Legal Services
Pasadena Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer
A Pasadena drunk driving accident lawyer pulls the records the DWI investigation produced, identifies the insurance policies that may cover the injury claim, and handles the insurance company while you are still in treatment. DWI means driving while intoxicated, the Texas term for drunk driving.
Ceja Law Firm works to recover compensation for medical care, lost income and what the injury still keeps you from doing.
Plenty of people assume the arrest takes care of the rest. A criminal case can punish the driver; a separate injury claim seeks payment for treatment and lost income.
If a drunk driver hurt you or a family member in Pasadena, Texas, contact Ceja Law Firm today for a free, confidential consultation before you give a recorded statement or sign a release.
Pasadena Drunk Driving Accident Attorney: What to Do Right Now
Get medical care, write down the police case number, and let a Pasadena drunk driving accident attorney deal with the insurance company before you give any recorded statement.
Most people leave the scene with almost none of this. You do not need a complete file to make the first call.
Here is what protects you in the first days:
See a doctor, even if you walked away. Dated medical records answer when each symptom started and what treatment followed.
Get the police case number and the agency that responded. A DWI investigation can create records held by that agency, a prosecutor in a charged case, and a testing lab if a sample was analyzed.
Photograph the vehicles, the lane, the signals and any visible injuries before anything gets repaired or cleaned up.
Save witness names and phone numbers. Someone who watched the other driver stumble or slur his words saw something no report captured.
Keep every letter, email and voicemail an insurance company sends you.
Those records give you a better chance of showing what happened before vehicles are repaired, witnesses move, or privately held video is gone. If an adjuster has already called, get a free case review from Ceja Law Firm first.
Can a Pasadena DWI Accident Lawyer Use the Arrest as Proof?
A Pasadena DWI accident lawyer can use the records the arrest produced, though the arrest by itself does not prove who caused the crash or decide what an insurance company has to pay.
The two cases ask different questions. The State asks whether the driver committed a crime, and it has to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. Your injury claim asks who caused the collision, what injuries it caused, and what those injuries cost you. Civil cases in Texas normally use a lower standard called preponderance of the evidence, which means a fact is more likely true than not.
Texas defines intoxicated as loss of the normal use of your mental or physical abilities because of alcohol or another substance, or an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more (Texas Penal Code §49.01). That is the question the officer investigated on the road. It is not the same as who ran the light.
Something else surprises people: you can still bring an injury claim when the driver is never convicted. A criminal case can end because prosecutors could not prove the DWI charge beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a different question from whether the available evidence supports your civil claim for fault, causation and damages.
Waiting for the criminal case to finish can hurt the civil claim. Treatment continues, the adjuster builds a file, and privately held video may stop being available while a court date gets reset. A Pasadena DWI accident attorney can move on the civil claim while that criminal case is still on the docket.
* Images may include staff or dramatizations and are for illustrative purposes only.
What Evidence From the DWI Investigation Helps Your Claim?
Body camera video, field sobriety test records, breath or blood results and the crash report each answer a different question: whether the driver was intoxicated, how the crash happened, and what people saw afterward. A Pasadena drunk driving injury lawyer reads them together, not one at a time.
| Record | Who usually has it | What it can show |
|---|---|---|
| Crash report (CR-3) | TxDOT and the investigating agency | Drivers, vehicles and scene, and what the officer wrote down. It does not decide legal responsibility. |
| Body camera and patrol video | The investigating agency | How the driver looked, walked and spoke after impact |
| Field sobriety test records | The agency, and the prosecutor in a charged case | Which roadside tests were given and what the officer observed |
| Breath or blood results | The agency, prosecutor or testing lab, depending on how the sample was taken | Alcohol or drug findings from one specific moment |
| The 911 call | The dispatching agency | What callers reported while the crash was fresh |
Blood evidence is more technical than it looks. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Toxicology Section tests biological samples for alcohol and drugs in DWI investigations. A result answers one question and says nothing about who had the green light.
Some of the most useful video never reaches the police. A gas station on Shaver Street, a strip center near Southmore Avenue or a restaurant off Burke Road may have caught the traffic before impact, and each business decides on its own how long to keep that footage. A written preservation request asks a business to hold a specific recording while it may still exist, and if a lawsuit follows, discovery and subpoenas give formal ways to reach records nobody handed over. That is why cameras are one of the first things a drunk driving accident lawyer in Pasadena, TX asks about.
TxDOT counted 86 crashes in Pasadena during 2024 in the category it labels DUI (Alcohol), two of them fatal and four with suspected serious injuries (TxDOT DUI crashes by city). DUI is the label on the state data sheet; DWI is the term Texas law uses for the intoxicated-driving offense. That number describes the city, not your collision.
Who Pays for Your Injuries After a Pasadena Drunk Driving Crash?
The drunk driver’s liability insurance is usually the first source of payment, though those limits can run out long before a serious injury stops costing you money.
Texas requires drivers to carry at least $30,000 in bodily injury coverage for one injured person and $60,000 when two or more people are hurt in the same crash (Texas Transportation Code §601.072). Those are legal minimums, not a measure of what a claim is worth, and a serious injury can generate medical bills and missed work beyond them.
Your own auto policy can become important when the other driver carries no insurance or too little of it, and a Pasadena intoxicated driver accident lawyer looks there second.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, called UM/UIM, pays covered injury losses when the responsible driver has no insurance or not enough of it. Texas insurers must include it unless a named insured turned it down in writing (Texas Insurance Code §1952.101).
Personal injury protection, called PIP, can pay covered medical bills and part of your lost income early, without a wait for the claim against the other driver to finish. Texas policies include PIP unless a named insured rejected it in writing (Texas Insurance Code §1952.152).
A commercial policy can come into the claim when the driver was working. What matters is the job he was doing, his relationship to the company and whether that policy covers it. Driving a company truck does not by itself make the employer responsible.
The same coverage questions run an ordinary Pasadena car accident claim, with one more layer here. Your declarations page, the sheet that lists your coverages and limits, is one of the first documents worth digging out. Plenty of drivers never learn what they bought until the month they need it.
Can a Bar in Pasadena Be Sued for Serving a Drunk Driver?
A bar, restaurant or store can be sued in Texas, but only when the evidence shows two things: that it was apparent to the seller the person was obviously drunk to the point of being a clear danger, and that the drunkenness was a proximate cause of the damages (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code §2.02). Proximate cause is the legal link between the drinking and the harm.
That is narrower than most advertising suggests. A business does not become responsible simply because the driver had been there earlier that night.
Some of the evidence a dram shop claim needs may never become part of the DWI file: itemized receipts and tabs with timestamps, point of sale data, and interior surveillance. Those records can stay with the business unless somebody asks for them, or unless a lawsuit creates a formal way to obtain them. Witnesses sit outside all of that, since the servers who worked that shift and the customers who watched hold what they saw.
A private person who hands out beer at a house party sits under a different, much narrower rule. Texas reaches an adult of 21 or older only when the alcohol went to a minor under 18, the adult was not that minor’s parent, guardian, spouse or court-appointed custodian, and the adult knowingly served it or allowed it to be served on property the adult owns or leases (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code §2.02(c)).
When the facts support a claim against a business, that business can become another legally responsible party, and separate liability coverage may provide another source of payment for treatment and lost income. That possibility is what makes a Pasadena alcohol-related crash lawyer ask early where the driver had been drinking.
What Can a Pasadena Drunk Driving Injury Attorney Claim for You?
A Pasadena drunk driving injury attorney can seek payment for medical bills already charged, treatment your doctors still expect, income you lost, reduced earning capacity, physical pain, mental anguish and physical impairment.
Each of those needs its own paperwork. Medical records show the diagnosis, the treatment and any work restrictions. Pay stubs, schedules and tax records show the income. Reduced earning capacity, a lower ability to earn later, gets built from medical restrictions plus your work history.
Some of the loss never shows up on an invoice. The overtime you turned down. The yard somebody else had to cut. The nights you slept in the recliner because the bed made your back worse.
An offer can land before any of that is clear, sometimes before the imaging has been read. A release closes the claims its language covers, so what the document says matters more than the number on the check.
Texas also allows exemplary damages, often called punitive damages, which punish conduct instead of paying for a loss. They are not automatic after a drunk driving crash. The law requires clear and convincing evidence of fraud, malice or gross negligence (Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §41.003), and an arrest or a high blood alcohol number does not meet that standard on its own.
If an insurance company has already put a number in front of you, we can review the offer and the release at no cost.
How Long Do You Have to File After a Pasadena Drunk Driving Crash?
Texas generally gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit, and exceptions can change that date (Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.003).
That deadline runs on the lawsuit. Privately held video, witness contact information and the physical condition of the vehicles can become harder to obtain long before it arrives.
So the filing deadline tells you when a lawsuit becomes too late. It tells you nothing about how long the proof will wait, and that is why a Pasadena drunk driver accident lawyer works from the records instead of the calendar.
What a Pasadena DWI Injury Lawyer Sees in the Police File
A Pasadena DWI injury lawyer who has worked criminal cases reads the report, the video and the lab result the way the State reads them, and knows what a DWI file leaves out.
Jose Ceja began his legal career as a felony prosecutor. He has completed coursework in driving under the influence (DUI) and DWI standardized field sobriety testing and continuing education on the defense of intoxication offenses, including the science of breath and blood testing.
In an injury claim that background does specific work. It shows which agencies and laboratories to ask, and in what order. It separates what a blood result establishes from what it does not. And it keeps an officer’s conclusion about intoxication distinct from the observations, the testing and the collision evidence underneath it.
None of that replaces the civil side of the case. Somebody still has to find the policies, document the treatment, prove the missed income and show what the injury changed at work and at home. That civil work turns the evidence into a claim for the treatment, the lost income and the other losses the crash caused.
Common Questions About Pasadena Drunk Driving Accident Claims
A civil injury claim can still be possible without a DWI conviction. The two cases use different burdens of proof, and evidence from the DWI investigation can still support the civil claim.
Texas proportionate responsibility bars recovery when your assigned share is greater than 50 percent (Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §33.001). At 50 percent or less, the court reduces your damages by that percentage (§33.012).
Being undocumented does not by itself prevent you from bringing a Texas personal injury claim. Status can come up when future lost earnings are calculated, which is a reason to have a lawyer handling it and not a reason to stay quiet. Consultations are 100% confidential, and speaking with an attorney does not notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or any government agency.
We work on a contingency fee: you pay no attorney’s fees out of pocket to get started. Our fees are collected only if we recover money on your behalf, under the terms of the applicable agreement.
That becomes a hit and run investigation in Pasadena. Your uninsured motorist coverage can matter, though when the driver is never identified Texas requires UM policies to include a provision that the unknown vehicle must have made actual physical contact with you or your car (Texas Insurance Code §1952.104).
Texas recognizes wrongful death and survival claims for certain family members and for the estate (Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 71). They cover different losses and follow different rules than an injury claim.
Let Ceja Law Firm Read the DWI File Before You Sign Anything
At Ceja Law Firm we read the DWI file, the insurance papers and your medical records before you sign anything. We start with the police case number, the investigating agency and whatever the adjuster has sent you.
Jose Ceja is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, which is why the police file gets read closely, not taken at face value.
We meet by appointment at 4008 Vista Rd., Suite A101, and take drunk driving injury claims across Pasadena, including Golden Acres and Stadium Estates. We will review your case at no cost, and you pay no fee unless we recover compensation for you. Tell us what happened in Spanish if that is easier.
Contact Ceja Law Firm today to talk with a Pasadena drunk driving accident lawyer.
Call 713-993-7959. Available 24/7. Se habla español.
Free Consultation | No Fee Unless We Win | 713-993-7959 | Hablamos Español
