A 13-Year-Old Died on a Permian Basin Road. Here Is What Your Family Needs to Know — and What to Do Right Now.
If you are reading this, someone you love — a child, a grandchild, a sibling, a student, a friend’s kid who felt like your own — was killed in a multi-vehicle crash southwest of Monahans. You are not looking for a lawyer right now. You are looking for answers. You want to know what happened on that road. You want to know who is responsible. You want to know whether anyone will be held accountable, or whether this will just become another statistic on a Farm-to-Market road that everyone in Ward County already knows is dangerous.
We are going to tell you the truth about what we know, what we do not yet know, and what happens next — because the legal process can wait while you grieve, but the evidence-preservation clock cannot. Those are two separate timelines, and understanding the difference between them is the most important thing your family can do in these first days. The lawsuit does not need to be filed tomorrow. The evidence that determines whether that lawsuit can ever be won does need to be protected this week.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases across Texas, including the Permian Basin. We are writing to you as the senior trial attorney on this team, and everything on this page is what we would say to you if you were sitting across the table from us right now. This page is legal information, not legal advice — but it is real, specific, and built for exactly the moment you are in. If you need to talk to someone immediately, our hotline is 1-888-ATTY-911, answered 24 hours a day by live staff, not a recording. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
What We Know About the Crash Southwest of Monahans
A 13-year-old was killed in a collision involving multiple vehicles southwest of Monahans, Texas. That is what the public record confirms. What the public record does not yet tell us — and what we would discover as the first order of business — is the full picture: how many vehicles were involved, what types of vehicles they were, what the road conditions were at the time, what time of day it happened, what the weather was doing, whether any driver was impaired or distracted, whether speed played a role, and what the sequence of impacts was that led to this child’s death.
Every one of those unknowns is a discovery target — a question we answer with evidence, not assumption. We do not guess. We do not fill gaps with speculation. We build the case from the physical evidence, the official records, the witness statements, and the electronic data that every modern vehicle and every commercial truck carries.
What we can tell you right now is that the location matters. The area southwest of Monahans is Permian Basin oilfield country — and that fact alone shapes what may have happened on that road in ways that a crash in a suburban Houston intersection or on a Dallas freeway would not.
Why the Permian Basin’s Oilfield Corridor Creates Deadly Conditions on FM Roads
Monahans sits in Ward County, on Interstate 20, about 30 miles west of Odessa. The area southwest of Monahans is served by rural state highways and Farm-to-Market roads — FM 46, Highway 18, and others — that were designed decades ago for low-volume agricultural traffic. Today, those same roads carry something they were never engineered for: the constant, heavy commercial truck traffic of the most productive oilfield in the United States.
Water haulers. Sand haulers. Frac-sand logistics trucks. Crude-oil tankers. Pump trucks. Wireline trucks. Oilfield service vehicles of every description. They run these FM roads at all hours, on narrow two-lane configurations with soft sand shoulders that give a driver no recovery room if a wheel drops off the pavement. The lighting is minimal to nonexistent. The speed limits are high for the road geometry. And the passenger traffic — families, teenagers, school buses, workers commuting to the patch — shares that same road with vehicles that can weigh 80,000 pounds fully loaded.
When a passenger vehicle and a commercial truck collide on a road like this, the physics are merciless. A loaded tractor-trailer has twenty times the mass of a passenger car. The stopping distance for an 80,000-pound rig at highway speed can exceed 500 feet — longer than a football field and a half. On a narrow FM road with soft shoulders, there is often nowhere to go and not enough distance to stop. In a multi-vehicle collision on these roads, the chain of impacts can be devastating, and the vehicle that started the sequence may not be the one that caused the fatal injury.
This is not abstract. This is the daily reality of driving in the Permian Basin, and every family in Ward County lives with it. The question in this crash is whether the road, the conditions, the decisions of one or more drivers, or the failures of a commercial carrier turned an ordinary drive into a funeral.
Texas Wrongful Death Law for Child Victims: Who Can File and What Damages Are Available
Texas law recognizes that when a child is killed by someone else’s negligence, the loss is not just emotional — it is a legal wrong that the civil justice system exists to address. Under Texas’s Wrongful Death Act, the parents, the spouse, and the children of the deceased person have the right to bring a wrongful death claim. For a 13-year-old, that means the parents — and if the parents are deceased or choose not to file, other family members may have standing under specific circumstances. The claim seeks compensation for the losses the family suffered: the mental anguish of losing a child, the loss of the child’s companionship and society, and the loss of the child’s future earning capacity and inheritance.
Texas also permits a separate survival action, brought by the estate of the deceased person, to recover what the child endured between the injury and death — medical expenses, pain and suffering, and, if gross negligence is proven, exemplary damages. If the child survived even briefly after the collision, the survival action captures that interval of conscious pain and suffering, and those damages belong to the estate, not to the family members directly.
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule. What this means in plain language: if the person seeking recovery is found to be 51% or more at fault for the incident, they cannot recover anything. If they are less than 51% at fault, their recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault. In a multi-vehicle collision, fault may be distributed among several drivers — and the insurance companies for each at-fault driver will work aggressively to shift blame away from their insured and toward anyone else, including other drivers and even the victims. Every percentage point of fault assigned to one defendant reduces that defendant’s financial exposure, which is exactly why fault allocation is one of the hardest-fought battles in a multi-vehicle wrongful death case.
Texas permits exemplary damages — what many people call punitive damages — when gross negligence is proven. Gross negligence in Texas means more than ordinary carelessness; it involves a conscious or deliberate disregard for the safety of others. If a driver was intoxicated, was using a cell phone at highway speed, or was operating at reckless speed, those facts may support a gross-negligence finding. Texas generally caps exemplary damages in most personal injury and wrongful death cases, and the specific cap structure should be confirmed against current law at the time of filing. What matters for your family right now is understanding that the facts of the crash — not the headline — determine whether gross negligence is in play, and that the investigation must be built to surface those facts.
The statute of limitations for a wrongful death claim in Texas is generally two years from the date of death. That is the filing deadline, and missing it can permanently bar the claim. But two years feels like a long time, and it is — for the lawsuit. It is not a long time for the evidence, which has clocks measured in hours and days, not years.
The rules in subchapter B of this chapter are applicable to all employers, employees, and commercial motor vehicles that transport property or passengers in interstate commerce.
That is the language of 49 CFR 390.3(a) — the federal regulation that brings the entire Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations framework into play the moment a commercial vehicle is involved. If one of the vehicles in this crash was a commercial truck — and in the Permian Basin, that possibility is always on the table — an entirely separate body of federal law governs what the carrier must do, what records it must keep, and what happens when a fatal crash occurs.
How Commercial Vehicle Involvement Changes Everything: FMCSA Rules and Carrier Liability
We do not yet know whether a commercial vehicle was involved in this crash. The headline says “multiple vehicles” without specifying type. But given the location — southwest of Monahans, in the heart of the Permian Basin oilfield corridor — the possibility is significant enough that we would investigate it as a primary track from day one.
If a commercial vehicle was involved, the case transforms. Here is why:
Federal regulations kick in. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations — 49 CFR Parts 390 through 399 — govern driver qualification, hours of service, vehicle maintenance, and post-accident procedures for commercial motor vehicles operating in interstate commerce. These rules create duties that passenger drivers do not have, and violations of these rules can be powerful evidence of negligence.
Post-accident drug and alcohol testing becomes mandatory. Under 49 CFR 382.303, when a fatal accident occurs involving a commercial motor vehicle operating on a public road in commerce, the employer must test each surviving driver who was performing safety-sensitive functions — regardless of whether a citation was issued. This is not optional. This test, if performed, creates a record that can confirm or rule out impairment as a factor in the crash. If it was not performed, that failure itself is evidence.
As soon as practicable following an occurrence involving a commercial motor vehicle operating on a public road in commerce, each employer shall test for alcohol for each of its surviving drivers: Who was performing safety-sensitive functions with respect to the vehicle.
Electronic logging device data becomes evidence. Commercial vehicles subject to the hours-of-service rules must record driver duty status electronically. Under 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1), motor carriers must retain records of duty status and supporting documents for each driver for not less than six months from the date of receipt. A separate backup copy of ELD records must be maintained for six months on a different device. These records can show how many hours the driver had been behind the wheel at the time of the crash, whether the driver was in compliance with federal hours-of-service limits, and whether fatigue was a factor. Federal law also prohibits disabling, tampering with, or reprogramming ELDs — which means that if a carrier alters or destroys this data after a fatal crash, that act itself is a violation and a powerful piece of evidence.
A motor carrier shall retain records of duty status and supporting documents required under this part for each of its drivers for a period of not less than 6 months from the date of receipt.
The carrier’s liability extends beyond the driver. If a commercial vehicle was involved, the at-fault driver may not be the only defendant. The carrier that employed the driver, the entity that leased the vehicle, the entity that maintained the vehicle, and in some cases the entity that loaded the vehicle can all bear responsibility. A carrier that permitted an unqualified, fatigued, or impaired driver to operate a commercial vehicle may face claims for negligent hiring, negligent entrustment, or inadequate training. A carrier that deferred or skipped maintenance on a vehicle with worn brakes or degraded tires may face claims for negligent maintenance. These are not abstract theories — they are the specific legal avenues that a commercial-vehicle wrongful death case opens, and they can reach defendants with far deeper insurance coverage than a passenger-car driver.
If you want to understand how we approach these cases specifically in the Permian Basin oilfield context, we have written extensively about oilfield commercial truck accidents — the water haulers, the sand trucks, the tanker operations that make these roads deadly. That page covers the specific hazards, the specific regulations, and the specific defendants that oilfield crash cases bring into play.
The Evidence That Disappears in the First 72 Hours After a Fatal Crash
This is the section that matters most in the first days after the crash, and it is the section most families never read in time. The evidence that will determine whether your family’s case can be built — and what it is worth — is already disappearing. Some of it is gone. Some of it has hours left. Some of it has weeks. None of it waits two years for the statute of limitations.
The Texas DPS CR-3 crash report. The Texas Department of Public Safety investigates fatal crash scenes and produces a CR-3 crash report that identifies the vehicles involved, the drivers, the road conditions, a preliminary cause assessment, and any citations issued. This report typically becomes available within 7 to 14 days. It is the foundation document of the case — but it is preliminary, not final, and it reflects the investigating trooper’s on-scene assessment, which can be incomplete or, in a multi-vehicle collision, can allocate fault in ways that later evidence corrects.
Event Data Recorder (EDR) data from every involved vehicle. Every modern vehicle carries a black box — an event data recorder that captures pre-impact speed, braking input, steering input, seatbelt use, and the exact sequence of forces in the seconds before, during, and after the collision. This data is specific, objective, and often decisive in reconstructing what happened. It is also volatile. The vehicle must be preserved before it is repaired, scrapped, or its electronic systems are reset. Once a vehicle is released to an insurance company and sent to a salvage yard or repair facility, the EDR data can be overwritten or the vehicle itself can be destroyed. The preservation letter that freezes that vehicle in place goes out the day you call — not the day the lawsuit is filed.
Commercial vehicle telematics, ELD, and GPS data. If a commercial vehicle was involved, the carrier’s electronic systems capture hours-of-service data, speed, location, and driver behavior in the period before the crash. As we noted, federal law requires six-month retention of ELD records — but active preservation is essential because carriers can overwrite, purge, or “lose” data, and the anti-tampering provisions only help if someone is watching. A preservation demand directed to the carrier within days of the crash freezes this evidence and creates legal consequences if it disappears.
Dashcam and bodycam footage. If any involved vehicle had a dashcam, the footage may capture the entire collision sequence — vehicle positions, speeds, driver behavior, road conditions. Dashcam systems overwrite on a loop, sometimes within hours, sometimes within days. Law enforcement bodycam footage from responding officers may capture the scene before it was cleaned up — vehicle positions, debris, skid marks, driver statements — and this footage is retained longer, but it requires a formal request to obtain. Every day that passes without a preservation demand is a day this footage can cycle out of existence.
Cell phone records of all drivers. If any driver was using a phone at the time of the crash — texting, calling, scrolling — that fact can establish distracted driving as a causation factor and, depending on the circumstances, as a gross-negligence predicate for exemplary damages. Cell phone records are retained by carriers for limited periods, and obtaining them requires a subpoena or a preservation letter sent promptly. The records that prove a driver was looking at a screen instead of the road are the records the at-fault driver’s insurance company has no interest in preserving.
Scene photographs and physical evidence. Skid marks, gouge marks in the pavement, debris fields, fluid spills, and the final resting positions of the vehicles tell the story of the crash to a reconstruction engineer. The scene is cleaned within hours of the incident. Skid marks fade with traffic and weather. Debris is swept. Vehicles are towed. Without photographs taken before the scene is cleaned — by law enforcement, by witnesses, by anyone — the reconstruction engineer is working from a scene that no longer exists. This is why we treat the first 72 hours as the critical preservation window, and why the preservation letter is not a formality — it is the single most important document in the case.
What happens when evidence is destroyed after notice. When a defendant or a third party receives a preservation letter and then allows evidence to be destroyed, the law provides remedies. An adverse-inference instruction allows the jury to presume that the lost evidence was as damaging to the defendant as the plaintiff claims it was. Sanctions are available. In some circumstances, a separate claim for spoliation may arise. The bar for the harshest sanctions is high, but the leverage begins the moment the letter is on file — because once a defendant knows it must preserve evidence and fails to do so, the defendant’s credibility at trial is compromised in ways that affect every other issue in the case.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Do Before the Funeral
We know what the insurance companies do because Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows the playbook from the inside. Now he uses that knowledge for families like yours.
Here are the plays the insurance adjuster is running right now — and the counter to each one.
Play 1: The friendly “just checking in” call. Within days of the crash, someone will call your family. They will sound warm and concerned. They will say they just want to “hear your story” or “get your side of what happened.” The call is recorded. Everything you say is being transcribed and catalogued for use against your claim later. They want you to speculate about what happened, to describe your child’s role in the crash, to say something — anything — that can be quoted later to shift fault toward the victim or reduce the value of the loss.
The counter: Do not take the call. Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster from any involved vehicle’s carrier. You are under no obligation to do so. Anything you say can and will be used against your claim. If an adjuster contacts you, say: “I am not prepared to give a statement at this time. Please contact my attorney.” Then call us.
Play 2: The fast settlement check with a release buried in it. A check may arrive quickly — sometimes within weeks. It may seem generous for a minor claim, or it may be presented as a “goodwill gesture” that does not require anything in return. Read the fine print. It almost always does. A release, once signed, extinguishes your right to pursue the full claim. The check that arrives before the medical records, before the crash report, before the reconstruction is complete, is designed to close the case at the lowest possible number before you know what the case is actually worth.
The counter: Do not sign anything. Do not cash any check from any insurance company without having it reviewed by an attorney. A release signed in the first weeks after a fatal crash is the insurance company’s best-case scenario — and your family’s worst.
Play 3: The surveillance and social-media watch. The insurance company may monitor your family’s social media accounts, looking for posts that can be taken out of context — a photo of you smiling at a family gathering, a comment about moving forward, anything that can be used to argue that the family’s grief is less severe than the claim suggests. In some cases, physical surveillance is deployed. Everything you post becomes potential evidence.
The counter: Do not post about the crash, the legal process, or your family’s emotional state on social media. Set your accounts to private. Tell your extended family and friends to do the same. This is not paranoia — it is standard claims-handling procedure, and Lupe has seen it from the inside.
Play 4: The “you have plenty of time” delay. The adjuster may tell you there is no rush — that the statute of limitations gives you two years, that you should take your time, that the claim will be there whenever you are ready. This sounds compassionate. It is strategy. The longer you wait, the more evidence disappears. Witnesses move. Memories fade. Vehicles get scrapped. ELD data cycles out. The adjuster is not your friend, and the passage of time is the insurance company’s ally, not yours.
The counter: Understand the difference between the two timelines. The legal claim can wait. The evidence preservation cannot. This is why we send preservation letters the day you call us, even if the lawsuit will not be filed for months. The evidence-preservation clock and the statute-of-limitations clock are not the same clock — and the insurance company is counting on you to confuse them.
For more on what you should and should not say to an insurance adjuster, we have produced a video guide on what not to say to an insurance adjuster that walks through these plays in detail.
What Your Family’s Case May Be Worth: An Honest Evaluation
We will not tell you what your child’s life is worth. No attorney can, and no number on a page can measure the loss of a 13-year-old. What we can do is explain the framework that determines what a wrongful death claim seeks — and the factors that drive the number higher or lower.
Economic damages include the funeral and burial expenses, any medical expenses incurred between the collision and death, and the loss of the child’s future earning capacity. A 13-year-old’s future earning capacity is calculated through forensic economic analysis — projecting the child’s likely career path, earnings, and contributions over a working lifetime, reduced to present value. This is not speculative; it is a rigorous methodology that uses economic data, education statistics, and labor-market projections to build a defensible number.
Non-economic damages include the mental anguish suffered by the parents, the loss of the child’s companionship and society, and the loss of the emotional and relational contributions the child would have made to the family over a lifetime. These are the damages that no formula can calculate and that a jury — twelve people from your community, sitting in a Ward County courtroom — must assess based on the evidence and the story told.
Exemplary damages — punitive damages — are available in Texas if gross negligence is proven. If a driver was intoxicated, if a commercial carrier knowingly put a fatigued or unqualified driver behind the wheel, if someone was using a cell phone at highway speed and caused this crash, those facts may support a gross-negligence finding and open the door to exemplary damages. Texas generally caps exemplary damages in most wrongful death cases, and the specific cap structure should be confirmed against current law at the time of filing.
The range. Based on the factors known and unknown, the value of a case like this can range widely. On the low end — assuming a single at-fault passenger-car defendant with standard policy limits and clear liability — the recoverable amount may fall in the vicinity of $750,000. On the high end — with commercial vehicle involvement, gross negligence or intoxication, a deep-pocket defendant with substantial insurance coverage, and a jury willing to award full non-economic and exemplary damages for the death of a child — the value can exceed several million dollars. The presence or absence of a commercial carrier, the degree of fault proven, the venue, and the specific facts of the crash are the primary drivers. We cannot give you a number for your case without investigating the facts, and any attorney who does is not telling you the truth.
What we can tell you is this: the insurance company knows this framework, and the insurance company’s first offer will be a fraction of what the case is worth. That is how the system works. The adjuster sets a low reserve in the first 48 hours, before the full injuries are known and before the full evidence is assembled. The claim is fed into valuation software that discounts what it cannot quantify — and grief, loss of companionship, and the death of a child are precisely the things that software is worst at measuring. The gap between the first offer and the fair value of the claim is the gap we exist to close.
The Insurance Coverage Ladder: Who Pays, and How Much
Understanding insurance coverage in a multi-vehicle fatal crash is critical because the same crash can produce wildly different recoveries depending on who the defendants are and what policies apply.
A passenger-car driver in Texas may carry only the state’s minimum liability coverage — and one night in a hospital, let alone a funeral, can exceed those limits. A commercial vehicle operating in interstate commerce is subject to federal financial-responsibility requirements that mandate substantially higher coverage — starting at $750,000 for general freight carriers and reaching into the millions for hazardous-materials carriers. An interstate carrier’s insurance is typically layered: a primary policy, an excess policy, and in some cases an umbrella policy, each stacking on top of the other. The same crash, with a commercial vehicle involved, can mean forty times the available coverage.
Beyond the at-fault party’s insurance, your family may have uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage under your own auto policy. If the at-fault driver was uninsured or underinsured, your own UM/UIM coverage can step into the gap. This is a first-party claim — it is your insurance company paying for someone else’s fault — and it is a claim your family should pursue if the at-fault driver’s coverage is insufficient. An experienced attorney can identify every available policy and ensure they are pursued in the right order, because the coordination of coverage is itself a legal skill that can dramatically affect the total recovery.
If a roadway defect, missing signage, or construction-zone hazard contributed to the collision, a government entity — TxDOT, a county, a municipality, or a contractor — may bear responsibility. Claims against government entities in Texas are subject to the Texas Tort Claims Act, which has specific notice requirements and deadlines that are shorter than the ordinary statute of limitations. If this avenue applies, the notice deadline can be measured in months, not years — which is another reason early investigation is essential.
For families dealing with commercial-vehicle claims, our 18-wheeler accident practice page explains the federal coverage framework and the carrier-liability theories in more detail.
The First 72 Hours: A Practical Roadmap for Families in Ward County
If your family is in the first days after this crash, here is what you should do — and what you should not do — in practical terms.
Do these things:
Request the DPS crash report. The Texas Department of Public Safety produces the CR-3 report for fatal crashes, typically within 7 to 14 days. Your family has the right to request a copy. This document is the starting point for understanding what the official investigation concluded — and what it may have gotten wrong.
Preserve every piece of evidence you have. If anyone in your family took photographs at the scene, save them. If your child’s phone survived, preserve it. If there were witnesses, write down their names. Do not rely on memory — write everything down while it is fresh.
Seek grief support. Your hospital, your church, your community — Ward County is a place where people show up for each other. Grief counseling is not a luxury; it is how you survive the worst thing that has ever happened to your family. Ask for help.
Talk to an attorney — even if you are not ready to file. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. The investigation begins the day you call. The insurance companies are already working. You do not have to be ready to sue to be ready to protect evidence.
Do not do these things:
Do not speak with insurance adjusters from any involved vehicle’s carrier. Not a recorded statement. Not a “casual conversation.” Not a “quick question.” Nothing. Every word becomes evidence.
Do not sign any document from any insurance company. No release. No authorization. No “proof of loss” form. Nothing. If you receive something you do not understand, call an attorney before you respond.
Do not post about the crash on social media. Not about the crash itself. Not about your grief. Not about the legal process. Not about the other driver. Nothing. Set your accounts to private and ask your family to do the same.
Do not let anyone pressure you to make decisions in the first weeks. The insurance company’s urgency is not your urgency. The only true urgency is evidence preservation, and a preservation letter handles that without requiring you to make any decision about filing a lawsuit.
How We Build a Wrongful Death Case: The Proof Story
Here is how a case like this is actually built — the chronological walk from the day you call to the day the case resolves.
Week one. The preservation letters go out — to every involved driver’s insurance company, to any commercial carrier, to any entity that holds ELD data, dashcam footage, or vehicle maintenance records. These letters create a legal duty to preserve evidence and establish consequences if evidence is destroyed. The DPS crash report is requested. The vehicles are identified and located — and if any vehicle is at a tow yard or repair facility, a hold is placed to prevent repair, scrapping, or release.
Weeks two through four. The crash report arrives. We analyze it for what it gets right and what it gets wrong. The vehicles are inspected by a crash reconstruction expert — the EDR data is downloaded, the physical damage is documented, the vehicle components are examined for mechanical failure. If a commercial vehicle was involved, the driver qualification file, the hours-of-service records, the maintenance records, and the post-accident drug test results are demanded from the carrier. Cell phone records are subpoenaed for every driver. Witness statements are taken while memories are fresh.
Months two through six. The reconstruction is completed — the expert uses EDR data, skid-mark analysis, debris-field mapping, and the laws of physics to build a defensible account of what happened, in what sequence, and why. If gross negligence is in play — intoxication, extreme recklessness, a carrier’s deliberate disregard for safety — the evidence that supports it is developed. The full defendant stack is identified: every driver, every carrier, every entity that bears responsibility. The insurance coverage is mapped, policy by policy, layer by layer.
Months six through twelve. Discovery. The depositions. The at-fault drivers testify under oath. The safety director of any commercial carrier testifies about hiring, training, and maintenance. The investigating trooper testifies about the scene. The reconstruction expert presents the findings. This is where the insurance company learns, in detail, what your family’s case is actually worth — and where the gap between their offer and the fair value becomes clear.
Resolution. Most wrongful death cases resolve before trial — through mediation, through settlement, or through a demand that the insurance company must take seriously or face the financial consequences of a jury verdict. In Texas, the Stowers doctrine creates a duty for liability insurers to accept reasonable settlement demands within policy limits. When the insurer refuses a reasonable demand and a later verdict exceeds the policy limits, the insurer — not the defendant — may be liable for the excess. This is leverage, and it is leverage that a firm with trial experience and insider knowledge knows how to apply.
In Ward County, a small rural venue, the jury pool will include people who drive these FM roads every day, who work in the oilfield, who know what these trucks do on these highways. Voir dire — the process of selecting jurors — must explore those relationships carefully, because a juror who drives a water hauler for a living sees the case differently than a juror who has never shared the road with an 80,000-pound rig. Mediation is often preferable to trial in a venue like Ward County, where the jury pool is conservative and the complexity of multi-vehicle fault allocation can work against a plaintiff if the case is not presented with absolute clarity. But the willingness to try the case is what makes mediation work — an insurance company that knows your attorney will take a case to trial negotiates differently than one that knows your attorney always settles.
For a broader understanding of how we handle these cases, our wrongful death practice page covers the full framework of Texas wrongful death litigation.
Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña: Who Fights for Your Family
Ralph Manginello is our Managing Partner. He has spent 27+ years in courtrooms — including federal court — since his admission to the Texas Bar on November 6, 1998. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find a story, how to tell it, and how to make a jury hear it. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He is the lead counsel in an active hazing lawsuit filed in Harris County seeking over $10 million in damages. He handles wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases across Texas, including the Permian Basin. Ralph is a competitor who hates losing — and he brings that to every case.
Lupe Peña is our Associate Attorney. He is a former insurance-defense attorney who worked at a national defense firm — the rooms where claims like yours are priced, where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. Lupe knows how the insurance industry sets reserves, how it selects IME doctors, how it deploys surveillance, and how it uses delay as a weapon. Now he sits on your side of the table. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — which matters in West Texas, where many families are more comfortable in their first language. He is a third-generation Texan with family roots that run deep in this state.
Our firm has recovered over $50 million in the aggregate for injured clients. We have recovered $5 million-plus in a brain-injury settlement, $3.8 million-plus in an amputation settlement, and $2.5 million-plus in a truck-crash recovery. We have millions recovered in trucking wrongful death cases. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes — but those numbers exist because we know how to build these cases, and because the insurance companies know we will take them to trial if they will not settle fairly.
You can read more about Ralph and Lupe on their attorney profiles. For families dealing with the loss of a child, we have also produced a parents’ guide to child injury lawsuits that may help you understand the legal process ahead.
The Difference Between the Two Clocks: Your Grief and Your Evidence
This is the most important thing on this page, and we want to say it clearly.
Your grief has no clock. You take the time you need. You sit with your family. You mourn your child. You do not need to file a lawsuit next week, next month, or even this year if you are not ready. The legal system will be there when you are. We will never rush you.
Your evidence has a clock that is already running. The skid marks on that road southwest of Monahans are fading. The EDR data in the vehicles is vulnerable to overwrite. The dashcam footage is cycling out. The ELD data, if a commercial vehicle was involved, is on a six-month retention clock. The witnesses are moving on with their lives. The insurance companies are already working — preserving the evidence that helps them and allowing the evidence that hurts them to disappear.
These two timelines run in parallel. They are not the same timeline. You can grieve on your schedule while we preserve evidence on ours. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. The investigation begins the day you call. The lawsuit waits until you are ready. That is how this works — and that is the difference between a family that calls in the first week and a family that calls in the eighteenth month.
The day you call is the day the evidence clock starts working for you instead of against you.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Texas for my child?
Texas law generally provides a two-year statute of limitations for wrongful death claims, running from the date of death. This means the lawsuit must be filed within two years or the claim can be permanently barred. However, there are limited circumstances that may affect this deadline, and you should confirm the current rule with an attorney at the time of your consultation. What matters most is that the two-year clock is for filing the lawsuit — not for preserving evidence. The evidence-preservation window is measured in days and weeks, not years.
Can I still pursue a claim if my child was a passenger in one of the vehicles?
Yes. A 13-year-old is a minor and is not legally responsible for the operation of the vehicle. If your child was a passenger, the child is a victim, not an at-fault party, and the family’s claim is against the driver or drivers whose negligence caused the collision. If the child was in a vehicle driven by a family member, that does not prevent a claim against other at-fault drivers, and in some circumstances, coverage may be available under the family’s own policy.
What if multiple drivers were at fault in the crash?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule. Each at-fault driver is assigned a percentage of fault by the jury. A driver who is less than 51% at fault is liable for their share of the damages. This means your family can pursue recovery from multiple at-fault parties, and each party’s insurance company is responsible for its insured’s percentage of the fault. The insurance companies will fight to minimize their percentage — which is why crash reconstruction and expert testimony are essential.
Does it matter whether a commercial truck was involved?
It matters enormously. A commercial vehicle brings federal regulations into play — driver qualification, hours of service, maintenance requirements, and post-accident testing. It brings deeper insurance coverage, typically starting at $750,000 for interstate carriers and reaching into the millions for hazmat carriers. It opens the door to claims against the carrier for negligent hiring, negligent training, and negligent maintenance. And it creates evidence — ELD data, telematics, driver qualification files — that a passenger-car crash does not produce. The presence of a commercial vehicle can multiply the value of the case several times over.
Should I talk to the insurance company to “get it over with”?
No. Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster from any involved vehicle’s carrier. The call is designed to get you to say things that can be used against your claim later. You are under no obligation to give a statement. The adjuster is not your friend — the adjuster is a professional whose job is to minimize the amount the insurance company pays. Every word you say on that recording is a word the insurance company’s lawyer will read in court.
How much does it cost to hire Attorney911 for a wrongful death case?
We work on a contingency fee. That means we do not charge anything upfront. We do not bill by the hour. We advance the costs of the investigation — the crash reconstruction, the expert witnesses, the depositions, the filing fees. Our fee is 33.33% of the recovery if the case settles before trial, and 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. If there is no recovery, you owe us nothing.
What if the at-fault driver does not have enough insurance?
Texas requires all auto policies to include uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage unless the policyholder specifically rejects it in writing. If the at-fault driver’s insurance is insufficient to cover your loss, your own UM/UIM coverage may step in to fill the gap. This is a first-party claim — your insurance company pays — and it is a claim that should be pursued alongside the third-party claim against the at-fault driver. An attorney can identify every available source of coverage.
Can I still recover if the crash happened on a dangerous road with poor conditions?
Potentially, yes. If a roadway defect, missing signage, inadequate shoulder, or construction-zone hazard contributed to the crash, a government entity or contractor may bear responsibility. Claims against government entities in Texas are subject to the Texas Tort Claims Act, which has specific notice requirements and deadlines that can be much shorter than the two-year statute of limitations. If this avenue applies, the notice deadline may be measured in months — which is another reason to investigate early and thoroughly.
What happens to the vehicles after the crash, and why does it matter?
The vehicles are the most important physical evidence in the case. The EDR data inside each vehicle captures speed, braking, steering, and seatbelt use in the seconds before impact. The physical damage tells the reconstruction expert the angle, force, and sequence of the collision. If a vehicle is repaired, scrapped, or released to an insurance company without a preservation hold, that evidence can be lost forever. This is why we send preservation letters immediately — to freeze the vehicles in place before they can be destroyed.
Will my family have to go to trial?
Most wrongful death cases resolve before trial — through settlement or mediation. But the willingness to try the case is what makes settlement work. An insurance company that knows your attorney will take a case to trial negotiates differently than one that knows your attorney always settles. We prepare every case as if it will be tried, and that preparation is what produces fair settlements. If the insurance company will not offer a fair number, we will try the case — and in Ward County, a jury of your neighbors will decide what your child’s life was worth.
How do I know if I have a case?
If your child was killed in a multi-vehicle crash caused by someone else’s negligence — a driver who failed to maintain lookout, failed to control speed, failed to stay in a lane, failed to yield, operated while distracted, operated while impaired, or operated a commercial vehicle in violation of federal safety regulations — you may have a wrongful death claim. The only way to know for certain is to investigate the facts, and the only way to investigate the facts is to preserve the evidence before it disappears. The consultation is free. The call costs nothing. The preservation letter goes out the day you call.
Do you serve Spanish-speaking families in the Permian Basin?
Yes. Lupe Peña is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Our staff is bilingual. We serve families across Texas, including the Permian Basin and Ward County, in the language your family is most comfortable speaking. Hablamos Español.
What to Do Right Now
If your family has lost a child in this crash, here is what we need you to do.
Call us. 1-888-ATTY-911. The line is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by live staff — not a recording. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
We will listen. We will answer your questions. We will explain what happens next, in English or in Spanish, at whatever pace you need. And if you are not ready to file a lawsuit, that is fine — we will send the preservation letters that protect the evidence while you take the time your family needs to grieve.
Your child’s case deserves an attorney who knows the roads, knows the oilfield, knows the insurance industry from the inside, and knows how to build a wrongful death case from the first skid mark to the last deposition. That is what we do. That is who we are.
The evidence is fading. The insurance companies are working. Your family deserves answers, and your child deserves accountability. Call us today.
1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.