Odessa Shooting at Pat’s Place: Negligent Security, Wrongful Death, and What Texas Law Allows
If you are reading this because someone you love was shot at Pat’s Place on Andrews Highway — or because you were the one in surgery at a hospital in Odessa while your family waited in a hallway that smelled like antiseptic and sounded like machines counting someone’s pulse — then you already know the worst part. The part that comes next is what we can help with. A shooting inside a commercial establishment after 11 p.m. on a Friday night is not just a crime. It is also a civil question: did the business that invited people through its doors do what the law requires to keep them alive? That question has a deadline in Texas, and the evidence that answers it is already disappearing.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases in Texas, including negligent-security claims arising from shootings at bars, venues, and commercial establishments. This page is a full analysis of what happened at 7405 Andrews Highway on November 4, 2022, what Texas law says about a business’s duty when violence walks through its door, and what families should know — whether their loss was at Pat’s Place or at any establishment in the Permian Basin that failed to protect the people who spent money inside its walls.
What Happened at Pat’s Place: The Incident as a Case Study
On Friday, November 4, 2022, after 11 p.m., two individuals entered Pat’s Place, a commercial establishment at 7405 Andrews Highway in Ector County, Texas. One of them shot two people. One victim died. The other was taken to the hospital and sent into emergency surgery. The Ector County Sheriff’s Office led the investigation, and the Odessa Police Department SWAT team and Crisis Negotiations Team arrested the suspected shooter the following morning, November 5. A second suspect remained at large. Sheriff Mike Griffis confirmed the arrest and said officers were at the scene searching for evidence and the weapon.
That is the public record. What matters for a civil case is everything the public record does not say: whether Pat’s Place had security, whether it had working cameras, whether the door staff screened patrons, whether the lighting outside was adequate, whether there had been prior violent incidents at that address, and whether the business served alcohol to someone who was obviously intoxicated. Those are the facts that decide whether a Texas jury holds the establishment accountable alongside the shooter — and those are the facts we go find.
Can You Sue a Bar After a Shooting in Texas?
Yes. The shooter’s arrest and prosecution are one track; the civil case against the establishment that failed to protect its patrons is a separate track, and the criminal system does not foreclose it. A business that opens its doors to the public owes its customers a legal duty to take reasonable measures against foreseeable criminal acts by third parties. When a patron is shot on the premises, Texas law allows the injured person — or the family of someone killed — to pursue a negligent-security claim against the business, the property owner, and any contracted security company whose failures made the harm possible.
The shooter is also a defendant, individually, for the intentional tort of assault and battery. But individual shooters are frequently what the law calls “judgment-proof” — they have no assets and no insurance that covers intentional shootings. The realistic recovery source is the establishment’s commercial general liability policy, its liquor liability coverage, and any umbrella or excess layers above those. That is where the case lives, and that is why the analysis focuses on what the business did and did not do before the trigger was pulled.
Negligent Security: The Law That Holds a Business Accountable
Texas premises-liability law recognizes that a business owner owes its invitees — its customers — a duty of reasonable care to protect against foreseeable criminal acts of third parties. That duty is not unlimited; Texas does not make a business an insurer of every patron’s safety. But the duty is real, and it is breached when a business knows (or should know) that violent crime is a risk on its premises and fails to take reasonable security measures in response.
What “reasonable” means depends on the facts: the nature of the business, the history of crime at the location, the hours of operation, the crowd it draws, and the conditions on the property. A bar that stays open late on Andrews Highway — a corridor that runs through the heart of the Permian Basin oilfield region, serves a large oilfield-worker demographic, and has historically seen elevated violent-crime rates — faces a different duty than a coffee shop that closes at dusk. The later the hour, the more alcohol is involved, and the more prior incidents have occurred, the higher the duty climbs.
For a deeper treatment of how premises liability works when a business fails to protect its patrons, see our premises liability and hotel-injury practice page, which covers the same legal framework that applies to bars, venues, and commercial establishments.
Foreseeability: Why Prior Crime at a Business Matters
Foreseeability is the engine of every negligent-security case. To hold a business liable for a third-party shooting, the plaintiff must show that the criminal act was foreseeable — that the business knew or should have known that violence was a risk on its premises. In Texas, foreseeability is typically established through three categories of evidence, each of which we pursue in discovery:
Prior similar incidents at the same establishment. If Pat’s Place had been the scene of prior fights, stabbings, assaults, or other shootings — whether reported to police or handled internally — those incidents are the strongest possible proof that the November 2022 shooting was foreseeable. The business cannot claim surprise when the same kind of violence has happened before under its roof.
Police calls for service at the address. Even if no prior incident resulted in an arrest or a lawsuit, the frequency and nature of police responses to 7405 Andrews Highway tell the story. If deputies were called to the establishment repeatedly for fights, disturbances, weapon complaints, or intoxicated patrons, each call is a brick in the wall of foreseeability. We subpoena calls-for-service records from the Ector County Sheriff’s Office and Odessa Police Department covering at least the preceding three to five years.
Area crime data and corridor conditions. Andrews Highway (US 385) is a major north-south commercial corridor running through Odessa, connecting the city to Andrews and the broader Permian Basin. The 7400 block sits in a mixed commercial zone with bars, retail, and industrial-adjacent businesses. Ector County has historically experienced violent crime rates above the national average. A board-certified security expert can analyze the crime profile of the surrounding area and opine on whether a reasonable business operator would have recognized the need for security measures — armed guards, controlled access, camera systems, lighting — based on what was happening on that stretch of highway.
The defense will argue that the shooting was an unpredictable act of criminal violence — a “sudden, unexpected” event the business could not have prevented. That argument fails when the evidence shows a pattern. One prior bar fight may not be enough. Ten prior calls for service for disturbances and assaults, combined with no security guard, no functioning cameras, and a door policy that lets armed patrons walk in after 11 p.m. — that is a case a jury can hear.
Dram Shop and TABC Liability in Texas
If Pat’s Place holds a permit from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission — and most establishments operating as bars or late-night venues along Andrews Highway do — the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code creates an additional layer of civil liability. Texas dram shop law allows a claim against a TABC-licensed provider when the provider served alcohol to a person who was obviously intoxicated to the extent that they presented a clear danger to themselves or others, and that intoxication proximately caused the ensuing harm.
In a shooting case, the dram shop theory applies if the shooter was served alcohol at Pat’s Place while already visibly intoxicated. It may also apply if the victims were overserved to the point that their own ability to protect themselves or remove themselves from danger was compromised. The dram shop claim is separate from the negligent-security claim — it is a statutory cause of action with its own elements, and it opens a separate insurance tower (liquor liability coverage is often distinct from general liability coverage).
TABC regulations also require permittees to maintain order on their premises. A TABC complaint history — prior violations for over-service, disorderly conduct, or security deficiencies — is powerful foreseeability evidence. We pull the TABC permit records, inspection history, and complaint files for the establishment as part of the standard discovery protocol.
Wrongful Death and Survival Claims Under Texas Law
Texas treats a fatal injury as two separate causes of action, and a family that walks through only one door leaves money on the table.
Surviving family members of the deceased victim may recover for the death caused by the wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default of another, including premises defendants whose negligence foreseeably enabled the shooting.
The wrongful death action belongs to the surviving family members — the spouse, children, and parents of the person killed. It compensates the family for what they lost: the deceased’s lost earning capacity, lost companionship, society, advice, and counsel, and the mental anguish of losing a family member. Texas wrongful death actions are governed by Chapter 71 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, with a two-year statute of limitations running from the date of death.
The survival action belongs to the estate of the deceased person. It carries forward the claim the deceased would have had — the pain, suffering, and mental anguish the victim experienced between the shooting and death, plus medical expenses incurred before death and funeral costs. The time between injury and death is critical to survival damages. A victim who lived for hours in the hospital before dying, conscious and in pain, carries a different survival claim than one who died at the scene. The medical records, the surgical reports, the nursing notes — these document the suffering that the survival action compensates.
For a full treatment of wrongful death claims in Texas, see our wrongful death practice page.
Texas imposes no general damage caps on personal injury or wrongful death claims outside of medical malpractice cases. That means a jury can award the full measure of compensatory damages — economic and non-economic alike — without a statutory ceiling reducing the award. This is one of Texas’s strongest advantages for plaintiff families, and it is why the quality of the foreseeability evidence matters so much: the better the proof, the higher the jury can go.
Texas Comparative Fault: Will They Blame the Victim?
Texas applies a modified comparative negligence standard with a 51% bar. A plaintiff who is 51% or more at fault is barred from recovery entirely. A plaintiff who is less than 51% at fault has their recovery reduced by their percentage of fault. This rule is the defense’s primary weapon in bar-shooting cases, and the adjuster works it from day one.
The arguments are predictable: the victim chose to be at a bar late at night. The victim was drinking. The victim may have been involved in an altercation. The victim should have left when the atmosphere turned dangerous. Each of these is an attempt to pin percentage points on the person who was shot — because every percentage point is money.
The counter is that a patron who enters a business open to the public, pays for goods or services, and is not engaged in criminal conduct has a right to expect that the business has taken reasonable steps to protect them from foreseeable violence. Being present at a lawful establishment at a lawful hour is not negligence. And when the business’s own failures — no security, no cameras, no door screening, no lighting, no response to prior incidents — are the conditions that allowed the shooter to enter and fire, the business’s share of fault is the one that matters.
Texas also follows the Stowers doctrine, which governs settlement demands. When a plaintiff presents a reasonable demand within the defendant’s policy limits, the insurer has a duty to settle. If the insurer refuses and a later verdict exceeds the policy limits, the insurer can be held responsible for the excess — meaning the insurer’s own refusal can expose the defendant to far more than its coverage. We time Stowers demands after sufficient foreseeability evidence is developed, so the demand is anchored in proof the insurer cannot ignore.
Who Can Be Held Responsible After a Bar Shooting
A negligent-security case after a bar shooting is rarely one defendant. The liability map extends across multiple entities, and naming all of them is how a family reaches the full available coverage.
The operating business (Pat’s Place). The entity that runs the establishment, controls day-to-day operations, sets the security policies (or fails to set them), and decides whether to hire guards, install cameras, and screen patrons. This is the primary premises-liability defendant.
The property owner. The entity that owns 7405 Andrews Highway may be separate from the operating business — a landlord leasing the building to a tenant operator. The landowner has its own duty to maintain safe premises and can bear direct liability if it was aware of criminal-activity hazards and failed to implement reasonable security measures or include lease provisions requiring tenant safety protocols.
The contracted security company. If the establishment retained a third-party security company to provide crowd control, monitoring, or armed deterrence, that company can be liable for negligent performance of its security duties. The security contract, the guards’ training records, and their post orders are all discoverable.
The shooter. The arrested individual faces criminal prosecution and is also a civil defendant for the intentional tort of assault and battery. The second suspect, if identified and apprehended, is a joint tortfeasor under Texas joint-and-several rules. But individual shooters are typically judgment-proof — the civil judgment against them establishes liability and supports punitive damages, but the realistic recovery comes from the premises defendants’ insurance.
The insurer. Behind every defendant is a coverage tower. A bar or venue typically carries commercial general liability insurance, and if it serves alcohol, it may carry liquor liability coverage. Above those primary policies, umbrella and excess layers may provide additional coverage. Identifying the full coverage stack — policy limits, stacked layers, and any exclusions the insurer will invoke — is part of the early discovery work. We do not assume the first number the adjuster mentions is the only number.
The Evidence Clock: What Disappears and How Fast
The single most important thing to understand about a negligent-security shooting case is that the evidence is on a timer. Some of it is already gone.
Surveillance footage — the fastest-dying record. The interior and exterior cameras at Pat’s Place — if they existed and were functioning — captured the entry sequence, the crowd conditions, the shooter’s movements, and whether any security measures were in place. But commercial DVR systems typically overwrite on a rolling 7-to-30-day cycle. This incident occurred in November 2022. Unless law enforcement seized the footage or a preservation demand was sent within weeks of the shooting, the video is almost certainly gone. For any future incident, the preservation letter goes out the day you call — not after the funeral, not after the criminal case, not after the insurance company reaches out. The footage that shows whether the bar had working cameras, whether a guard was posted, and how the shooter entered is the single most decisive piece of evidence in a negligent-security case, and it erases itself on a schedule.
ECSO and Odessa PD incident reports, crime-scene photos, and evidence inventory. These records persist, but access requires a timely subpoena or an open-records request under the Texas Public Information Act. Portions may be sealed while the criminal case is pending. We file the requests early and follow up.
TABC permit records, inspection history, and complaint files. TABC records are retained long-term, but early requests prevent administrative purging of older complaint files. The TABC complaint history for the establishment is powerful foreseeability evidence — prior violations for over-service, disorder, or security failures show that the regulator itself identified problems before the shooting.
Police calls-for-service history at 7405 Andrews Highway. Dispatch records are retained, but early requests ensure completeness and prevent data-migration loss. We request calls-for-service for the specific address and surrounding addresses on Andrews Highway, covering at least the preceding three to five years.
Employee and security-staff statements, hiring records, and training protocols. Employee turnover in the bar and venue industry is rapid. Witnesses disperse within weeks to months. A bartender who saw something critical on the night of the shooting may be working at a different establishment — or in a different city — within months. Identifying and preserving employee testimony early is essential. Hiring records, training protocols, and any documented security policies reveal whether the establishment had any security culture at all.
Business insurance policies. Commercial general liability, liquor liability, and umbrella/excess policies are retained by carriers, but early requests prevent claims of unavailability. We need the declarations pages, the policy limits, and the endorsements — including any assault-and-battery exclusions that the insurer will try to invoke.
Property lease, maintenance agreements, and security contracts. These allocate responsibility between the property owner and the tenant. They identify whether a third-party security company had a duty that was breached. Commercial records may be discarded or moved if the business closes or changes ownership.
When a defendant lets required evidence die after receiving a preservation demand, the law answers. Texas allows an adverse-inference instruction — the jury may assume the lost record was as bad as the plaintiff says. The leverage begins the moment the preservation letter is on file. That is why the first thing we do is send it.
The Medicine: Gunshot Wounds, Emergency Surgery, and Long-Term Recovery
A gunshot wound is not a single injury — it is a cascade. The projectile creates a wound track through tissue, and the damage extends beyond the bullet’s path through temporary cavitation, where the energy transfer stretches and tears tissue well beyond the point of contact. Depending on the projectile’s caliber, velocity, and trajectory, the injury can involve organ damage, vascular disruption, nerve injury, and fracture.
The surviving victim in this incident was taken to the hospital and sent into emergency surgery. That fact alone tells us the injury was serious enough to require operative intervention — not a through-and-through soft-tissue wound that could be managed with local wound care, but an injury involving internal damage that needed a surgeon’s hands. The surgical report will document the mechanism: what the projectile hit, what was repaired, what was removed, what could not be saved.
For the surviving victim, the medical trajectory extends well beyond the first surgery. Surgical complications — infection, bleeding, organ dysfunction — can develop in the days and weeks following the initial operation. Rehabilitation may be required for mobility, strength, and function. Permanent impairment is a real possibility, depending on the structures injured. Pain, scarring, and the psychological impact of surviving a shooting — post-traumatic stress, anxiety, hypervigilance — are compensable damages that a life-care planner and a treating mental-health professional document over time.
For the deceased victim, the survival claim depends on the window between the shooting and death. Did the victim survive long enough to experience pain, fear, and awareness of what was happening? The medical records, the EMS run sheet, the emergency-department notes, and the surgical report (if surgery was attempted before death) establish the duration and character of the suffering. That window — whether it was minutes or hours — is what the survival action compensates.
A trauma surgeon’s documentation of the mechanism of injury — the projectile trajectory, the organs damaged, the surgical intervention — anchors the non-economic damages. The life-care planner models the future medical needs: revision surgeries, rehabilitation, medication, mental-health treatment, and any long-term care requirements. The forensic economist reduces those future costs to present value, accounting for inflation and the time value of money. Together, they build the damages number from documented medical reality, not from a lawyer’s assertion.
What This Case Is Worth: Damages in Texas Shooting Cases
The value of a negligent-security shooting case depends on two variables: the strength of the foreseeability evidence and the severity of the harm. The harm here is substantial — one death and one serious gunshot injury requiring surgery. The foreseeability evidence is what discovery will reveal.
Without prior-incident evidence — if the establishment had no history of violence and no reason to anticipate a shooting — foreseeability is weak, and the case value falls in a lower range. With documented prior violent incidents at the location, TABC complaints, multiple police calls for service, no security measures, and substantial commercial general liability and liquor liability coverage, the case can reach significantly higher.
The damages categories in a fatal shooting case include:
Wrongful death damages (for the family): lost earning capacity of the deceased, loss of companionship, society, advice, and counsel, mental anguish of the surviving family members, and funeral expenses.
Survival damages (for the estate): the deceased’s pain and suffering between injury and death, medical expenses incurred before death, and the conscious anguish the victim experienced.
Punitive damages (available against premises defendants if gross negligence is shown): Texas requires a separate jury submission and a clear-and-convicting showing that the defendant’s conduct involved an extreme degree of risk, considering the probability and magnitude of the potential harm, and the defendant had actual, subjective awareness of the risk but proceeded with conscious indifference. Knowledge of repeated prior violent incidents at the location, combined with a deliberate failure to implement basic security measures, is the kind of evidence that supports a punitive submission.
For the surviving victim: past and future medical expenses (including the initial surgery, any revision surgeries, rehabilitation, medication, and follow-up care), pain and suffering, mental anguish, potential permanent impairment, lost wages and lost earning capacity, and future medical needs as modeled by a life-care planner.
The case value range, honestly framed, runs from approximately $750,000 to $1,500,000 on the low end (contingent on minimal foreseeability evidence, limited insurance coverage, and defense comparative-fault arguments) to $5,000,000 to $15,000,000 or more on the high end (contingent on documented prior violent incidents at the location, TABC complaints, multiple police calls for service, absence of basic security measures, and substantial commercial general liability and liquor liability coverage). The wide range reflects the case’s dependence on discovery: without prior-incident evidence, foreseeability is weak; with a strong prior-incidents file, this becomes a high-value negligent-security case with gross-negligence punitive exposure.
For a broader discussion of how personal-injury case value is calculated, this video from Ralph Manginello walks through the methodology.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook (and How We Counter It)
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before joining this practice. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows the plays because he ran them. Here are the ones you should expect in a negligent-security shooting case — and how each one is countered.
Play 1: “The shooting was an unforeseeable criminal act.” The adjuster frames the shooting as a random, unpredictable event the business could not have prevented. This is the defense’s opening move and its strongest argument. The counter is the foreseeability record: prior calls for service, prior incidents, TABC complaints, and the area-crime profile. When the evidence shows a pattern, “unforeseeable” becomes a word the jury does not believe.
Play 2: “The victim was partly at fault.” The adjuster argues that the victim chose to be at a bar late at night, was consuming alcohol, and should have perceived and avoided the danger. Every percentage point of fault assigned to the victim reduces the recovery. The counter is that a patron at a lawful business is an invitee entitled to reasonable protection, and being present at a bar at night is not negligence. The business’s failures — no security, no cameras, no screening — are the conditions that caused the harm.
Play 3: “Our policy excludes assault and battery.” Many commercial general liability policies contain assault-and-battery exclusions, and the insurer’s first move is often to assert that the shooting falls within the exclusion. The counter depends on the policy language, the specific theory of liability (negligent security is not the same as assault-and-battery coverage), and whether separate liquor liability coverage applies. This is a coverage fight that requires the actual policy documents — not the adjuster’s characterization of them.
Play 4: The quick settlement offer. A check may arrive fast, with a release attached, before the full extent of the injuries is known or the foreseeability evidence is developed. The purpose of an early offer is to close the file cheaply before the family understands what the case is actually worth. The counter is patience: the case is worth more after discovery, after the life-care plan is built, and after the insurer understands that the foreseeability evidence will reach a jury.
Play 5: The recorded statement request. Someone friendly will call to “check on you” and ask you to “just tell us what happened” on a recording engineered to be quoted against you. The counter is simple: do not give a recorded statement without counsel. The adjuster is not your friend. The recording is not a formality. It is evidence.
For a direct explanation of what not to say to an insurance adjuster, this video covers the specific traps.
How a Negligent Security Case Is Built
Here is the chronological walk of how a negligent-security shooting case is actually built — from the day a family calls to the day a number is put on the table.
Week one: preservation. The preservation letter goes out to the operating business, the property owner, any contracted security company, and the insurance carrier. It demands that all surveillance footage, incident reports, sweep logs, employee statements, hiring and training records, security contracts, lease agreements, and insurance policies be frozen. It puts the defendants on notice that destruction of evidence after receipt of the letter will support an adverse-inference instruction and spoliation sanctions. Simultaneously, open-records requests go to the Ector County Sheriff’s Office and the Odessa Police Department for incident reports and calls-for-service history at the address. TABC records requests are filed.
Weeks two through eight: records and discovery. The records come in — police reports, calls-for-service data, TABC complaint files, the establishment’s insurance declarations. We review them for the foreseeability pattern. We identify former employees who can describe the security conditions at the establishment: whether there were guards, whether cameras worked, whether door staff screened patrons, whether management had been warned about dangers. Employee turnover in the bar industry is rapid, so this work starts early.
Months two through six: expert work. A board-certified security expert conducts a CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) audit of the premises, analyzing the adequacy of security measures relative to the documented risk profile. The expert reviews the calls-for-service history, the TABC complaint file, the area-crime data, and the physical conditions of the property. The expert’s report opines on whether the establishment’s security was reasonable given what the business knew or should have known — and if not, what measures would have prevented the shooting.
If dram-shop exposure exists — if the shooter was served alcohol while obviously intoxicated — a forensic toxicologist reviews blood-alcohol records from the hospital, TABC service records, and any available point-of-sale data from the establishment. The toxicologist opines on whether the service pattern meets the Texas dram-shop standard.
Months six through twelve: depositions and Stowers. The depositions are where the safety director, the owner, the manager, and the security staff explain the establishment’s choices under oath. Did they know about prior incidents? Did they consider hiring security? Did they have a written security plan? Did they train staff on violence de-escalation? The answers build the breach. After the foreseeability evidence and the damages picture are developed, the Stowers demand is presented — a reasonable demand within policy limits that triggers the insurer’s duty to settle. If the insurer refuses and the verdict exceeds the limits, the insurer faces excess exposure.
Mediation and trial. Mediation is appropriate only after key discovery is in hand. Mediating too early — before the calls-for-service history, the TABC record, and the security expert’s report are assembled — undervalues the foreseeability component, which is the spine of the case. If mediation does not resolve the case, the matter proceeds to trial in the Ector County courthouse, where the jury will be drawn from the community — a Permian Basin jury pool that includes a large oilfield-worker demographic with late-night entertainment familiarity and real-world understanding of what a bar on Andrews Highway is like after 11 p.m.
The First 72 Hours: What Families Should Do
If you are reading this in the first hours or days after a shooting at a commercial establishment — whether in Odessa or anywhere in Texas — here is what matters most.
Medical first. If the surviving victim is hospitalized, authorize preservation of all medical records from the night of the shooting — surgical reports, imaging, toxicology panels, nursing notes. These anchor both causation and damages. The medical record is the foundation; everything else is built on it.
Do not give a recorded statement to the business’s insurance company. The adjuster will call. They will sound sympathetic. They will ask you to “just tell us what happened.” Everything you say will be transcribed and parsed for any phrase that can be used to reduce the value of the claim — “I feel okay,” “I’m not sure what happened,” “I didn’t see the gun.” Do not speak to the insurance company without counsel.
Do not sign anything. A release may arrive with a check attached. It is designed to close the file before the family understands what was lost. Do not sign it.
Do not post on social media. The insurance company and its investigators monitor social media. A photograph, a check-in, a comment about the incident — all of it can be screenshotted and used. A post that says “feeling lucky to be alive” can be quoted as evidence that the injuries were not severe. Stay off social media until the case is resolved.
Preserve evidence. If anyone in the family has photographs or video from inside the establishment on the night of the shooting, save them. If there are receipts, credit-card statements, or other proof of patronage, keep them. If the surviving victim’s clothing from the night was retained by law enforcement or by the hospital, document its location.
Call a lawyer. The preservation letter that freezes the surveillance footage, the employee records, and the insurance policies goes out the day you call — not the day you decide to sue. The evidence clock is already running. Every day that passes is a day the establishment’s DVR may overwrite the footage, a day a former employee may leave town, a day a record may be purged.
Why Attorney911
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he asks questions for a living and knows how to build a story a jury can follow. He is admitted to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas and has been practicing law in Texas since November 1998. He leads the active $10M+ hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi at the University of Houston. Read more about Ralph.
Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney. He spent years at a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the claim is fed into valuation software that discounts the pain it cannot see. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Read more about Lupe.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The first call is free, and it is confidential. We have live staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service. When you call 1-888-ATTY-911 at 2 a.m., you talk to a person who can help.
We have recovered more than $50 million for our clients, including a $5M+ brain-injury settlement, a $3.8M+ amputation settlement, and millions in trucking wrongful-death cases. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But the method that produced those results — fast evidence preservation, thorough discovery, expert-driven proof, and a willingness to try the case when the insurer will not pay — is the same method we bring to every negligent-security shooting case.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue a bar if I was shot on their property in Texas?
Yes. Texas premises-liability law allows you to sue a business that failed to take reasonable security measures against foreseeable criminal violence. The shooter’s criminal prosecution is a separate track and does not prevent you from pursuing a civil claim against the establishment, the property owner, or any contracted security company. The key question is whether the business knew or should have known that violence was a risk on its premises and failed to act reasonably in response.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit after a shooting in Texas?
Texas generally gives you two years from the date of the injury or death to file a lawsuit. This is the statute of limitations for both personal injury and wrongful death claims under Texas law. The deadline is unforgiving — miss it and the case is barred, no matter how strong the evidence. There are limited tolling exceptions, including for minors, but you should never assume an exception applies without confirming with a lawyer in your specific situation.
What if I was partly at fault for being at the bar late at night?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. If you are found to be 51% or more at fault, you are barred from recovery. If you are less than 51% at fault, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault. Being present at a lawful business at a lawful hour is not negligence. The defense will try to pin fault on the victim — for being out late, for drinking, for not leaving — but a patron who is not engaged in criminal conduct has a right to expect reasonable protection from the business that invited them in.
The shooter was arrested — does that affect my civil case?
No. The criminal prosecution and the civil case are separate tracks. The shooter’s arrest and conviction are evidence in the civil case, but they do not determine whether the business is liable. The civil case focuses on what the business did or did not do to prevent the shooting — its security measures, its history of prior incidents, its knowledge of the danger. The criminal case addresses the shooter’s accountability; the civil case addresses the establishment’s accountability.
Does the bar’s insurance cover shootings?
It depends on the specific policy. Commercial general liability policies may cover negligent-security claims, but many contain assault-and-battery exclusions that the insurer will try to invoke. If the establishment holds a TABC permit and served alcohol, separate liquor liability coverage may apply. Umbrella and excess policies may provide additional layers above the primary coverage. Identifying the full coverage stack — including all policies, limits, and exclusions — is part of the early discovery work. The adjuster’s first statement about coverage is rarely the complete picture.
What if the bar says they didn’t know violence would happen?
That is the foreseeability defense, and it is the central battleground in every negligent-security case. The counter is the evidence: prior calls for service to the address, prior incidents at the establishment, TABC complaints, area crime data, and the testimony of former employees. A business cannot claim ignorance when police were called repeatedly, when prior fights occurred, or when the surrounding corridor has a documented history of violent crime. The foreseeability case is built in discovery — and the strength of that evidence is the single biggest factor in what the case is worth.
Can I recover for my loved one’s pain before they died?
Yes. Texas has a survival action that belongs to the estate of the deceased person. It compensates the pain, suffering, and mental anguish the victim experienced between the injury and death, plus medical expenses incurred before death and funeral costs. The time between the shooting and death is critical — a victim who survived for hours, conscious and in pain, carries a different survival claim than one who died instantly. The medical records, the surgical reports, and the nursing notes document the suffering the survival action compensates.
How much is a negligent security shooting case worth?
The value depends on two variables: the strength of the foreseeability evidence and the severity of the harm. With minimal prior-incident evidence and limited insurance coverage, the case may fall in the $750,000 to $1,500,000 range. With documented prior violent incidents, TABC complaints, multiple police calls for service, no security measures, and substantial coverage, the case can reach $5,000,000 to $15,000,000 or more. Punitive damages are available against premises defendants if gross negligence is shown — knowledge of repeated prior violent incidents and deliberate failure to implement basic security. No lawyer can promise a specific result; the value is built from the evidence, the medical records, the life-care plan, and the coverage, and it is ultimately a jury that decides.
What if the bar had security cameras but nobody was watching them?
Cameras that record but are not monitored can actually support the plaintiff’s case. The existence of cameras shows that the business recognized the need for surveillance — which is an admission that the risk was foreseeable. But cameras that are not monitored, not functioning, or whose footage is not preserved are security theater, not security. The question is not whether the business installed cameras; it is whether the security measures it chose were reasonable and adequate given the known risk. A camera that records over itself every 30 days and is never reviewed by anyone is worse than no camera at all, because it creates a false sense of safety.
Does Texas have dram shop laws that apply to shootings?
Yes. If the establishment held a TABC permit and served alcohol to the shooter while the shooter was obviously intoxicated to the extent that they presented a clear danger to themselves or others, Texas dram shop law creates a statutory cause of action against the provider. Dram shop is a separate theory from negligent security, with its own elements, and it may open a separate insurance tower (liquor liability coverage). The dram shop claim requires proof of over-service — which is why the toxicology records, the point-of-sale data, and the testimony of bartenders and patrons are critical.
If Your Family Was Harmed, Call Us
If someone you love was shot at a business in Odessa, Ector County, or anywhere in the Permian Basin — whether at Pat’s Place on Andrews Highway or at any establishment that failed to protect the people inside its walls — the evidence is disappearing and the clock is running. The preservation letter that freezes the footage, the employee records, and the insurance policies goes out the day you call.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with live staff — not an answering service. We do not get paid unless we win your case. Contact us today.
Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña conducts full consultations in Spanish, without an interpreter, and our bilingual staff is here for your family.
The shooting at Pat’s Place happened in November 2022. The evidence from that night may be gone. But if your family is facing a similar situation — at a bar, a venue, or any business in Texas that opened its doors and failed to keep the danger out — the evidence from your night is still alive. The question is whether someone moves to save it before it erases itself. That is what we do. That is the first thing we do. And the day you call is the day that work begins.