Big Spring Pedestrian Killed on FM 700: Your Family’s Legal Rights After a Fatal Walkway Collision
If you found this page, someone you love is gone. A 22-year-old woman — Aamiyah Jackson — was killed on the morning of August 13, struck by a vehicle on the 1600 block of West FM 700 in Big Spring, and the first report says she entered the travel lane. You are reading this because that sentence does not sit right with you. It should not. The preliminary police narrative is the first word, not the last. It reflects what officers saw in the minutes after impact — not what the vehicle’s black box recorded, not what the driver’s phone was doing, not what the road itself failed to provide. We have spent over 27 years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court, and we can tell you this with certainty: a preliminary report that places a pedestrian in the roadway is the beginning of the fight, not the end of it.
Here is the first thing you need to hear. Texas law does not automatically blame a pedestrian for being in the road. Texas law does not hand the driver a free pass because the sun had not yet risen. And Texas law does not let an insurance company lock in its version of what happened before the family has had time to bury their daughter. You have rights. You have time — though less than you think for some things, and more than you fear for others. And you have the power to demand an independent investigation that may tell a very different story from the one the first responders wrote down. That is what we do. That is what this page is about.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are Legal Emergency Lawyers. We handle wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases in Texas, and we are writing this page for you — the family of Aamiyah Jackson, or any family in Big Spring, Howard County, or the Permian Basin who has lost someone to a vehicle on a road that was not built to protect people on foot. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. And if Spanish is the language your family prays in, we serve you fully in Spanish — Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, conducts complete consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
What Happened on FM 700 in Big Spring
On the morning of August 13, at approximately 6:40 a.m., Aamiyah Jackson was walking eastbound on West FM 700 — also known locally as Marcy Drive — in Big Spring, Texas. The 1600 block of this road runs through the city limits, functioning as an urban arterial with mixed residential and commercial frontage. At that hour in mid-August, the sun had not yet risen over Howard County; sunrise in Big Spring comes at approximately 6:57 a.m., meaning the collision occurred during pre-dawn civil twilight — a period of reduced but not zero visibility. A 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander, a personal SUV driven by a 63-year-old man, was traveling westbound in the outside lane. The preliminary investigation by the Big Spring Police Department indicates that Aamiyah entered the outside westbound lane and was struck.
Allegiance EMS attempted life-saving measures at the scene. Justice of the Peace Angela Griffin pronounced Aamiyah deceased. The Texas Department of Public Safety is assisting with the investigation, which remains active. The driver was not injured.
Those are the facts as reported. Now here is what those facts do not tell you — and what no preliminary report ever captures.
FM 700 is a Farm-to-Market road maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation. FM roads across West Texas share a common and dangerous design legacy: they were built for vehicles, not for people. Many stretches lack continuous sidewalks, marked crosswalks, adequate shoulder separation, or lighting sufficient for pre-dawn visibility. When a road has no sidewalk and no shoulder, a person on foot has nowhere to walk except in or adjacent to the travel lane. That is not a choice — it is a design failure. And when a road has no lighting at 6:40 in the morning, a driver’s ability to see a pedestrian depends entirely on whether the driver is maintaining proper lookout, whether the vehicle’s headlights are functioning and aimed correctly, and whether the driver is traveling at a speed that allows them to react to what appears in their path. These are not pedestrian problems. They are driver duties.
This is where the case begins: not with the preliminary report, but with the evidence that has not yet been collected — and is already starting to disappear.
Texas Pedestrian Accident Law: What Drivers Owe People on Foot
Texas law imposes specific, affirmative duties on every person who gets behind the wheel — duties that exist regardless of where a pedestrian is walking, regardless of the time of day, and regardless of whether the road has a sidewalk.
Texas Transportation Code § 545.401 requires drivers to operate at a speed that is reasonable and prudent under the prevailing conditions. That word — “conditions” — is the entire case. Conditions include darkness. Conditions include pre-dawn twilight. Conditions include the known presence of pedestrians on a residential-corridor road. A driver who travels at the posted speed limit in conditions where that speed is not safe is still violating this statute, because the posted limit is a ceiling, not a license. If the driver could not stop in time to avoid a pedestrian who was visible in the roadway, then either the driver was going too fast for conditions, or the driver was not watching the road. There is no third option.
Texas Transportation Code § 552.008 requires drivers to exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on a roadway. This is not a suggestion. It is a statutory duty. “Due care” means the driver must be watching, must be scanning, must be prepared to react. A pedestrian in the roadway does not cancel this duty. The duty exists precisely because pedestrians end up in roadways — especially on FM roads with no sidewalks, especially at dawn, especially in a town where people walk to work, to bus stops, to the store.
“(a) A governmental unit is entitled to receive notice of a claim against it under this chapter not later than six months after the day that the incident giving rise to the claim occurred. The notice must reasonably describe: (1) the damage or injury claimed; (“
That is the Texas Tort Claims Act — the law that governs claims against governmental entities like TxDOT. We will return to it. But first, the duties that apply to the driver.
When a driver violates either of these Transportation Code provisions, the violation can establish negligence per se — meaning the violation itself is evidence of negligence, and the family does not have to separately prove that the driver was careless. The driver’s failure to comply with the statute IS the carelessness. This is a powerful doctrine because it shifts the burden: instead of the family proving the driver did something wrong, the driver must explain why he violated a traffic statute, and if the violation caused the death, the negligence is established as a matter of law.
The defense will counter — and you should expect this — that the pedestrian’s presence in the travel lane was the true cause. That is the comparative fault argument, and it is the central battleground in this case. Which brings us to the rule that will determine whether Aamiyah’s family can recover, and how much.
Comparative Fault in Texas Pedestrian Deaths: The 51% Bar
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule. Here is how it works, in plain language.
When someone is injured or killed and more than one party may share responsibility, Texas law does not assign all the blame to one side. Instead, the jury apportions fault as percentages. If the driver was 80% at fault and the pedestrian was 20% at fault, the family’s recovery is reduced by the pedestrian’s 20% share — but they still recover 80% of the total damages. That is the “modified” part, and it is favorable to families because it means partial fault on the pedestrian does not kill the case.
But there is a line. Texas draws that line at 51%. If the pedestrian is found to be 51% or more at fault, recovery is completely barred. The family gets nothing. Not reduced — eliminated. This is the 51% bar, and it is the single most dangerous rule in this case.
The preliminary report — which says Aamiyah entered the travel lane — is the foundation of the defense’s effort to push her fault above 50%. If the insurance company’s lawyers can convince a jury that Aamiyah was primarily responsible for being in the lane, the family loses everything. That is why the insurance adjuster will work so hard to lock in the narrative that she “walked into traffic.” That is why the first recorded statement they request from the family is engineered to extract words that support that narrative. And that is why the family must not speak to the at-fault driver’s insurance company without representation.
Here is what we do about the 51% bar. We do not accept the preliminary narrative. We investigate. We pull the vehicle’s event data recorder — the “black box” — which tells us exactly how fast the driver was going in the seconds before impact, whether he braked, when he braked, whether he steered. We pull the driver’s cell-phone records to determine whether he was distracted at the moment of collision. We canvas the residential corridor on FM 700 for witnesses — early-morning commuters, residents pulling out of driveways — who may have seen the vehicle’s speed, its headlight usage, or Aamiyah’s position on the road. We retain an accident reconstruction expert to analyze the sight lines, the stopping distance, the impact location, and the lighting conditions at 6:40 a.m. in mid-August on this specific stretch of FM 700. Every piece of evidence that shifts even one percentage point of fault from Aamiyah to the driver is money in the family’s recovery. Every point below 51% is a point that keeps the case alive.
If you want to understand how comparative fault works in practice — how partial fault does not automatically destroy a case — our explanation of what it means to be partially at fault in an accident walks through the doctrine in plain terms.
Texas Wrongful Death Claims: Who Can File and What Can Be Recovered
Texas wrongful death law is governed by the state’s wrongful death statutes, which provide that certain surviving family members may bring a claim for the death of a person caused by another’s negligence, wrongdoing, or failure to act. The people who can bring a wrongful death claim in Texas are the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased. If none of these statutory beneficiaries file a claim within a certain period, the personal representative of the deceased’s estate may file on behalf of the estate.
The wrongful death statute of limitations in Texas is generally two years from the date of death. This means the family has two years to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Two years sounds like a long time when you are standing in a kitchen at 2 a.m. trying to understand what happened to your daughter. It is not. Evidence disappears in days, not years. The two-year clock is the backstop — the absolute deadline — but the real deadlines are measured in weeks and months, dictated by how fast records vanish and memories fade.
What can be recovered in a Texas wrongful death claim? The damages fall into two broad categories. Economic damages include the loss of the deceased’s future earning capacity — and for a 22-year-old, that is a number measured in decades of working life. A 22-year-old woman in Texas had, statistically, over 40 years of potential earnings ahead of her. The forensic economist calculates what those earnings would have been, reduced to present value, and that figure — which can be substantial — belongs to the family. Economic damages also include funeral and burial costs, and any medical expenses incurred between the injury and death.
Non-economic damages include the mental anguish and emotional pain suffered by the surviving family members, the loss of the relationship, the loss of companionship, the loss of the advice, counsel, and presence that Aamiyah would have provided to her family over the course of her life. These are the human losses — the ones no spreadsheet captures and no insurance adjuster wants to value fairly.
Texas also recognizes survival actions, which are separate from wrongful death claims. A survival action is brought by the estate and captures damages that accrued from the moment of injury to the moment of death — including any pain and consciousness the deceased experienced between impact and death. In a fatal pedestrian collision where death may have been nearly instantaneous, survival damages may be limited. But even brief pre-death consciousness — awareness of the impending impact, pain in the moments before death — supports a survival claim. The distinction matters because survival damages belong to the estate, while wrongful death damages belong to the statutory beneficiaries, and the two claims can be pursued together.
Importantly, Texas imposes no statutory damages cap on wrongful death or personal injury claims arising from motor vehicle negligence against non-governmental defendants. This means a jury is free to award the full measure of damages that the evidence supports — there is no artificial ceiling that cuts the award in half. This is one of Texas’s strongest advantages for families, and it is exactly why the insurance company fights so hard to keep the driver’s fault below 51%. If the bar is not triggered, the full value of a 22-year-old’s lost life is on the table.
If your family is facing the loss of a loved one in a motor vehicle collision, our wrongful death practice handles these cases across Texas — and the information on that page explains the full machinery of who can file, when, and what the process looks like.
Can a Road Itself Be at Fault? The TxDOT Question on FM 700
FM 700 is a state-maintained roadway. TxDOT’s involvement in the crash investigation confirms this. When a state-maintained road lacks adequate lighting, crosswalks, sidewalks, or shoulder separation, and that design failure contributes to a pedestrian death, a claim against TxDOT may be possible under the Texas Tort Claims Act.
The Texas Tort Claims Act — specifically Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.021 — allows a governmental unit to be held liable for “property damage, personal injury, and death proximately caused by the wrongful act or omission or the negligence of an employee acting within his scope of employment” or for injuries caused by “a condition or use of tangible personal or real property.” A roadway design that lacks lighting or pedestrian infrastructure could potentially fall under the “condition or use of real property” category.
But the TTCA is constrained by significant limitations. Roadway design decisions are often characterized as discretionary governmental actions, and Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.056 generally bars claims based on discretionary decisions. Claims arising from a governmental unit’s failure to initially place traffic signs, signals, or warning devices are also generally barred under § 101.060, though liability may attach if the unit fails to correct a known deficiency within a reasonable time after receiving notice. Damages against a state governmental entity are capped at $250,000 per person and $500,000 per occurrence under § 101.023(a).
The most critical constraint is the notice deadline. The TTCA requires that a governmental unit receive notice of a claim against it no later than six months after the incident. The notice must reasonably describe the damage or injury claimed, the time and place, and the incident. If TxDOT had actual notice of the death, injury, or property damage, formal notice may be excused — but relying on actual notice is risky, and the safer course is to file formal written notice within the six-month window. Six months from August 13 is approximately mid-February of the following year. That sounds like plenty of time. It is not, because investigating whether a roadway design claim exists — pulling TxDOT’s records on prior pedestrian incidents at this location, analyzing the lighting and design standards, determining whether the agency had notice of a hazardous condition — takes weeks and months, not days. If a governmental claim is going to be explored, the investigation must begin immediately.
We are not saying a TxDOT claim exists in this case. We are saying that if inadequate lighting, missing pedestrian infrastructure, or a known hazard condition on FM 700 contributed to this collision, the only way to find out is to investigate — and the clock to preserve that claim is already running.
The Evidence Clock: What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Dies
Every piece of evidence that matters in a pedestrian fatality case is perishable. Some of it is already gone. The rest is dying on a clock measured in days, weeks, and months — not years. This is the section that tells you why the day you call is the day the evidence starts working for you instead of against you.
The vehicle’s Event Data Recorder (EDR). The 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander is equipped with an EDR — what most people call the “black box.” This device records critical data in the seconds before a collision: vehicle speed, brake application (when and how hard), steering wheel input, throttle position, and seatbelt use. In a pedestrian fatality case, the EDR is the single most important piece of evidence because it answers the questions the preliminary report cannot: Was the driver speeding? Did he brake? When did he brake? Could he have stopped in time? If the EDR shows the driver was traveling above a speed reasonable for pre-dawn conditions on a residential-corridor road, or shows no brake application until after impact, or shows that braking came too late to avoid a visible pedestrian, that evidence shifts fault toward the driver. But EDR data can be overwritten. If the vehicle is repaired, sold, scrapped, or even started and driven again, the data from the August 13 collision may be overwritten by new data. A preservation demand letter — sent to the vehicle’s owner and the insurance company — is needed within days, not weeks. This letter legally notifies them that the vehicle and its data are evidence in a potential claim and must not be altered, repaired, or destroyed. If they ignore it and the data is lost, the law gives the family a powerful weapon: an adverse-inference instruction, which tells the jury they may assume the lost evidence was as damaging as the family says it was.
The driver’s cell-phone records. Distracted driving is one of the most common and most difficult-to-prove causes of pedestrian collisions. If the driver was looking at his phone, reading a text, dialing a call, or using an app at the moment of impact, he was not maintaining proper lookout — and that failure is what killed Aamiyah. Cell-phone records establish whether the driver was on a call, sending or receiving texts, or using data at the time of the collision. But cell carriers retain these records for varying periods — some as short as 90 days, some up to a year — and the records are not preserved indefinitely. A preservation letter must be sent to the carrier immediately to freeze the records before they are routinely purged. If the records are destroyed after the carrier receives a preservation demand, the same adverse-inference principle applies. The cell-phone records are the evidence that can move the 51% bar — because a distracted driver is not a driver who was simply unable to avoid a pedestrian; he is a driver who chose not to watch the road.
Scene photography and roadway evidence. The point of impact, the distance from the edge of the roadway, the pedestrian’s position, skid marks (or the absence of skid marks, which means no evasive braking), and the location of debris all tell the story of what happened in the seconds before collision. Roadway evidence degrades with every passing car, every rainstorm, every road-maintenance action. The Big Spring Police Department and TxDOT should have documented the scene, but their documentation is done for their investigative purposes — not for the family’s civil case. The family’s team needs to request the complete scene documentation, including all photographs, measurements, and diagrams, and should independently photograph and measure the scene before any more traffic or weather changes the physical evidence. If there are skid marks, they fade. If there are no skid marks, the absence is itself evidence — but only if it is documented before the road surface changes.
Witness statements. FM 700 in the 1600 block is a residential-corridor road. At 6:40 a.m. on a weekday, early-morning commuters, residents pulling out of driveways, people walking to bus stops, or workers arriving at nearby businesses may have seen the pedestrian, the vehicle, or both. A witness who saw the vehicle’s headlights, its speed, whether it swerved, whether it braked — or a witness who saw Aamiyah walking, her position on the road, whether she was visible — can corroborate or contradict the preliminary report. But witness memory fades quickly, and witnesses relocate. A canvass of the area should be completed within two to four weeks. The longer the delay, the more witnesses forget, the more details blur, and the more the preliminary report’s narrative hardens into the version people remember.
EMS and ambulance run reports. Allegiance EMS responded to the scene and attempted life-saving measures. The EMS run report documents Aamiyah’s condition when paramedics arrived, the location of impact on her body, the time line of the response, and the injuries observed. This report corroborates the collision dynamics — the point of impact, the severity, the timeline — and should be requested promptly. Medical records in Texas are subject to retention requirements, but requesting them early prevents loss and ensures the family has the complete medical picture.
Dashcam or surveillance footage. The 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander may have a dashcam — either factory-installed or aftermarket. Nearby businesses and residences on FM 700 may have exterior surveillance cameras that captured the road, the vehicle, or the pedestrian in the moments before impact. This footage is typically overwritten on a loop — every 24 to 72 hours for many systems, sometimes longer. Every day that passes without a preservation demand is a day closer to that footage being erased forever. If the driver had a dashcam, the footage is the most direct evidence of what happened. If a nearby camera caught the collision, it may show whether the driver braked, whether the vehicle was speeding, and exactly how Aamiyah entered the lane.
The preservation letter is not a formality. It is the first shot in the evidence war. When we send a preservation letter, we are telling the driver, the insurance company, the cell carrier, and every entity that holds evidence: this evidence belongs to a family whose daughter was killed, and if you let it die, a jury will hear about it. The day you call is the day that letter goes out. Not the day after. Not next week. That day.
The Insurance Reality: Following the Money in a Pedestrian Fatality
Understanding who pays — and how much is available — is half the value of this case. Here is the ladder, rung by rung.
The at-fault driver’s liability insurance. Texas requires every driver to carry minimum liability coverage of $30,000 for bodily injury to or death of one person, $60,000 for bodily injury to or death of two or more persons, and $25,000 for property damage — commonly called 30/60/25 coverage under Texas Transportation Code § 601.072. The at-fault driver in this case may carry only the legal minimum. If he does, the maximum available from his liability policy for Aamiyah’s death is $30,000. That is the floor — the absolute minimum the insurance company is on the hook for. But the driver may carry more. He may have a 50/100 policy, a 100/300 policy, or higher limits. We do not know yet. The first task is to identify the driver’s liability policy and its limits. This information comes from the driver’s insurance company, which is required to disclose coverage information, though it may not disclose policy limits until a claim is filed.
Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage. If Aamiyah maintained her own auto insurance policy — or if a family member in her household had a policy that covered her — underinsured motorist coverage may provide additional recovery. Texas Insurance Code § 1952.101 generally requires insurers to offer UM/UIM coverage, and § 1952.152 creates a presumption that UM/UIM coverage equals the policy’s liability limits unless the insured rejected it in writing. UIM coverage kicks in when the at-fault driver’s liability coverage is insufficient to fully compensate the family. If the at-fault driver carries only $30,000 in liability coverage and the family’s UIM coverage is $100,000 or more, the UIM policy can bridge the gap. UIM claims are complex — the family must prove that the at-fault driver was negligent and that the driver’s coverage was inadequate — but they can significantly increase the total recovery. Our explanation of uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage walks through how this coverage works and why it matters in cases exactly like this one.
Excess or umbrella policies. If the at-fault driver carried a personal umbrella policy, additional coverage may be available above the liability limits. Umbrella policies typically start at $1 million and go up from there. These policies are less common with individual drivers than with commercial entities, but they exist, and they can transform the value of a case. Identifying whether an umbrella policy exists requires investigation — the driver is not required to volunteer this information, and the insurance company will not offer it unless asked.
The coverage reality. The death of a 22-year-old woman supports a substantial economic damages model. Decades of lost earning capacity. Funeral costs. The loss of a lifetime of companionship, counsel, and presence. The full value of this loss — measured honestly — far exceeds $30,000. But the collectible value of the case is limited by the available insurance and the at-fault driver’s personal assets. If the driver carries minimum coverage and has no umbrella policy and no significant personal assets, the collectible value may be limited — even if the jury returns a verdict for the full value of Aamiyah’s life. This is the hard truth that no insurance adjuster will tell you and that every family deserves to hear: the gap between what a life is worth and what is collectible can be enormous, and the way to close that gap is to find every layer of coverage, including UIM, and to build the case so powerfully that the insurer pays its full limits rather than risk a verdict that exceeds them.
This is where the Stowers doctrine becomes a weapon. Under Texas law — the Stowers doctrine, derived from a landmark Texas case — when a claimant makes a properly crafted settlement demand within the at-fault driver’s policy limits, the insurance company has a duty to act as a reasonably prudent person in evaluating the exposure. If the insurer refuses to settle within policy limits and a jury later returns a verdict exceeding those limits, the insurer — not the driver — may be liable for the excess. This creates enormous leverage: the insurance company knows that if it lowballs the family and loses at trial, it pays the difference. A well-built case backed by EDR data, reconstruction analysis, and distraction evidence can force the insurer to evaluate its exposure honestly — or pay for its refusal.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Will Do to Your Family
Lupe Peña 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 plays because he used to run them. Now he uses that knowledge for injured people and grieving families. Here is what the insurance company will do — and what you should do about it.
Play 1: The friendly “just checking in” call. Within days of the collision, a representative from the at-fault driver’s insurance company will call the family. The tone will be warm, sympathetic, concerned. They will say they just want to “check on the family” and “get a statement about what happened.” The call is recorded. Everything the family says will be transcribed and can be used against them. If a family member says “she probably should not have been in the road” — even in grief, even in confusion, even trying to be fair — those words become the insurance company’s exhibit for the 51% bar. The counter: do not take the call. Do not return the call. Do not speak to the at-fault driver’s insurance company at all. Every communication goes through counsel. If they call again, say “I have an attorney” and give them our number. For more on this, our guide on what you should not say to an insurance adjuster covers the specific traps and how to avoid them.
Play 2: The fast settlement check. The insurance company may send a check early — sometimes within weeks. It will seem generous relative to the size of a single funeral bill. It will come with a release — a document that, when signed, extinguishes the family’s right to pursue any further claim against the driver or the insurance company. The check is designed to arrive before the family has hired a lawyer, before the EDR data has been pulled, before the case has been evaluated. The counter: do not sign anything. Do not cash any check from the at-fault driver’s insurance company. A release signed in grief is still a release, and it is permanent.
Play 3: The “she was in the road” narrative lock. The insurance company’s lawyers will build their entire defense on the preliminary police report. They will repeat, in every conversation and every filing, that Aamiyah “entered the travel lane” — as if that phrase ends the analysis. It does not. The counter: we conduct an independent investigation that tells the full story. The driver’s speed. The driver’s distraction. The road’s design. The lighting conditions. The visibility. The duty to maintain lookout. The duty to exercise due care. The preliminary report is one witness statement from one morning. Our investigation is the evidence that surrounds and supersedes it.
Play 4: The independent medical examination. In a wrongful death case, the insurance company may attempt to challenge the cause of death or the mechanism of injury through a doctor they select and pay. The counter: the family’s own medical evidence — the EMS run report, the Justice of the Peace’s pronouncement, the autopsy if one was performed, the forensic pathology — establishes the cause and mechanism of death independently of the insurance company’s hired expert.
Play 5: Social media surveillance. The insurance company may monitor the family’s social media accounts, looking for posts that can be taken out of context — a photo of a family gathering captioned “celebrating,” a post about moving forward, anything that can be used to argue the family’s grief is less severe than claimed. The counter: set all social media to private. Do not post about the case, the collision, Aamiyah’s death, or the legal process. Do not discuss the case online. Assume everything posted will be read by the insurance company’s lawyers.
Play 6: The delay. The insurance company may drag out the investigation, the evaluation, and the response to demands — stretching weeks into months, months into years — hoping the family will accept a low settlement out of exhaustion. The counter: the Stowers demand. When the case is fully built — when the EDR data, the reconstruction, the cell-phone records, and the witness statements are in hand — a properly crafted settlement demand within policy limits forces the insurance company to evaluate the case or risk paying above its limits if it refuses and loses at trial. The deadline that matters is not the insurance company’s timeline; it is the two-year statute of limitations and the evidence-decay clock.
How a Pedestrian Fatality Case Is Actually Built: The Proof Story
Here is how a case like this is actually won — from the first phone call to the number at the end.
Week one. The family calls. The preservation letters go out the same day — to the at-fault driver, his insurance company, the cell-phone carrier, and any business or residence with surveillance cameras on FM 700. The vehicle is identified, located, and a demand is made to preserve it in its post-collision condition, including the EDR data. The Big Spring Police Department’s crash report, scene photographs, and measurements are requested. The Texas Department of Public Safety’s investigative materials are requested. Allegiance EMS’s run report is requested. The Justice of the Peace’s records are requested. If an autopsy was ordered, the autopsy report and the forensic pathologist’s findings are requested.
Weeks two through four. The witness canvass begins. Every residence and business on the 1600 block of West FM 700 is approached. Early-morning commuters who may have been on the road at 6:40 a.m. are identified and interviewed. The accident reconstruction expert visits the scene, photographs the roadway, measures sight lines, analyzes the lighting conditions at the time of the collision, and calculates the stopping distance for a 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander at various speeds under pre-dawn twilight conditions. The expert asks: at what speed could this driver have stopped in time to avoid a pedestrian in this lane? If the answer is a speed lower than what the driver was actually traveling, the driver was speeding for conditions — and the EDR will confirm the actual speed.
Months one through three. The EDR data is downloaded — if the vehicle has been preserved. The cell-phone records arrive — if the preservation letter reached the carrier in time. The reconstruction expert’s preliminary report is completed. The medical records and autopsy findings are analyzed. The at-fault driver’s insurance policy and limits are identified. The family’s UIM coverage, if any, is identified. If a TxDOT roadway-design claim is being explored, the TxDOT records on FM 700’s design, lighting, maintenance history, and any prior pedestrian incidents at this location are requested — and the six-month TTCA notice clock is tracked.
Months three through six. The case is fully evaluated. The reconstruction expert’s final report is completed, with the EDR data, the sight-line analysis, the stopping-distance calculations, and the lighting study. The cell-phone records are analyzed for distraction evidence. The full damages model is built — the forensic economist calculates the lost earning capacity, the life-care planner or funeral-cost analysis is completed, and the non-economic damages are evaluated. If the case is strong — if the EDR shows excessive speed, if the cell-phone records show distraction, if the reconstruction shows the driver could have avoided the collision — a Stowers demand is sent to the at-fault driver’s insurance company within policy limits. The demand includes the full case: the evidence, the damages, and the exposure. The insurance company must evaluate it or risk paying above its limits.
Mediation and resolution. Most cases settle. A mediator — often a retired judge or senior attorney — facilitates a structured negotiation. The family’s evidence is presented. The insurance company’s defenses are tested. If the insurance company refuses to offer fair value, the case proceeds to trial — in Howard County, before a jury of the community’s residents, people who drive FM 700, who know what 6:40 a.m. looks like in August in Big Spring, and who will decide whether the driver’s actions met the standard of care that the law requires.
The Medicine of a Fatal Pedestrian Collision
When a vehicle strikes a human being at any speed, the physics are devastating. A 2019 Mitsubishi Outander weighs approximately 3,500 to 4,000 pounds. A human body weighs 130 to 180 pounds. The mass ratio is roughly 25 to 1. At 35 miles per hour — a common speed limit on urban FM roads — the vehicle is traveling 51 feet per second. At 45 miles per hour, it is traveling 66 feet per second. The time between a pedestrian appearing in a headlight beam and the point of impact, at these speeds, is measured in fractions of a second.
The mechanism of injury in a pedestrian-vehicle collision typically involves three impacts. The first is the vehicle’s front bumper striking the lower body — the legs, the pelvis — which fractures bones and transfers enormous energy to the body. The second is the body’s torso striking the hood or windshield, which can cause head injuries, chest injuries, and spinal injuries. The third is the body falling to the pavement, which can cause additional skull fractures, brain injuries, and internal organ damage. At higher speeds, the body may be thrown over the vehicle entirely.
In a fatal collision, the injuries that cause death are typically traumatic brain injury, internal hemorrhage from organ damage (liver, spleen, aortic rupture), or spinal cord transection. The EMS run report and the autopsy — if one was performed — document these injuries and establish the mechanism and cause of death. This documentation matters for two reasons. First, it confirms that the collision caused the death — which the insurance company may attempt to challenge if there were any pre-existing conditions. Second, the nature and severity of the injuries can inform the reconstruction expert’s analysis of the vehicle’s speed at impact, because the injury pattern correlates with the force of the collision, and the force correlates with the vehicle’s speed.
If death was not instantaneous — if Aamiyah experienced any period of consciousness between the impact and death — the survival action captures that experience. Even seconds of awareness — the terror of seeing the vehicle, the pain of the impact — are compensable. The medical evidence establishes whether consciousness existed, and for how long, and the family’s case includes that experience in the damages model.
For families dealing with catastrophic injuries from vehicle collisions — including brain injuries, which can occur even in non-fatal pedestrian impacts — our brain injury practice provides information on how these injuries are diagnosed, treated, and proven in court.
What This Case Is Worth: An Honest Valuation
We owe you honesty, not a sales pitch. Here is what a case like this is worth, and what limits that value.
The low end: $30,000 to $75,000. This range represents a policy-limits settlement under heavy comparative-fault pressure. If the preliminary report’s narrative holds — if no EDR data is recovered, if no distraction evidence is found, if the reconstruction cannot shift significant fault to the driver — the insurance company will push hard for the 51% bar. In that scenario, the family’s leverage is limited, and a settlement at or near the at-fault driver’s policy limits (potentially $30,000 if he carries minimum coverage, or higher if he has increased limits) may be the best achievable outcome. This is the scenario the insurance company is hoping for. This is the scenario that an independent investigation is designed to prevent.
The high end: $300,000 to $750,000. This range is achievable if the investigation shifts primary fault to the driver — through EDR speed data showing excessive speed for conditions, cell-phone records showing distraction, reconstruction analysis showing the collision was avoidable, or visibility analysis showing the driver should have seen Aamiyah in time to stop. In this scenario, the driver’s fault exceeds 50%, the 51% bar is not triggered, and the full value of a 22-year-old’s lost life is recoverable. The total recovery depends on the available insurance — the at-fault driver’s liability limits, any UIM coverage, and any umbrella policy. If the driver carries only minimum coverage and there is no UIM or umbrella, even a strong liability case may be limited in collectibility. If UIM coverage is available and substantial, or if the driver carries higher limits, the recovery can reach the higher end of this range.
The gap. The full value of a 22-year-old woman’s life — decades of lost earnings, the loss of the relationship, the mental anguish of the family, the loss of the children she might have had, the loss of every birthday, every holiday, every ordinary morning — far exceeds these numbers. A jury that hears the full story may return a verdict well above $750,000. But the collectible value is limited by the insurance and the driver’s assets. The way to maximize recovery is to find every layer of coverage, build the liability case as powerfully as possible, and use the Stowers doctrine to force the insurer to pay its limits or risk an excess verdict.
This is not a guarantee. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can tell you is that the difference between the low end and the high end of this range is the evidence — and the evidence is what we go find.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do Now
If you are the family of Aamiyah Jackson — or any family who has lost someone in a pedestrian collision in Big Spring, Howard County, or the Permian Basin — here is what you should do, and what you should not do, starting now.
Do not speak to the at-fault driver’s insurance company. Do not return their calls. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not sign any authorization forms. Do not accept any check. Every word you say to them will be transcribed and can be used to support the 51% bar. Every form you sign may waive rights you do not even know you have. This is the single most important instruction on this page.
Do not post about the case on social media. Set all accounts to private. Do not post about the collision, the investigation, the driver, or the legal process. The insurance company is watching.
Do request the official reports. The Big Spring Police Department crash report, the DPS investigative materials, and the Justice of the Peace’s records are public records that the family is entitled to request. If you are not sure how to do this, we can help.
Do preserve evidence. If anyone in the family took photographs at the scene, preserve them. If anyone has Aamiyah’s clothing or personal effects from the collision, preserve them — do not clean or alter them. If anyone witnessed the collision or the aftermath, write down what they saw while the memory is fresh.
Do call us. The preservation letters go out the day you call. The EDR preservation demand, the cell-phone carrier preservation letter, the surveillance-footage preservation requests — all of it starts the moment we are retained. The evidence that decides this case is dying on a clock. The sooner the clock starts working for the family, the more evidence survives.
Do begin the personal representative process if needed. If no wrongful death beneficiary has filed a claim within the statutory period, the personal representative of Aamiyah’s estate may file. The appointment of a personal representative is a court process that takes time. If the family anticipates needing the estate to pursue the claim, the appointment process should begin early.
Texas’s Vulnerable Road Users: Why Pedestrian Deaths on FM Roads Are a Systemic Failure
Aamiyah Jackson was killed on a Farm-to-Market road — a road classification that was created to connect rural farms and ranches to markets, not to serve as urban arterials with residential frontage. As Big Spring has grown, FM 700 has become a road that carries both high-speed through-traffic and the daily life of a community — people walking to work, to bus stops, to stores, to neighbors’ homes. But the road’s design has not caught up to its use. This is a pattern repeated across West Texas and the broader Permian Basin.
FM roads frequently lack sidewalks. They frequently lack crosswalks. They frequently lack adequate lighting. They frequently lack shoulders that separate pedestrians from vehicle traffic. When a road has no sidewalk and no shoulder, a person on foot has two choices: walk in the travel lane or walk in the adjacent dirt or grass. In pre-dawn darkness, walking in the travel lane is dangerous — but so is walking in unlit, uneven terrain where a fall is a serious risk. The design of the road forces the pedestrian into the very position that the law then uses to assess comparative fault. That is a structural injustice, and it is one that a jury in Howard County can understand — because the jurors drive these roads every day and know what they look like at 6:40 in the morning.
Texas law’s requirement that drivers exercise due care to avoid colliding with pedestrians on a roadway exists precisely because pedestrians end up in roadways. The law does not say “exercise due care to avoid colliding with pedestrians who are where they are supposed to be.” It says “exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on a roadway.” Any pedestrian. Any roadway. Any conditions. The duty does not vanish because the sun has not yet risen. The duty does not vanish because the road has no sidewalk. The duty does not vanish because the pedestrian is in the travel lane. The duty exists, and the driver either fulfilled it or did not.
For more information on how Texas law protects vulnerable road users — pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and scooter riders — our vulnerable road user resource explains the legal framework and how it applies to collisions on roads not built for people on foot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the family still recover if the police report says Aamiyah was in the travel lane?
Yes. The preliminary police report is the starting point, not the conclusion. Texas law allows recovery when the pedestrian’s share of fault is 50% or less. The police report’s observation that Aamiyah entered the travel lane is one fact — but the driver’s speed, distraction, and failure to exercise due care are facts that the police report may not capture. The EDR data, the cell-phone records, the reconstruction analysis, and the witness statements are the evidence that can shift fault to the driver and keep the family’s recovery alive. The report does not decide the case. The jury does.
How long does the family have to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Texas?
Texas generally allows two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death lawsuit. However, this is the outer deadline. The real deadlines are much shorter: EDR data can be overwritten in days, cell-phone records can be purged in 90 days, surveillance footage loops in 24 to 72 hours, and witness memory fades within weeks. If a claim against TxDOT is being explored, the Texas Tort Claims Act requires notice within six months of the incident. The two-year statute is the backstop — but the evidence that wins the case operates on a much shorter clock.
What if the at-fault driver only has minimum insurance?
Texas requires minimum liability coverage of $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident. If the driver carries only the minimum, the liability recovery is capped at $30,000 — far below the value of a 22-year-old’s life. But the family may have additional coverage through underinsured motorist (UIM) protection, either through Aamiyah’s own policy or through a household family member’s policy. UIM coverage bridges the gap between the at-fault driver’s limits and the full value of the loss. Identifying all available coverage is one of the first tasks in any pedestrian fatality case.
Will the family have to go to court?
Most wrongful death cases settle before trial. But the strength of the settlement depends on the family’s willingness to go to trial. The insurance company evaluates every case based on what a jury would do. If the family’s case is well-built — with EDR data, reconstruction analysis, and distraction evidence — the insurance company knows a Howard County jury could return a verdict that exceeds the driver’s policy limits. That risk is what drives fair settlements. If the insurance company refuses to be reasonable, the case proceeds to trial, and a jury of the community’s residents decides what Aamiyah’s life was worth.
Does Texas cap damages in wrongful death cases from motor vehicle negligence?
Texas does not impose a statutory damages cap on wrongful death or personal injury claims arising from motor vehicle negligence against non-governmental, private defendants. A jury is free to award the full measure of damages the evidence supports. If a governmental entity like TxDOT is a defendant under the Texas Tort Claims Act, damages are capped at $250,000 per person and $500,000 per occurrence for state government entities. But against a private driver and his insurance company, there is no cap on the damages a jury may award.
Can the family pursue a claim against TxDOT for the road’s design?
Potentially, yes — but with significant constraints. The Texas Tort Claims Act allows claims against governmental entities for the “condition or use of tangible personal or real property,” which could include a roadway’s design. However, roadway design decisions are often classified as discretionary governmental actions, which are generally barred from suit. Claims arising from a failure to install traffic control devices or warning signs are also generally barred, though liability may attach if the agency failed to correct a known hazard after receiving notice. If a TxDOT claim is viable, the family must provide formal notice of the claim within six months of the incident. This is a complex theory of liability that requires early investigation.
What happens if the driver was texting or on the phone when he hit Aamiyah?
If the driver was distracted by a call, text, or app at the time of impact, it is powerful evidence of negligence. A distracted driver is not maintaining proper lookout — the duty that Texas Transportation Code § 552.008 requires. Cell-phone records establish whether the driver was using his phone at the time of collision. This evidence can shift significant fault to the driver, pushing the pedestrian’s share below 51% and keeping the family’s recovery alive. The preservation letter to the cell carrier must go out immediately, because carrier retention periods vary and the records will be purged.
Should the family speak to the at-fault driver’s insurance adjuster?
No. The at-fault driver’s insurance adjuster works for the insurance company, not for the family. Every call is recorded. Every statement can be used to support the 51% bar. The adjuster’s job is to minimize the insurance company’s payout, and the most effective way to do that is to lock in the narrative that the pedestrian was at fault. The family should not speak to the adjuster, return the adjuster’s calls, sign any forms, or accept any checks without legal representation. Every communication should go through counsel.
Who We Are: The People Who Will Fight for Your Family
Ralph Manginello is our Managing Partner. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find the story the evidence tells — and how to tell it to a jury. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He is the lead counsel in the active $10 million Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston hazing lawsuit in Harris County. He does not lose cases because he does not accept losing as an option. When Ralph signs his name to a case, it carries the weight of 27 years of bar license and the instinct of a competitor who hates losing more than he likes winning.
Lupe Peña is our Associate Attorney. He is a former insurance-defense attorney — he spent years inside a national defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their valuation software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims from people exactly like Aamiyah’s family. He knows how the insurance company sets its reserve in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the claim is fed into software that discounts pain it cannot see. He knows because he used to do it. Now he sits on your side of the table. Lupe is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch, born and raised in Sugar Land. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
Our firm has recovered over $50 million in aggregate for injured clients and their families. That figure includes a $5 million-plus brain-injury settlement, a $3.8 million-plus amputation settlement, a $2.5 million-plus truck-crash recovery, and a $2 million-plus maritime back-injury settlement. We state these as the firm’s record, not as a prediction for any specific case. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% if the case settles before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. You pay nothing up front. The consultation is free. The first call costs you nothing — and it starts the evidence-preservation clock the same day.
We have 24/7 live staff — not an answering service. When you call 1-888-ATTY-911 at 2 a.m., a person answers. That person can take your information and get a message to our attorneys immediately. The preservation letters can go out the next business day. In a case where EDR data can be overwritten and surveillance footage loops every 24 hours, the difference between calling today and calling next week may be the difference between having evidence and having nothing.
Hablamos Español. We serve your family fully in Spanish — the same depth, the same knowledge, the same fight — in the language you actually speak.
The Next Step
Aamiyah Jackson was 22 years old. She was walking on a road in her community at dawn. She was killed by a vehicle whose driver owed her a duty of care that Texas law takes seriously — even if the preliminary report does not. Her family deserves to know the full story of what happened on FM 700 on the morning of August 13. Not the first-responder narrative. Not the insurance company’s version. The truth — backed by EDR data, cell-phone records, reconstruction analysis, and the testimony of witnesses who saw what the officers arrived too late to see.
That truth is perishable. It is dying on a clock. And the only way to save it is to act now.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit for your family — and if we are not, we will tell you that too. But if we are, the preservation letters go out the day you call, the investigation begins immediately, and the fight for Aamiyah’s story starts now.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting our firm is free and confidential. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.