Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer in Corpus Christi

The other driver got arrested. That still leaves one big question: what happens to your claim now? It runs on its own track, on its own legal standard, and it should start moving well before their court date ever arrives.

Two cases, two rulebooks

A criminal DWI case and your injury claim share the same crash, but nothing else about them matches. The state has to prove the driver committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, a tough standard built for punishment. Your claim only needs to show it’s more likely than not that carelessness caused your injuries, a much lower bar to clear. A dropped charge or an acquittal in criminal court doesn’t erase that difference. Your civil claim can still move forward, and it can still succeed, on its own facts.

What their arrest already put on paper

An arrest builds a paper trail most crash victims never get handed to them. The police report, the officer’s own account of the stop, and often a breath or blood test result all land in the file before you’ve even called anyone. None of it guarantees your claim on its own, but it gives an attorney a real head start compared to an ordinary fender-bender where the facts are still up for grabs.

When a bar shares part of the blame

In some situations, a bar or restaurant that kept serving someone who was visibly intoxicated can carry part of the responsibility too, though that depends heavily on the specific facts of the night. Courts can also award more than your basic losses in especially reckless cases like this one, though that outcome is far from automatic and shouldn’t be treated as a given.

Their prosecution doesn’t pause your countdown

Criminal cases can drag on for months, sometimes past a year, before a plea deal or trial date lands. Your own filing window keeps running that whole time; the statute of limitations guide walks through how that clock works. Waiting for their case to resolve before you look into yours can cost you time you don’t get back. If the crash took someone’s life, a family faces a separate clock of its own, and it’s worth understanding early too.

What your claim is worth depends on your injuries, your bills, and the policies involved, not on how the criminal case turns out. See how a claim like this typically gets valued, then send yours through the free review so an independent Texas attorney can weigh your specific facts.