that the rate is a deliberate choice, not a fixed presumption.
When you stack all of this — 35 to 40 years of projected earnings, plus benefits, minus personal consumption, plus household services, reduced to present value — the lost-earning-capacity figure for a 25-year-old sole provider is a seven-figure number. That is before you add the non-economic damages: the mental anguish, the loss of companionship, the loss of parental consortium for three children who will grow up without their father.
The insurance adjuster’s first offer will be a fraction of this number. That is by design. The adjuster knows the real math, and the adjuster’s job is to settle the case for less than the real math produces. The way you fight that is with a forensic economist’s report that shows the full calculation — every input sourced, every assumption defended — so the adjuster, the defense attorney, and the jury can see exactly how the number was built and why it is honest.
The Evidence Clock: What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Legally Dies
Every piece of evidence in your case is on a clock. Some of it is already gone. Some of it is still alive but will not stay that way. The single most important thing a lawyer does in the first days after a wrongful death is send preservation letters — formal demands that evidence be frozen before it can be legally destroyed. Here is every category of evidence, who holds it, and how fast it can die.
The Ector County District Attorney criminal case file. This includes the guilty plea, sentencing records, the crash report, and the driver’s admission of intoxication. These records are already preserved in court records. We obtain certified copies immediately. The guilty plea is permanent — it does not expire, it cannot be undone, and it establishes negligence per se in the civil case for as long as the case exists. This is the one piece of evidence that is safe.
Toxicology and blood-alcohol testing results. The driver’s blood-alcohol concentration at the time of arrest is preserved in the criminal file and in the lab records of the agency that performed the testing. This is the anchor for the dram-shop investigation — the number the forensic toxicologist uses to extrapolate backward to the intoxication level at the time of service. These records are stable. Request them through discovery and through Texas Department of Public Safety records.
Contreras’s credit-card and bank records for the night of October 26–27, 2024. These records show every establishment where the driver purchased alcohol before the crash. They are the foundation of the dram-shop claim. Transaction records can be subpoenaed, but point-of-sale data from bars and restaurants may have limited retention cycles — some systems purge detailed transaction logs within months. Act within the first months of the case, not after a year of delay.
Bar and restaurant surveillance footage. This is the most perishable evidence in the entire case. Most establishments overwrite their CCTV on a rolling cycle of 7 to 30 days. For an October 2024 incident, this footage is almost certainly already gone. This is the hardest truth in a dram-shop case — the cleanest evidence of obvious intoxication at the bar is the first thing to disappear. But its absence does not kill the claim. Witness statements from servers and patrons, the transaction records, and the toxicologist’s backward extrapolation from the blood-alcohol sample are the alternative proof path.
Bingham’s medical and hospital records. These document the mechanism of injury, the ICU course, the intubation, the documented prognosis, and the causation between the crash and death. They are the spine of the survival claim — proof of conscious pain and suffering between the crash and death. Hospital records are preserved under medical-records retention rules. We obtain them through HIPAA-compliant authorization from the estate representative.
Contreras’s auto insurance policy declarations. This document tells us the available liability coverage and whether UM/UIM benefits apply. Insurers preserve policy documents. We demand policy information immediately — not just the liability limits, but the declarations page, any endorsements, and the UM/UIM status.
Bingham’s employment and wage records, tax returns. These anchor the lost-earning-capacity calculation. They are preserved through the employer and the IRS. We obtain them promptly to engage the forensic economist — the economist cannot build the lifetime-earnings model without the baseline wage data.
The pattern is this: the criminal case preserved the crash report, the guilty plea, and the toxicology. The civil case needs everything else — the dram-shop evidence, the insurance information, the medical records, the employment records — and every category is on a different clock. The preservation letter that goes out the day you call is the single most important step in the case. Not next month. Not after the sentencing. The day you call.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Will Try and How to Counter It
The insurance adjuster assigned to your claim is not your friend. The adjuster is a professional whose job is to close your file for the lowest possible dollar amount. The adjuster has done this hundreds of times. You are doing this for the first time. Here are the plays the adjuster will run, and the counter to each one.
Play 1: The fast, friendly check with a release attached. Within days or weeks of the crash, a check may arrive from the at-fault driver’s insurance company. It will look like help. It will come with a release — a document that, once signed, extinguishes your right to pursue any further recovery from that insurer, no matter how much more the case is worth. The check will be for a fraction of the policy limits, and it will be offered before you have had time to understand the full scope of your loss — before the medical records are complete, before the earning-capacity calculation is done, before the dram-shop investigation has started.
Counter: Do not sign anything from any insurance company without a lawyer reviewing it first. A release signed in grief is a release enforced in court. The adjuster is counting on the fact that you are overwhelmed, grieving, and desperate for cash. The check is designed to close the file cheaply. The full value of your case cannot be known in the first weeks — it takes months to build the earning-capacity model, identify every insurance policy, and complete the dram-shop investigation. Signing a release before that work is done is the single most common way families lose money they are entitled to.
Play 2: The recorded statement. The adjuster will call and ask you to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording. The statement is engineered to get you to say things that can be used against you later: that your husband “might have been outside for a reason,” that he “sometimes went out at night,” that you “are not sure exactly what happened.” Every word is transcribed and can be quoted in a motion, a deposition, or at trial.
Counter: Do not give a recorded statement to the at-fault driver’s insurance company. You have no obligation to do so. The adjuster is not investigating on your behalf — the adjuster is building a defense file. The police report, the crash report, and the criminal conviction are the evidence of what happened. Your statement to the adjuster adds nothing to the investigation and everything to the defense.
Play 3: The “pre-existing condition” or “comparative fault” argument. Even with a guilty plea, the defense may try to argue that the victim was partly at fault — that he was outside his home at 1:30 a.m. for some reason that contributed to the crash, or that he had a pre-existing condition that made the outcome worse than it would otherwise have been.
Counter: The driver’s guilty plea to intoxication manslaughter forecloses the comparative-fault defense. He admitted he was intoxicated and struck a pedestrian. The victim’s location outside his own home at any hour is not contributory negligence when the driver was drunk and fled the scene. As for pre-existing conditions: Texas follows the eggshell-plaintiff doctrine — the defendant takes the victim as found. A pre-existing vulnerability that made the outcome worse does not reduce the defendant’s liability; it can enlarge the damages.
Play 4: The delay. The adjuster may simply go quiet. Months pass. Calls are not returned. The file sits. The goal is to let the statute of limitations run — to wait you out until the deadline to file has passed, at which point the case is dead and the insurer pays nothing.
Counter: The statute of limitations does not pause for the insurance company’s delay. The two-year clock runs from the date of death, regardless of what the adjuster is doing. The counter to the delay play is simple: file the lawsuit before the deadline. The adjuster’s silence is not your friend. It is a strategy, and the strategy is to let the clock kill your case.
How a Wrongful-Death Case Is Actually Built: The Proof Story
Here is the chronological walk of how a case like this is built, from the day you call to the day it resolves. This is not a summary — it is the actual sequence, the way it happens.
Week one. The preservation letters go out — to the at-fault driver’s insurance company, to every bar and restaurant identified in the dram-shop investigation, to the hospital, to the employer. Each letter demands that evidence be frozen: the driver’s policy declarations, the bar’s surveillance footage and point-of-sale records, the medical records, the employment file. The letters are the shield against evidence destruction. They go out before the funeral, not after the insurance company calls.
Weeks two through four. We obtain the certified criminal case file from the Ector County District Clerk — the guilty plea, the sentencing order, the crash report, the toxicology results. We demand the at-fault driver’s auto insurance declarations page and every UM/UIM policy in the household. We obtain the medical records through HIPAA-compliant authorization. We subpoena the driver’s credit-card and bank records for the night of October 26–27, 2024.
Months one through three. The dram-shop investigation accelerates. Every establishment identified in the transaction records is canvassed for surveillance footage, server schedules, and point-of-sale data. A forensic toxicologist is retained to extrapolate the driver’s blood-alcohol concentration backward from the arrest sample to estimate his intoxication level at the time of service. If the math shows obvious intoxication at the time of service, the bar is named as a defendant. A forensic economist is retained to build the lost-earning-capacity model using Bingham’s wage records, Permian Basin wage data adjusted for his occupation and age, and the dependency obligations to three minor children.
Months three through six. The lawsuit is filed in the Ector County District Court — or, depending on residence and forum considerations, potentially in a neighboring Midland County venue. The complaint pleads wrongful death, survival, negligence per se (based on the guilty plea), gross negligence (based on intoxication and flight), and dram-shop liability (if the investigation supports it). Discovery begins: interrogatories, requests for production, depositions of the driver, the bar’s servers and managers, the investigating officers, and the treating physicians.
Months six through twelve. The depositions happen. The bar’s manager explains, under oath, the establishment’s serving practices and what the staff observed that night. The driver is deposed about his drinking history, where he was served, and how much he consumed. The treating physicians testify about the mechanism of injury, the ICU course, and the conscious pain and suffering. The forensic economist presents the lost-earning-capacity model. The forensic toxicologist presents the backward-extrapolation analysis.
Months twelve through resolution. The Stowers demand is served on the at-fault driver’s insurer — a formal settlement offer within the policy limits, framed around the gross-negligence evidence and the risk of an excess verdict in an Ector County courtroom. The dram-shop defendant’s insurer is engaged separately. Mediation may be ordered or scheduled. If the case does not settle, it proceeds to trial — where a jury of Ector County residents, people who understand what it means to lose a working father in a community where families depend on each other, decides what the loss is worth.
The number at the end is built from all of this. Every deposition, every record, every expert report is a brick in the wall. The adjuster’s first offer is a fraction of the number because the adjuster knows most families will take it. The family that does not take it — the family that builds the full case — is the family that recovers the full value.
The Statute of Limitations: How Long You Have to File
Texas law sets a two-year statute of limitations for wrongful-death actions. The clock starts running from the date of death — not the date of the crash, not the date of the sentencing, not the date you learned the driver was intoxicated. The date of death.
If the crash occurred on October 27, 2024, and Bingham died sometime after that — whether days or weeks later — the two-year clock runs from the date he died. That means the deadline to file your wrongful-death lawsuit is approximately two years from that date, likely in late 2026.
This deadline is not a suggestion. It is a hard bar. If the lawsuit is not filed before the statute of limitations expires, the case is dead — no matter how strong the evidence, no matter how clear the liability, no matter how devastating the loss. The court will not hear it. The insurance company knows this. The adjuster’s delay strategy — the silence, the unreturned calls, the slow rolling of the file — is designed to let this clock run.
There are narrow exceptions and tolling doctrines in Texas law, but they are limited and case-specific. The safe approach is to assume the two-year deadline is absolute and to file well before it arrives. The preservation letters, the dram-shop investigation, the earning-capacity model, the insurance discovery — all of it takes time, and none of it can be done in the final weeks before the deadline.
The survival claim runs on its own limitations period, also generally two years, measured from the date of injury or death. Both claims should be filed together, well before the deadline.
If you are reading this and the sentencing has just concluded, you may have less time than you think. The months between the crash and the sentencing were months when the statute of limitations was running. The time to call is now — not because we want to pressure you, but because the law does not wait, and the evidence does not wait, and the insurance company is not waiting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we sue if the driver already went to prison?
Yes. The criminal case and the civil case are completely separate. The criminal case punished the driver. The civil case compensates the family. The driver’s guilty plea to intoxication manslaughter actually strengthens the civil case because it establishes negligence per se — meaning the question of fault is already settled. Your civil case is about measuring the full cost of what was taken and finding every source of recovery, not about proving the driver was at fault.
How long do we have to file a wrongful-death lawsuit in Texas?
Texas sets a two-year statute of limitations for wrongful-death actions, running from the date of death. If the death occurred in late October 2024, the deadline is approximately late October 2026. This is a hard deadline — if the lawsuit is not filed before it expires, the case is barred forever, no matter how strong the evidence. Do not wait until the final months. The investigation, the expert retention, and the insurance discovery all take time.
What if the driver did not have enough insurance?
This is common in DUI cases. The at-fault driver’s auto policy may be minimal — and a single fatality can exceed it many times over. But the driver’s policy is not the only source of recovery. We investigate three additional sources: (1) UM/UIM coverage from the household’s own auto policies, which can stack across multiple vehicles; (2) dram-shop liability insurance from any bar that over-served the driver; and (3) the Stowers doctrine, which can make the driver’s insurer pay beyond the policy limits if it unreasonably refuses a settlement demand within those limits. Finding every source of recovery is the most important work in the case.
What is a dram-shop claim and does it apply to our case?
A dram-shop claim holds a licensed alcohol provider — a bar, restaurant, or club — civilly liable for over-serving a patron to the point of obvious intoxication when that patron then causes a motor-vehicle accident. The crash at 1:30 a.m. falls in the bar-closing window, which makes dram-shop investigation a priority. We trace the driver’s credit-card and bank records to identify every establishment that served him, retain a forensic toxicologist to extrapolate his blood-alcohol level backward to the time of service, and canvas each establishment for surveillance footage and server testimony. If a bar over-served him, the bar is a defendant with its own insurance.
How much is our case worth?
The value depends on the facts, and no honest lawyer can give you a specific number without a full investigation. What we can tell you is the framework: economic damages include lost earning capacity (a 25-year-old sole provider with a 35-to-40-year worklife expectancy produces a seven-figure loss even at modest wages), medical expenses, and funeral costs. Non-economic damages include mental anguish, loss of companionship, and loss of parental consortium for three children. Punitive damages are supportable given the intoxication and flight. The case-value range runs from approximately $250,000 to $750,000 if only the driver’s minimal auto policy is available, to $3,000,000 to $8,000,000 if a viable dram-shop claim, stacked UM/UIM, and punitive damages are recovered. The difference is investigation.
Will we have to go to trial?
Most civil cases settle before trial. But the settlement value of a case is directly proportional to how prepared it is for trial. The insurer will not offer fair value unless it believes the family is ready and able to take the case to a jury. We build every case as if it will be tried — the experts, the evidence, the deposition record — because that is what produces fair settlements. If the insurer will not be fair, we try the case. In Ector County, juries are historically sympathetic to young working families killed by drunk drivers, and that reality is part of what drives settlement value.
The bar’s surveillance footage is probably gone by now. Does that kill the dram-shop claim?
No. The footage was the cleanest evidence, and its absence makes the case harder — but it does not make the case impossible. The dram-shop claim can be built from: (1) the driver’s credit-card and bank transaction records, which show where he was served and how much he spent; (2) server and patron testimony about his visible level of intoxication; (3) the forensic toxicologist’s backward extrapolation from the blood-alcohol sample taken at arrest, which estimates his intoxication level at the time of service; and (4) the establishment’s own point-of-sale and inventory records. The footage would have been the strongest single piece, but the claim survives without it.
What if the driver was also uninsured or underinsured?
This is where UM/UIM coverage matters. The family’s own auto insurance policy — or any policy covering a vehicle in the household — may carry uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. This is coverage the family paid premiums for, and it is designed for exactly this scenario: when the at-fault driver’s insurance is insufficient. Multiple policies in the household may stack, meaning the total UM/UIM recovery can be several times what a single policy offers. We demand every declarations page in the household and identify every policy that can stack. Many families do not know they have this coverage, and insurers do not volunteer it.
Can the children recover separately from the spouse?
Yes. Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, the surviving spouse and each child have their own claim for the losses they personally suffered. The children’s claims include loss of parental guidance, loss of financial support, and the mental anguish of losing a parent. The spouse’s claim includes loss of companionship, loss of financial support, and mental anguish. The survival claim (for the decedent’s pain and suffering and medical expenses) is separate and belongs to the estate. All of these claims are typically pursued together in one lawsuit.
Is the civil case re-traumatizing? Will we have to relive everything?
There is no honest way to say a wrongful-death case is easy. It is not. But the civil case is built differently from the criminal case. The criminal case was about the driver — his guilt, his sentence, his choices. The civil case is about your family — what you lost, what the children will go without, what your husband’s life was worth. The depositions and the discovery are focused on the financial and emotional impact on the family, not on the grisly details of the crash. And the lawyer’s job is to shield the family from as much of the process as possible — to handle the depositions, the records, the insurer, and the court appearances so the family can grieve while the case is built. The family’s role is to share their story, their husband’s life, and his role as a provider. The legal team handles the rest.
We are a Spanish-speaking family. Can you help us in our language?
Yes. Lupe Peña is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Our staff is bilingual. Hablamos Español. Your family does not need to translate your grief into a second language to get legal help. We meet you in the language you pray in.
How do we get started?
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The call is free. The consultation is free. We work on contingency — there is no fee unless we win your case. We have 24/7 live staff. You can also reach us through our contact page. The moment you call is the moment the preservation letters start going out, the insurance company is put on notice, and the clock starts working for your family instead of against you.
The Bottom Line for Families in Odessa and the Permian Basin
A 25-year-old father of three was killed by a drunk driver who ran. The criminal system sentenced the driver to 10 years. The civil system — the one that pays the family, secures the children’s future, and holds every responsible party accountable — has not started yet. The clock is running. The evidence is dying. The insurance company is building its defense file.
The guilty plea is your strongest asset. The dram-shop investigation is your biggest opportunity. The UM/UIM coverage is your safety net. The earning-capacity model is your evidence of value. And the preservation letter is the first thing that has to go out.
We do not get paid unless we win. The consultation is free. The call is 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts. But the law we have described here is the law of Texas, and it is the law that protects your family. Use it.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.