In many cases, yes.
But the right question is: why?
Being hit by a drunk driver feels like one of the clearest personal injury cases imaginable.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.
While intoxication often creates powerful evidence of negligence, it does not automatically guarantee compensation. Like every Texas injury claim, a successful case still depends on proving what happened, preserving the right evidence, and demonstrating how the crash affected your life.
At Diamond Injury Law, we’ve seen these cases from multiple perspectives.
Attorney Raphael Ortega spent years handling criminal DWI cases before representing injured victims, giving our team a unique understanding of how intoxication evidence is gathered, challenged, and ultimately used in court.
If you’ve been hit by a drunk driver in Conroe or anywhere in Montgomery County, here’s what determines whether you have a case and how to protect it.
What You Must Prove After Being Hit by a Drunk Driver
A drunk driving injury claim is a negligence claim. To have a case, you need to establish four things.
A Duty of Care
Every driver on Conroe roads owes everyone else a duty to drive safely and sober. This element is rarely disputed. Getting behind the wheel creates the duty.
A Breach of That Duty
Driving intoxicated breaches it. Under Texas law, a driver 21 or older is legally intoxicated at a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent, a commercial driver at 0.04 percent, and a driver under 21 with any detectable alcohol.
Texas also defines intoxication as losing the normal use of mental or physical faculties, which means a driver may be impaired for legal purposes even below those numbers.
From years of handling DWI cases, one lesson becomes clear: Blood alcohol concentration is only one piece of the picture. Police officers also document driving behavior, field sobriety testing, witness observations, body camera footage, admissions, and dozens of other facts that may become important later.
Many injury victims never realize how much evidence exists beyond a breath or blood test.
Causation
You must connect the impairment to the crash.
It is not enough that the other driver was drunk. The evidence has to show their intoxication, and not something else, caused the collision.
This distinction surprises many people. A driver can be arrested for DWI, yet the intoxication itself may not have caused the collision.
Likewise, a driver may never face criminal charges, but the available evidence can still establish civil liability. The criminal case and the personal injury case often overlap, but they are not the same case, and they operate under different legal standards.
Damages
Finally, you must show real losses. Medical bills, lost wages, property damage, reduced earning capacity, and pain and suffering all count. Without actual harm, there is no claim to bring, even against an obviously drunk driver.
Successfully proving these elements requires much more than obtaining a police report.
Evidence can disappear. Witnesses move. Businesses overwrite surveillance footage. Vehicles get repaired. Electronic data is lost.
The strongest cases are usually built early, before those opportunities disappear.
At Diamond Injury Law, our Conroe drunk driving accident attorneys step in early to take control of the process. We preserve the record, manage the insurance companies, and build the case while the proof still exists.
What Happens Once You Have a Case
Many people believe that because the other driver was arrested, the insurance company will simply pay the claim. Unfortunately, that’s rarely how it works.
The criminal prosecution focuses on whether the driver violated Texas criminal law. The insurance company focuses on limiting what it pays. Those are two very different objectives.
Having a case does not mean going straight to a courtroom. Most drunk driving claims follow a two-stage path.
The first stage is an insurance claim. Once your treatment and losses are documented, a demand letter goes to the drunk driver’s insurance company laying out the evidence and the compensation owed. Many cases resolve here through negotiation, and a well-built demand backed by strong evidence is what makes that possible.
The second stage is a lawsuit, and it becomes the right move when the insurer denies the claim, delays it, or refuses to make a fair offer. For a Conroe crash, that lawsuit would typically be filed in the Montgomery County courts. Filing does not mean the case will end in a trial. Most still settle. But insurers negotiate very differently with a firm that has already shown it will file.
One advantage of having counsel familiar with both criminal and civil proceedings is understanding how developments in one case may affect the other.
Witness testimony, body camera footage, toxicology evidence, and plea negotiations can all become relevant in building a civil claim. Knowing when, and how, to use that information strategically can make a meaningful difference.
When a drunk driving crash takes a life, surviving family members may pursue a wrongful death claim or a survival action instead, and the same two-stage path generally applies.
When You Might Not Have a Case
An honest evaluation matters as much as an optimistic one.
A few situations can defeat an otherwise valid claim:
- No actual damages. If the crash caused no injury or measurable loss, there is nothing for a claim to recover, no matter how drunk the driver was.
- Too much of the fault is yours. Texas bars recovery for a victim found more than 50 percent responsible for the crash, and insurers push fault in your direction for exactly that reason.
- The deadline has passed. Texas generally allows two years from the date of the accident to file. After that, even a strong case is usually lost.
One situation that does not defeat your case: the driver fleeing the scene. A hit-and-run makes the process harder, not hopeless.
Your own uninsured motorist coverage may apply, and our hit-and-run accident attorneys handle exactly these situations.
What Makes Montgomery County Drunk Driving Cases Unique?
If your crash occurred in Montgomery County, it helps to understand that drunk driving collisions are often investigated differently than they are in many other parts of Texas.
Montgomery County has built a reputation for treating impaired driving as a major public safety priority. The District Attorney’s Office maintains a dedicated Vehicular Crimes Unit that works alongside law enforcement in the county’s most serious intoxication-related crashes, including intoxication assault and intoxication manslaughter cases.
The office also operates a nationally recognized No Refusal Blood Draw Program, designed to preserve scientific evidence in DWI investigations.
That commitment extends beyond the District Attorney’s Office.
Law enforcement agencies throughout Montgomery County regularly conduct coordinated No Refusal enforcement initiatives involving the Sheriff’s Office, local police departments, the Texas Department of Public Safety, multiple Constable Precincts, and prosecutors working together to investigate impaired driving offenses.
The county also experiences a significant number of DWI arrests every year. Local reporting noted approximately 2,671 DWI arrests in a single year, including hundreds of felony repeat offenders and dozens of cases involving children in the vehicle.
For an injured victim, those facts matter because a thorough criminal investigation often produces valuable evidence that may also support a civil injury claim.
Depending on the circumstances, that evidence may include:
- Body camera footage
- Dash camera video
- Blood warrant affidavits
- Toxicology testing
- Crash reconstruction
- Officer observations
- Witness interviews
- Photographs and scene documentation
- Dispatch recordings
Of course, every case is different, and not every investigation will include all of this evidence. But understanding how Montgomery County investigates intoxication-related crashes can help identify important evidence that might otherwise be overlooked.
At Diamond Injury Law, attorney Raphael Ortega has handled these investigations from both sides of the courtroom, as a former prosecutor and as a criminal defense attorney before representing injured victims. That experience provides insight into how intoxication evidence is gathered, challenged, preserved, and, when appropriate, used to strengthen a civil injury claim.
What This Means for Your Case in Conroe
Drunk driving crashes in the Conroe area tend to happen on the roads locals know well: I-45, Highway 105, Loop 336, and the routes around Lake Conroe, especially at night and on weekends.
If your crash happens here, the evidence that decides your case is local too: the responding agency’s crash report, nearby business cameras, and witnesses who scatter quickly.
Our golden hour checklist for what to do after a crash walks through exactly what to capture at the scene before it disappears.
You don’t need to know today whether you have a case. You only need to know the facts before important evidence disappears.
We’ll review what happened. We’ll explain how the criminal investigation may intersect with your injury claim. And we’ll give you an honest assessment of your options, without pressure and without obligation.
Our office sits in Shenandoah, minutes down I-45 from Conroe, and we work on a contingency fee basis, so there are no upfront costs and you do not pay unless we recover compensation for you.
If a drunk driver has hit you or someone you love, contact Diamond Injury Law for a free 30-minute consultation.
Call (832) 406-4119 to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions About Proving a Drunk Driving Case
What evidence do I need to prove a drunk driving accident case?
The strongest cases combine the official record with scene evidence: the Texas crash report, blood alcohol or toxicology results, witness statements, photos and video from the scene, and sometimes bar or restaurant receipts showing where the driver was served. Dashcam and nearby surveillance footage can be decisive, but it is often overwritten within days, which is why acting early matters.
In some cases, evidence generated during the criminal investigation, such as body camera recordings, dispatch audio, search warrant affidavits, or forensic testing, may also become important in evaluating a civil claim.
Can I still recover compensation if the drunk driver was never convicted?
Yes. A personal injury claim and a criminal prosecution are separate legal matters with different standards of proof. A lack of a criminal conviction does not automatically prevent an injured person from pursuing compensation if the available evidence establishes negligence.
Can evidence from the criminal case be used in my injury claim?
Sometimes. Depending on the circumstances, evidence collected during the criminal investigation, including body camera footage, toxicology evidence, witness statements, and crash reconstruction, may also become important in evaluating or proving a civil claim. The specific evidence available varies case to case.
What if the insurance company already offered me a settlement?
Be careful. Early offers usually arrive before the full extent of your injuries is known, and accepting one generally ends your claim for good, even if your condition worsens later. Have an attorney review any offer before you sign anything. A quick offer often signals that the insurer knows the case against its driver is strong.
Do I have a case if my injuries seemed minor at first?
You may. Injuries like concussions, whiplash, and internal trauma often surface hours or days after a crash, once adrenaline fades. What matters is getting evaluated promptly and documenting symptoms as they appear, so the medical record connects your injuries to the crash rather than leaving a gap the insurer can attack.
Do I need the police report to have a case?
It helps enormously, but it is not the whole case. The Texas crash report is often the starting point for establishing fault, and you can obtain a copy through the Texas Department of Transportation. If no report was filed, a case can still be built from medical records, witness accounts, photos, and other evidence.
Does a guilty plea automatically mean I win my injury case?
Not automatically. A guilty plea may strengthen certain aspects of a civil claim, but you must still prove that the driver’s conduct caused your injuries and establish the damages you sustained. Civil and criminal proceedings address different legal questions.
