In the criminal case, intoxication is a number. In the civil case, it is a decision, and the decision is what unlocks more than ordinary negligence.
The criminal side asks one thing: was the driver over the legal limit, or had he lost the normal use of his body or mind. That is DWI. It runs on the State's clock, with the State's burden, for the State's purpose, which is to punish a crime.
The civil side asks something different. A drunk driver who causes a wreck is negligent, yes, but driving drunk is not an accident. It is a choice made before the first drink was finished. When the conduct crosses from careless into a conscious disregard for an extreme and obvious risk, wrong way, far over the limit, for miles, Texas law calls it gross negligence, and that opens the door to exemplary damages, which exist not to repay the loss but to punish the conduct and deter the next one. The price of that door is a higher burden: clear and convincing evidence.
And the bottle usually has more than one hand on it. Texas dram shop law can reach the bar or the host that kept serving someone already obviously intoxicated to the point of clear danger. The driver is the first defendant, not always the only one.
The move: the criminal case and the civil case are not the same case, and neither waits on the other. The prosecutor proves a crime; the family proves a wrong. The evidence for the civil claim has to be preserved on its own, the blood draw, the receipts, the server's training records, the timeline, because the criminal file may be sealed, delayed, or aimed at a different question than yours.
One caution. Intoxication under investigation is not intoxication proven. The early label can be wrong, and the civil case has to stand on its own facts, not borrow a headline.
The criminal offense is Tex. Penal Code § 49.04; exemplary damages and the clear-and-convincing standard are in Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 41; provider liability is the Texas Dram Shop Act, Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 2.02. General information, not legal advice.
