According to Time.com, a Texas man was recently sentenced to 45 years in prison for repeat drunk driving offenses. By the time this individual was slapped with a harsh sentence, he had already been convicted of drunken driving four times, the 45 year prison sentence marking the punishment for his fifth conviction. When he was pulled over, the driver had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, according to the same report.
While Texas does have harsh penalties for drunk driving, particularly for repeat offenders, these sensational punishments and eye-catching headlines do little for the families who are victimized by drunk drivers. What they do mean, however, is that society is not patient with drunken drivers and has little sympathy for them. This can play into your odds of winning a civil case against an intoxicated driver that injured you or caused you property damage.
Lawsuits and DWI
If you happen to be injured by a drunk driver, you generally do have the option of filing a lawsuit for negligence. You have to have been injured or suffered some sort of property damage to file one of these lawsuits. The entire point of people being able to file these lawsuits if so that they can get compensated for the damage, pain and suffering and other hardships that they were caused by the negligence of another individual. If you were so injured, contacting an attorney is advisable.
What Can a Drunk Driving Injury Attorney Do?
The parts of the law that provide for the punishment of drunken drivers are criminal. Civil law is what personal injury attorneys deal in. Prosecutors will go after the drunken driver that injured you for whatever legal punishments they can assess. What your personal injury attorney will do is take a look at the case and see if it would be worth your while to file a lawsuit against the driver.
The lawsuit that the attorney helps you to prepare will take into account things such as any injuries you suffered, any property damage caused by the drunken driver, your pain and suffering, your lost wages and the other expenses that were the direct results of the drunken driver’s negligence. Drunken driving can often times be construed as negligence, as the driver did not take the reasonable measure of refraining from driving when they were intoxicated and, therefore, they brought harm to others unnecessarily.
When you speak with an attorney, remember that the first meeting is simply to determine whether or not the attorney thinks that they can help you. A good Houston personal injury attorney will not take the claim if they don’t think they can win. If they feel that they’re the right attorney to represent you against the driver that injured you, they may want to take your claim and start doing the work of reconstructing what happened and determining where negligence played a part. If they don’t want to take your claim, personal injury attorneys will generally tell you right away, saving you time and preventing you from accruing any legal fees.