Ector County Intoxicated Manslaughter: Your Family’s Civil Rights After a DUI Death
The jury has spoken. The person who drove drunk and killed your family member has been convicted of intoxicated manslaughter, and the criminal system has done what it was built to do — it punished the person responsible. But punishment is not the same as justice, and a prison sentence does not pay for a life. If you are reading this at 2 a.m., after seeing the court disposition or hearing the verdict, you are in the exact moment this page was written for. The criminal case is over. Your civil case is just beginning — and the conviction you just watched happen is the single most powerful asset your family has.
Here is the first thing you need to know, and we want you to hear it before anything else: the criminal conviction does not close the door on accountability. It opens a second one. The criminal system punished the driver. The civil system is the only mechanism through which your family can be made whole — and in Texas, a jury conviction for intoxicated manslaughter means the question of fault has already been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In your civil case, the burden is lower. The conviction is your foundation.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases across Texas, including the Permian Basin. Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court, and before he was a lawyer he was a journalist — which means he learned early that the story is only as good as the facts you can prove. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you — and now he sits on your side of the table. We are writing this page to you, the family of the person killed, because the clock on your rights is already running and the evidence that could fund your recovery is already disappearing.
The Criminal Conviction Is Only the Beginning
Most families assume that once the criminal case is over, everything is resolved. The defendant went to prison. Justice was served. There is nothing left to do. This is the single most common — and most costly — misunderstanding in an intoxicated manslaughter case.
The criminal case and the civil case serve entirely different purposes. The criminal case was the State of Texas versus the defendant. The State’s job was to punish the offender and protect the public. Your family was a witness, not a party. The State did not represent your financial interests, did not calculate what your loved one’s life was worth, and did not pursue compensation for the income, companionship, and future that were taken from you. The criminal system does not do that. The civil system does.
Your civil case is your family versus the person who killed your loved one — and, critically, against every other entity that contributed to the death. That last part is the part most families never hear about, and it is where the real recovery often lives. The driver who was convicted may have limited assets and a thin insurance policy. But if a bar, restaurant, or club served that driver alcohol when they were already obviously intoxicated, Texas law gives your family a separate claim against that establishment — and that establishment likely carries liquor liability insurance that is worth far more than the driver’s personal auto policy.
The conviction you just witnessed is the foundation. The civil case is the building. And the dram shop investigation — finding out where the alcohol came from — is the construction crew that turns a thin recovery into a full one.
How a Criminal Jury Conviction Strengthens Your Civil Case
In a typical wrongful death case, the family has to prove that the defendant was at fault. That means hiring experts, reconstructing the crash, fighting the defense’s arguments about comparative responsibility, and convincing a jury that the other side caused the death. It can take years, and the outcome is never certain.
Your case is different. A jury in Ector County has already heard the evidence and convicted the driver of intoxicated manslaughter. That conviction establishes, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the driver operated a motor vehicle while intoxicated and caused the death of another person. In your civil case, the burden of proof is lower — a preponderance of the evidence, meaning “more likely than not.” The criminal conviction, proven to a higher standard, carries enormous weight in the civil case.
Under Texas negligence per se doctrine, a criminal conviction for intoxicated manslaughter establishes a violation of the penal statutes designed to protect the public from intoxicated drivers. In plain terms: the jury already decided the most important question. The civil case is not about whether the driver was at fault — that has been settled. The civil case is about what the fault is worth, and who else shares responsibility for making your family whole.
The Texas Dram Shop Act provides a statutory cause of action against alcohol-serving establishments that furnish alcohol to an obviously intoxicated adult who subsequently causes injury or death.
This is the statute that transforms a case with limited recovery into one with real financial accountability. The conviction proves the driver was intoxicated. The question your civil case will investigate is: who served the alcohol, and did they serve a person who was already visibly drunk?
The defense cannot relitigate the conviction. They cannot argue the driver was not intoxicated. They cannot argue the driver was not at fault. What they can argue — and will — is that the amount of money your family is seeking is too high, that your loved one bore some share of responsibility, or that the dram shop defendant was not involved. Those are the fights your civil case will wage, and the conviction is the bedrock beneath every one of them.
Texas Wrongful Death and Survival Law: What Your Family Can Recover
Texas gives your family two separate legal claims after an intoxicated manslaughter death, and each one recovers different things for different people. Understanding the difference is the first step in understanding what your case is worth.
The Texas Wrongful Death Act gives surviving family members — a spouse, children, and parents — the right to recover for the losses they personally suffered from the death. Those losses include the financial support your loved one would have provided over their expected lifetime, the companionship and guidance they would have given, the household services they performed, and the mental anguish of losing them. A wrongful death claim belongs to the beneficiaries, not to the estate.
The Texas Survival Statute gives the decedent’s estate the right to recover for what the decedent personally endured between the time of injury and the time of death. If your loved one survived the crash for any period — minutes, hours, days — the estate can recover for their conscious pain and suffering, the medical expenses incurred during that interval, and any other damages the person could have claimed had they survived. The survival claim belongs to the estate, and it passes through the estate to the beneficiaries under the will or intestacy laws.
Texas applies a two-year statute of limitations to both wrongful death and personal injury claims, running from the date of the death. This is a hard deadline. Miss it, and the claim is gone — no matter how strong the conviction, no matter how clear the dram shop evidence. Two years sounds like a long time when you are in the first weeks of grief. It is not. The dram shop investigation alone can take months, and if the evidence has been destroyed because no one acted quickly enough, the two-year clock may still be running while the proof you needed is already gone.
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence framework with a 51 percent bar. This means that if your loved one is found to be 51 percent or more at fault for the crash, the family cannot recover. If they are found to be 50 percent or less at fault, the family can recover — but the recovery is reduced by the loved one’s percentage of fault. In an intoxicated manslaughter case, the convicted driver’s intoxication makes it very difficult for the defense to shift significant fault to the victim, but the defense will try. Every percentage point they can pin on your loved one is money they do not have to pay.
Texas does not impose caps on non-economic or punitive damages in standard motor-vehicle wrongful death cases. This is a critical advantage. In medical malpractice cases, Texas law limits what a family can recover for pain, suffering, and loss of companionship. In a motor-vehicle wrongful death case, there is no such ceiling. A jury can award what the life was actually worth — the full measure of mental anguish, loss of companionship, and lost future — without a statute cutting the number in half. And in an intoxicated driving case, punitive damages are on the table because driving drunk is gross negligence by any legal definition. The criminal conviction provides powerful evidentiary support for an exemplary damages award.
The Dram Shop Investigation: Following the Alcohol to the Real Money
Here is the hardest truth in an intoxicated manslaughter case, and the one most families are never told: the person who drove drunk and killed your loved one is probably not the source of adequate compensation. They are in prison. They may have limited personal assets. Their auto insurance policy may carry Texas’s legal minimum — and one night in a hospital can exceed that amount before the sun comes up.
The path to adequate recovery runs through the establishment that over-served the driver. Under the Texas Dram Shop Act, a licensed establishment that served alcohol to a person who was obviously intoxicated to the extent that they presented a clear danger to themselves or others, and who then caused a fatal crash, may be held liable for the death. This is not a theory — it is a statutory cause of action, and it is the single most important investigation in your case.
The dram shop investigation works backward from the crash. The convicted driver’s blood alcohol content was measured at the time of testing — that number is in the criminal court file, maintained permanently by the Ector County District Clerk. A forensic toxicologist can extrapolate backward from that BAC to estimate the driver’s blood alcohol level at the time of the last service. If the driver’s BAC at the time of last service was well above the legal limit — and in an intoxicated manslaughter conviction, it almost certainly was — the toxicologist can testify that the driver was obviously intoxicated at the point of service, and that any trained server should have recognized the danger and stopped serving.
The investigation then asks: where was the driver served? This is discovered through credit card records, cell phone location data, receipts, and witness statements. Did the driver visit a bar, a restaurant, a club, or a liquor store in the hours before the crash? Did they pay with a card that can be traced? Did their phone ping a tower near a specific establishment? Were they seen on surveillance footage at a particular location?
The standard under the Texas Dram Shop Act is not that the establishment “should have known” in some abstract sense. The standard is that the person was obviously intoxicated — meaning visible signs of intoxication that a reasonable server would recognize: slurred speech, difficulty standing, impaired coordination, bloodshot eyes, aggressive or erratic behavior. If the establishment’s own surveillance footage shows the driver stumbling out the door, or if the server’s own training records show they were taught to recognize those signs, the establishment has a problem it cannot talk its way out of.
This is why the dram shop investigation is the critical path to adequate recovery. The driver’s personal auto policy may offer $30,000 or $100,000 — a fraction of what a wrongful death is worth. But a licensed establishment that serves alcohol carries liquor liability insurance — often $1 million or more — and the establishment itself has assets, a business, and a license to protect. The dram shop defendant is where real money lives, and the conviction that proves the driver was intoxicated is the key that unlocks the door to that money.
The catch — and this is the part that makes time the enemy — is that the evidence of where the driver was served disappears fast. Restaurant and bar surveillance footage is typically overwritten on a rolling loop of 7 to 30 days. Point-of-sale systems may purge detailed transaction data within 90 to 180 days. Witness memories degrade rapidly. The preservation letter that orders an establishment to freeze its footage, its receipts, and its server records has to go out immediately — not after the criminal case is over, not after the family has had time to grieve, not after the insurance company has had time to circle the property. The day you call a lawyer is the day that letter goes out.
The Evidence Clock: What Exists and How Fast It Disappears
Every piece of evidence in your case exists on a clock. Some of it is preserved permanently by the government. Some of it is being erased right now, automatically, by the systems that created it. Knowing which is which — and acting on the difference — is the single most time-sensitive thing in an intoxicated manslaughter civil case.
The DPS crash report and crash reconstruction data are maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety and are available through law enforcement records requests. These reports establish the circumstances of the collision, the point of impact, the vehicle positions, and the contributing factors. They corroborate the criminal conviction facts. This evidence is generally preserved, though supplementary scene evidence — skid marks, debris patterns, road conditions — may be lost quickly after the road is cleared.
The blood alcohol content and toxicology results are maintained by the crime laboratory and are available through criminal court records or civil subpoena. These results quantify the level of intoxication, identify the substances involved, and support both the negligence per se claim and the dram shop investigation by establishing the degree of intoxication when the driver was last served. This evidence is stable — the crime lab keeps it, and the criminal court file preserves it permanently.
The criminal court file — including the jury verdict, the sentencing orders, and any plea materials — is permanently maintained by the Ector County District Clerk. The conviction and all admissions made during the criminal proceedings are admissible in the civil action. The jury findings establish the predicate facts. This evidence does not expire. There is no urgency risk here — the file will be there whenever you are ready.
But here is where the clock starts ticking against you:
Receipts, credit card records, and point-of-sale data from alcohol-serving establishments identify where and how much alcohol was purchased or served. This is the evidence that establishes the dram shop chain of liability — the duration and volume of service. Point-of-sale systems may purge detailed transaction data within 90 to 180 days. If the establishment’s system overwrites the record of what the driver bought, how many drinks were served, and who served them, the dram shop case weakens. A preservation letter to the identified establishment is urgent — not next month, not after the criminal sentencing, now.
Witness statements and bar or restaurant surveillance footage corroborate obvious intoxication at the point of service. This is the evidence that supports the dram shop claim that the establishment served a visibly intoxicated patron. Surveillance video is typically overwritten within 7 to 30 days. Witness memories degrade rapidly — a bartender who remembers serving the driver may not remember three months from now. The preservation letter must be sent immediately upon identifying the establishment, and the identification itself must happen fast.
The preservation letter is the tool that freezes the clock. When a lawyer sends a written demand to an establishment ordering it to preserve surveillance footage, point-of-sale data, server records, and all related evidence, the establishment is on notice. If it then allows that evidence to be destroyed, the law answers — a jury may be told to assume the lost evidence was as bad for the establishment as the plaintiff says it was. The leverage begins the moment the letter is on file. But the letter only helps if it arrives before the evidence is gone.
The Insurance Reality: Where the Money Actually Comes From
In an intoxicated manslaughter case, the money comes from multiple sources, stacked in layers. Understanding the layers is the difference between a recovery that covers a funeral and a recovery that funds a family’s future.
The first layer is the convicted driver’s personal auto liability insurance. Texas requires a minimum of $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident in liability coverage. Some drivers carry more — $100,000, $300,000, or higher limits. Many carry exactly the minimum. One night in a trauma center can pass $30,000 before the patient reaches the operating room. If the driver carried only the minimum, the auto policy is a floor, not a ceiling — and the family needs to look upward.
The second layer is uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. If your loved one had UM/UIM coverage on their own auto policy, or if a family member in the household had it, that coverage can step in when the at-fault driver’s policy is insufficient. UM/UIM can bridge the gap between the at-fault driver’s limits and the real value of the case. It is the family’s own insurance paying for the harm someone else caused — and it is coverage the family paid premiums for, exactly for this situation.
The third layer — and the one that can transform the case — is the dram shop defendant’s liquor liability insurance. A licensed establishment that serves alcohol typically carries a commercial general liability policy that includes liquor liability coverage, often with limits of $1 million or more. If the dram shop investigation establishes that the establishment over-served the driver, the establishment’s insurance becomes the primary source of adequate recovery. This is why the dram shop investigation is the critical path — not because it is interesting, but because it is where the money is.
Behind all of these may sit excess or umbrella policies that provide additional layers of coverage above the primary limits. Identifying every layer — the driver’s auto policy, the family’s UM/UIM, the establishment’s liquor liability, and any excess towers — is half the value of the case. A car accident lawyer who handles these cases knows that the first policy the insurance company mentions is rarely the only one.
The Adjuster Playbook: What They’ll Try and How to Counter It
The insurance industry has a playbook for intoxicated manslaughter cases. It is not written down in a manual you can read, but the plays are predictable because they are the same plays that have been run on grieving families for decades. Lupe Peña knows them because he used to run them — he spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm, trained in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. Here is what to expect, and how each play is countered.
Play one: “The criminal case handled it.” The adjuster will sound sympathetic. They will tell you that the driver has been convicted and sent to prison, that justice has been served, and that there is nothing more to do. The goal is to make you think the criminal disposition resolved your rights. It did not. The criminal case punished the driver. Your civil case compensates the family. They are separate systems with separate purposes, and the civil claim has its own deadline that is already running. The counter is simple: the criminal case was the State’s case. Your case is yours, and it has not been filed yet.
Play two: “The defendant is in prison, there’s no money.” The adjuster will point out that the convicted driver has no assets, no income, and no ability to pay a judgment. This is designed to make you feel hopeless about the civil case. The counter is the dram shop investigation. The recovery does not come only from the driver — it comes from the establishment that over-served the driver, from the driver’s insurance policy, and from the family’s own UM/UIM coverage. The driver’s poverty does not end the case. It reroutes it.
Play three: the recorded statement. Within days of the crash, someone from the insurance company will call. They will sound kind. They will say they just want to “hear your side of the story” or “get a few facts straight.” The call is recorded. Everything you say will be transcribed and parsed for any sentence that can be used to reduce the value of your claim — a comment that your loved one “sometimes drove that road,” a statement that you are “doing okay,” a casual remark that becomes a defense exhibit. The counter is to not give the statement. Not now, not without a lawyer, not ever without understanding what it will be used for. You can watch more about this here.
Play four: the quick check with a release. A check may arrive fast — sometimes within weeks of the crash. It will be accompanied by a release document that, once signed, extinguishes every claim your family has against the driver, the insurance company, and potentially any other defendant. The check is designed to arrive before the medical bills are final, before the dram shop investigation is complete, and before the family has had time to understand what the case is actually worth. The counter is to never sign a release without a lawyer reviewing it. A release is permanent. The case it closes is not coming back.
Play five: social media surveillance. The insurance company will monitor your social media accounts. A photograph of you smiling at a memorial, a post about “moving forward,” a check-in at a restaurant — each of these can be screenshot, saved, and presented to a jury as evidence that the family is not suffering as much as they claim. The counter is to set your accounts to private, to post nothing about the case, the crash, the defendant, or your grief, and to assume that everything you post is being read by someone whose job is to pay you as little as possible.
The Proof Story: How a Case Like This Is Actually Built
A civil wrongful death case following an intoxicated manslaughter conviction is built in stages, and each stage adds to the value. Here is how the case actually moves from the day you call to the day a number is put on the table.
In the first week, the preservation letters go out. Letters go to the convicted driver’s insurance company, ordering them to preserve the vehicle, the policy, and all claims files. Letters go to any identified alcohol-serving establishment, ordering them to freeze surveillance footage, point-of-sale data, server schedules, and training records. Letters go to the Texas Department of Public Safety, requesting the crash report and all supplementary evidence. Letters go to the crime laboratory, requesting the BAC and toxicology results. The clock on every piece of perishable evidence stops the day these letters are received.
In the first month, the records demands begin. Subpoenas go out for the driver’s credit card records — every transaction in the 24 hours before the crash. Cell phone records are requested — not for content, but for location data that shows where the phone was in the hours before the collision. If the driver’s phone pinged a tower near a specific bar or restaurant at a specific time, that ping is a map to the dram shop defendant. The criminal court file is pulled from the Ector County District Clerk — the jury verdict, the sentencing order, any plea materials, all of it. This is the foundation.
The forensic toxicologist is retained. This expert takes the BAC measured at the time of testing and extrapolates backward — accounting for the time between the crash and the blood draw, the rate of alcohol absorption and elimination, and the driver’s weight and sex — to estimate the blood alcohol level at the time of the last drink. If that number is well above the legal limit, the toxicologist can testify that the driver was obviously intoxicated at the point of last service, and that any trained server should have seen the signs.
The forensic economist is retained. This expert calculates the lost earning capacity of the person who died — how many working years they had left, what they would have earned, what benefits they would have received, and what household services they would have provided. The number is built from government labor data, not guesses. It is reduced to present value — because a lump sum paid today is worth more than the same amount paid over decades — and the personal consumption of the decedent is subtracted, because the family’s claim is for the support they would have received, not the total paycheck.
If liability-sharing among multiple defendants becomes contested — for example, if the dram shop defendant argues the driver was already intoxicated when they arrived at the establishment — an accident reconstructionist may be needed to establish the timeline of the crash and the sequence of events. In most intoxicated manslaughter cases, the conviction settles the liability question, but the dram shop investigation can create contested issues about when and where the intoxication occurred.
Depositions follow. The server who poured the drinks is questioned under oath about what they saw, what they were trained to look for, and whether they recognized the signs of intoxication. The manager is questioned about staffing, training, and whether the establishment had been warned before. The defense experts are questioned about their methodology and their assumptions. Each deposition adds to the picture the jury will see.
The number at the end is built from all of it — the criminal conviction that eliminates the fault question, the toxicologist who proves the driver was obviously drunk at the point of service, the economist who quantifies the lifetime of lost income and companionship, the establishment’s own records that show the pattern of over-service, and the depositions where the server admits what they saw. The settlement or verdict is the sum of every piece of evidence, assembled by people who know where to look and what to demand.
The First 72 Hours: A Practical Roadmap
If you are in the first days after the conviction — or the first days after the crash itself — here is what matters most, in order.
Medical first. If anyone survived the crash and has not been fully evaluated, get them to a doctor. Symptoms of serious injury — internal bleeding, traumatic brain injury, spinal damage — can appear hours or even days after the impact. A person who “feels fine” at the scene may not be fine. The medical record is also evidence; it documents the harm in real time, before the insurance company can argue the injuries came from somewhere else.
Do not talk to the defendant’s insurance company. Not a recorded statement, not an informal chat, not a “quick question.” The adjuster is not your friend. They are a professional whose job is to resolve your claim for as little money as possible, and every word you say will be measured against that goal. If they call, you can say: “I am not prepared to give a statement at this time. Please contact my attorney.” If you do not have an attorney yet, say: “I am not prepared to give a statement at this time.” That is a complete sentence.
Do not sign anything. Not a release, not a authorization form, not a “medical records request” that also happens to include a release of liability. If an insurance company sends you paperwork, do not sign it. Bring it to a lawyer. A release is permanent. The claims it extinguishes do not come back.
Do not post on social media. Nothing about the crash, the conviction, the defendant, your grief, your loved one, or your family. Set your accounts to private. Assume every post is being read by someone whose job is to pay you less. A photograph of you at a birthday party — even a memorial birthday party — can be presented to a jury as evidence that your mental anguish is not as severe as you claim.
Preserve evidence. If you have any physical evidence — photographs from the scene, the vehicle itself, personal effects — keep it safe. Do not let the vehicle be scrapped or repaired until it has been examined. If you know or can learn where the driver was served alcohol, write down the name of the establishment immediately. Every day that passes, the surveillance footage at that establishment is one day closer to being overwritten.
Contact a wrongful death attorney. The preservation letters, the records demands, the dram shop investigation — all of it starts the day you call. The consultation is free. The firm works on contingency — you pay nothing unless we win. And the clock on the evidence is already running.
What a Case Like This Is Worth
No honest lawyer can give you a specific dollar figure without knowing the facts of your case — the age and occupation of your loved one, the family composition, the insurance coverage available, and whether a dram shop defendant can be established. What we can give you is the framework that drives the number, and the range that cases like this fall into.
At the low end — if recovery is limited to the defendant’s personal auto liability policy with standard limits and no viable dram shop defendant is identified — the case may be worth $250,000 to $500,000. This is the floor, and it is often not enough to cover a family’s actual losses, particularly if the decedent was a wage earner with dependents.
At the high end — if a dram shop defendant with adequate liquor liability insurance is established, the decedent was a high earner with dependents, and punitive damages are recoverable from the establishment — the case may be worth $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 or more. The criminal jury conviction eliminates liability uncertainty, but it does not solve the collectibility problem. The dram shop investigation is the primary value driver. Without it, the case is a policy-limits claim against an incarcerated defendant. With it, the case becomes a multi-million-dollar action against a licensed business with insurance and assets.
The economic damages — funeral and burial expenses, the decedent’s lost earning capacity calculated to projected retirement age with appropriate wage growth and personal consumption offsets, loss of inheritance, and any medical expenses incurred between injury and death — are provable with records and expert testimony. The non-economic damages — the beneficiaries’ mental anguish, loss of companionship, loss of consortium, and the decedent’s conscious pain and suffering under the survival claim — are what a jury decides, based on the evidence and the community’s sense of what a life was worth. In Ector County, the jury that decides what a life was worth is twelve people from the reader’s own community — people who drive the same roads, who know the oilfield culture, who understand what it means to lose someone to a drunk driver on a West Texas highway.
Punitive damages are warranted given the gross negligence inherent in intoxicated driving, and the criminal jury conviction provides powerful evidentiary support for an exemplary damages award. The combination of a proven criminal conviction, a viable dram shop defendant, and a high-earning decedent with dependents is what drives cases into the multi-million-dollar range.
Ector County and the Permian Basin: Why This Happens Here
Ector County sits in the heart of the Permian Basin, with Odessa as its county seat. The metro area of roughly 165,000 residents swells with a transient oilfield workforce that follows the drilling rigs and the hydraulic fracturing crews across the basin. The major transportation arteries — Interstate 20 running east-west through the county, US Highway 385 connecting Odessa to the drilling fields to the south, and State Highway 191 linking Odessa to Midland — carry a mix of commuter traffic, heavy commercial trucking, and oilfield equipment at all hours of the day and night.
The Permian Basin’s oil boom culture contributes to elevated rates of alcohol-related crashes. The work is physical and exhausting. Shift changes happen at all hours — a crew finishing a 12-hour shift at 2 a.m. is not unusual. The combination of fatigue, the end-of-shift impulse to drink, and the long drive home on a rural highway is a formula for exactly the kind of crash that produces an intoxicated manslaughter conviction. The culture is not an excuse. It is the environment in which the danger lives, and it is the reason that the bars, clubs, and restaurants along those corridors bear a responsibility that the law recognizes through the Dram Shop Act.
The Ector County District Courts — operating within the 161st, 244th, 358th, and 446th Judicial Districts — handle all felony-level matters arising within the county, including the intoxicated manslaughter conviction that is the foundation of your civil case. The civil wrongful death case would be filed in the same county, and the jury that decides what your loved one’s life was worth would be drawn from the same community. Twelve people from Ector County — people who know these roads, who understand this culture, who may have lost someone themselves — will decide what accountability looks like. That is not a disadvantage. That is the home field, and it is yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue after a criminal conviction for intoxicated manslaughter?
Yes. The criminal case and the civil case are separate legal actions with different purposes. The criminal case punished the defendant on behalf of the State. The civil case compensates your family on behalf of yourselves. A criminal conviction does not bar a civil claim — it strengthens it. The conviction establishes the defendant’s fault beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a higher standard than the civil burden of proof. Your civil case is a separate action with its own filing deadline.
How long do I have to file a wrongful death claim in Texas?
Texas applies a two-year statute of limitations to wrongful death claims, running from the date of death. This is a hard deadline — if the claim is not filed within two years, it is barred forever, no matter how strong the evidence. The two-year clock does not pause for the criminal case, for grief, or for the insurance company’s delays. The dram shop investigation can take months, which means the clock may be running while the evidence you need is still being gathered. Do not wait.
What if the person who killed my loved one has no money or insurance?
This is the most common fear, and it is the reason the dram shop investigation exists. The convicted driver may have limited assets and a thin insurance policy. But if a licensed establishment served the driver alcohol when they were obviously intoxicated, Texas law gives your family a separate claim against that establishment — and that establishment carries liquor liability insurance that is often worth $1 million or more. The driver’s poverty does not end the case. It reroutes the recovery to the establishment that contributed to the intoxication.
Can I sue the bar or restaurant that served the driver?
Yes, under the Texas Dram Shop Act. If a licensed establishment served alcohol to a person who was obviously intoxicated to the extent that they presented a clear danger to themselves or others, and that person then caused a fatal crash, the establishment may be held liable. The investigation works backward from the driver’s BAC at the time of the crash, using a forensic toxicologist to estimate the level of intoxication at the time of last service. If the driver was visibly drunk at the bar, the bar is on the hook.
Does the criminal conviction automatically win my civil case?
The conviction does not “automatically” win the civil case, but it eliminates the central question of fault. The jury already decided the driver was intoxicated and caused the death. The civil case becomes about compensation — how much the life was worth — and about whether other parties, like the dram shop defendant, share responsibility. The conviction is the foundation. The civil case builds the recovery on top of it.
What if my loved one was partially at fault for the crash?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51 percent bar. If your loved one is found to be 51 percent or more at fault, the family cannot recover. If they are found to be 50 percent or less at fault, the family can recover, but the recovery is reduced by the loved one’s percentage of fault. In an intoxicated manslaughter case, the convicted driver’s intoxication makes it very difficult for the defense to shift significant fault to the victim — but the defense will try, because every percentage point they can pin on your loved one is money they do not have to pay.
How much is a wrongful death case worth in Texas?
The value depends on the decedent’s age, occupation, earning capacity, family composition, the insurance coverage available, and whether a dram shop defendant can be established. In an intoxicated manslaughter case with a criminal conviction, the liability is established — the value question becomes one of damages and collectibility. Cases limited to the driver’s personal auto policy may be worth $250,000 to $500,000. Cases with a viable dram shop defendant, a high-earning decedent, and punitive damages may be worth $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 or more. No honest lawyer can give you a specific number without knowing the facts of your case.
Will my case go to trial, or will it settle?
Most civil cases settle before trial. But the best settlements come from cases that are prepared as if they will go to trial — because the insurance company knows the lawyer is ready to put the case in front of a jury, and a jury in Ector County that has already seen a criminal conviction for the same crash is a jury the insurance company does not want to face. Mediation should occur only after the dram shop investigation is complete, because the dram shop defendant is likely the primary source of adequate recovery. Settling before the dram shop investigation is finished is settling for a fraction of what the case may be worth.
What if the driver was uninsured or underinsured?
If the at-fault driver carried no insurance or insufficient insurance, your family’s own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage may step in. UM/UIM coverage is part of your own auto policy — you paid premiums for it — and it bridges the gap between the at-fault driver’s limits and the real value of the case. Every auto insurance policy in Texas must offer UM/UIM coverage unless the insured rejects it in writing. If your loved one had UM/UIM coverage, or if a family member in the household had it, that coverage is available to your family.
What is the difference between a wrongful death claim and a survival action?
A wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving family members — spouse, children, and parents — and compensates them for their own losses: the financial support the decedent would have provided, the companionship and guidance, the household services, and the mental anguish. A survival action belongs to the decedent’s estate and recovers for what the decedent personally endured between injury and death: conscious pain and suffering, medical expenses, and any other damages the person could have claimed had they survived. Both claims can be brought simultaneously, and together they recover the full measure of what was lost.
Why This Firm
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial firm that takes Texas cases, and we handle them on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. And the staff is live, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service, not a voicemail tree, a person who answers when you call.
Ralph Manginello has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27-plus years of trial practice, including admission to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he learned to find the facts before he learned to argue them. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He is the managing partner of the firm, and he personally oversees the cases the firm takes.
Lupe Peña was licensed in Texas in 2012 and spent years as an insurance-defense attorney at a national defense firm. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, and how the quick check arrives with a release before the medical results do. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients — and he conducts full consultations in Spanish, without an interpreter, for families who need it.
Our fee is contingency: 33.33 percent before trial, 40 percent if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win. We have recovered more than $50 million for our clients over the years we have been practicing. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But the commitment does not change: we work until the evidence is frozen, until the dram shop investigation is complete, and until the insurance company has been shown every reason to pay what the case is actually worth.
We serve families in English and in Spanish. Hablamos Español. If your family prays in Spanish, we will speak to you in Spanish — not through a translator, not through a third party, directly, in the language you actually think in.
Your Next Step
The criminal case is over. The civil case is yours. The conviction is the most powerful asset your family has, and the evidence that could turn it into real recovery is disappearing — surveillance footage overwriting itself, point-of-sale data purging, witness memories fading — on a clock that does not pause for grief.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. The staff is live, 24 hours a day. You will speak to a person, not a machine, and you will get answers — not a sales pitch, not a script, real answers about what your family’s rights are, what the deadlines are, and what the next steps look like.
We do not get paid unless we win your case. You pay nothing to talk to us. And the clock on your evidence is already running.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case is different, and the information here is general guidance based on Texas law as it applies to intoxicated manslaughter convictions and the civil wrongful death claims that follow them. For advice about your specific situation, call us. We will listen, we will answer, and we will tell you honestly whether we can help.
1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.