Midland Hit-and-Run Killed a Child — What Texas Law Says About Your Wrongful-Death Case, the Insurance Coverage, and the Evidence That’s Already Disappearing
The call comes and the world breaks. A child, gone. A driver who took that child’s life and drove away — didn’t stop, didn’t render aid, didn’t stay to face what they’d done. And now you are standing in a house that is too quiet, trying to understand how the law treats the worst thing that has ever happened to your family.
We are Attorney911, and we are writing this for you — the parent, the grandparent, the aunt or uncle who is reading at a hour when nobody should be awake, trying to find out what happens now. You are in the Midland-Odessa area, in the Permian Basin, where the roads carry a danger most of the country doesn’t understand. A child is dead. The driver fled. And the clock on both the evidence and the law has already started running.
Here is the first thing you need to hear: what happened to this child is not just a crime — it is a civil wrong with a remedy. Texas law gives the family of a person killed by another’s negligence the right to hold the responsible party accountable in court, even when that party ran from the scene. The criminal investigation and the civil case run on parallel tracks — the police search for the driver to prosecute, and we build the case to compensate the family. One does not depend on the other. The criminal case can help identify the driver, but the civil case is yours, and it is the one that answers the question that keeps you awake: who is going to pay for what was taken from this family?
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court, and Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you — before he came to this side of the table. We know how insurers handle a hit-and-run claim because Lupe used to be the person handling them. We know what evidence the police are collecting right now, and we know how fast that evidence can legally disappear. And we know the Permian Basin — its highways, its oilfield traffic, its courthouses, and the juries that sit in them.
This page is the complete picture: the Texas law that governs your case, the insurance coverage that exists (and the coverage that doesn’t), the evidence that is dying on a clock measured in days, and the playbook the insurance company is already running against you. Nothing here is guesswork. It is the law, the medicine, the money, and the fight — explained the way a senior trial lawyer explains it to a family across a kitchen table, because that is exactly what this is.
What Texas Law Says When a Hit-and-Run Kills a Child
Texas treats a death caused by someone else’s negligence as a wrongful death — a civil cause of action that belongs to the surviving family, separate from any criminal prosecution. The Texas Wrongful Death Act, found in Chapter 71 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, creates the right, and it is one of the clearest in American law:
A “wrongful death” means a death caused by the “wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default” of another person — and the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the decedent have the right to bring an action for the death.
A driver who strikes a child and flees the scene has committed both a crime and a civil wrong. The crime — failure to stop and render aid — is prosecuted by the state through the Midland Police Department, the Ector County Sheriff’s Office, or the Texas Department of Public Safety, depending on jurisdiction. The civil wrong — the negligence that killed the child and the decision to flee — is what we pursue on behalf of the family.
These two tracks are independent. The criminal case can result in prison. The civil case can result in compensation. A driver who is never caught can still leave the family with a path to recovery through their own uninsured-motorist coverage. A driver who is caught gives the family both the criminal justice system’s accountability and the civil system’s financial remedy. We pursue the civil track regardless of whether the police ever identify the driver — because the family’s losses exist whether or not the driver is in handcuffs.
Who Can Bring the Claim
Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, the right to bring the claim belongs to the surviving spouse, the children, and the parents of the person killed. For a child, that means the parents — and in Texas, both a mother and a father have an independent claim for the loss of their child’s life. If the parents do not bring the claim within three months of the death, the executor or administrator of the child’s estate may bring it on behalf of the family.
There is also a separate claim called a survival action, which belongs to the estate rather than to the family directly. The survival action covers what the child endured between the injury and death — the pain, the fear, the medical care — plus the medical expenses and funeral costs. In a case where the child was killed instantly, the survival action may be smaller, but it still includes the costs the family bore. If the child survived for any time before death — even minutes — the pain-and-suffering component of the survival action can be substantial, and it belongs to the estate, not to the individual family members.
The Two-Year Deadline
Texas gives the family two years from the date of death to file a wrongful-death lawsuit. This is the statute of limitations — Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Section 16.003. Two years sounds like a long time when you are standing in the first hours of grief. It is not. The criminal investigation can take months. The insurance investigation can take months. Identifying a hit-and-run driver — if it happens at all — can take weeks, months, or never. And the evidence that proves what happened is dying on a clock measured in days, not years.
The two-year deadline is a hard wall. Miss it and the case is gone — no matter how strong it is, no matter how clear the negligence, no matter how devastating the loss. There are very narrow exceptions in Texas for cases involving minors or fraudulent concealment, but the general rule is unforgiving. The day you call a lawyer is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
The Hit-and-Run Driver and the Law — Two Separate Fights
When a driver kills a child and flees the scene in Texas, two things happen at once — and they are completely separate.
The first is the criminal investigation. Texas law imposes a duty to stop and render aid after any accident involving injury or death. Fleeing the scene of a fatal accident is a serious felony in Texas — a driver who leaves a dying child on the road has committed an act that can send them to prison. The police will investigate: they will canvas for surveillance, process the scene for vehicle debris, issue bulletins, and take tips through Crime Stoppers. If the driver is identified and arrested, the criminal case proceeds through the Midland County or Ector County criminal courts.
The second is the civil case — your case. This is the claim for the financial and human losses the family suffered because of the driver’s negligence. It does not wait for the criminal case. It does not depend on a conviction. The standard of proof in a civil case is lower than in a criminal case — a preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. A driver who is acquitted in criminal court can still be held financially liable in civil court. A driver who is never even charged can still be sued.
The civil case and the criminal case can inform each other. The police report, the vehicle identification, the driver’s statement (if any) — all of it can become evidence in the civil case. But the civil case is yours, not the state’s, and the remedies are different. The criminal case seeks punishment. The civil case seeks compensation — for the loss of the child’s life, for the parents’ grief, for the medical and funeral costs, for the future the child will never have.
If you are waiting for the criminal case to resolve before thinking about a civil case, you are losing time you cannot get back. The evidence is decaying. The insurance clock is running. The two-year statute of limitations does not pause for the criminal investigation. The day you call us is the day we send the preservation letters that freeze the evidence before it disappears.
Who Can Be Held Responsible in a Midland Hit-and-Run
The answer to “who pays” changes depending on whether the hit-and-run driver is identified. Here is the map of every potential defendant in a case like this.
If the Driver Is Identified
If the police find the driver — through surveillance, vehicle debris, a tip, or a confession — the case transforms. The driver becomes the primary defendant. Their auto insurance carrier becomes the primary source of compensation. And the facts of the crash — the speed, the impairment (if any), the decision to flee — become the evidence that drives the value of the case.
Texas requires every driver to carry minimum liability insurance of $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per incident, and $25,000 for property damage. That $30,000 is the floor — and for the death of a child, it is an insult. One night in a hospital, one funeral, one year of a family’s grief — $30,000 does not begin to cover it. Many drivers carry more — 50/100, 100/300, or higher — but many carry exactly the minimum, and some carry none at all.
If the driver has insurance, we pursue that policy. If the driver’s insurance is insufficient to cover the loss (and it almost always is), we pursue underinsured-motorist (UIM) coverage under the family’s own auto policy. And we investigate every other source of coverage — excess policies, umbrella policies, coverage through an employer if the driver was on the job, and coverage through the vehicle owner if different from the driver.
If the Driver Is Never Identified
If the hit-and-run driver is never found, the case does not go away — but the source of compensation shifts. The family’s own uninsured-motorist (UM) coverage becomes the primary recovery vehicle. Texas Insurance Code requires every auto insurer to offer UM/UIM coverage, and most Texas policies include it unless the policyholder signed a written rejection. UM coverage applies when the at-fault driver is uninsured or unidentified — which is exactly what a hit-and-run is.
There is a critical condition: most UM policies and Texas case law require some evidence of physical contact between the unidentified vehicle and the victim or the victim’s vehicle. In a hit-and-run where the vehicle struck the child or the child’s car, this condition is typically met. The police report, the physical evidence at the scene, and the medical records establish the contact. But the family must also promptly report the accident to the police and to their own insurance carrier — and “promptly” has a deadline written into the policy.
The UM limits on the family’s policy are the ceiling of recovery against an unidentified driver. If the family carries 100/300 UM coverage, that is $100,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. If they carry 50/100, it is less. The UM carrier steps into the shoes of the at-fault driver — they are the ones who pay, and they will fight the claim as aggressively as if they were defending the hit-and-run driver, because in a sense they are.
If the Hit-and-Run Vehicle Was Commercial
The Permian Basin runs on trucks. Water haulers, frac sand transporters, crude-oil tankers, pump trucks, wireline trucks, equipment haulers — the roads between Midland and Odessa carry a volume of commercial truck traffic that most of the country never sees. If the vehicle that struck and killed this child was a commercial truck — an oilfield hauler, a delivery van, a water truck — the case changes dramatically.
A commercial motor vehicle involved in interstate commerce is subject to federal safety regulations under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The federal minimum insurance for a general-freight interstate carrier is $750,000 — and for a hazmat hauler, it can be $1 million or $5 million depending on the cargo. That is twenty-five times the Texas personal-auto minimum, and it is the floor, not the ceiling. Many commercial carriers carry far more.
If the commercial vehicle can be identified — from surveillance, from a witness who caught the company name or the USDOT number on the door, from the vehicle debris that matches a specific make and model — then the carrier becomes a defendant. And a commercial defendant opens doors that a personal driver does not: the carrier’s safety record is public through the FMCSA SAFER database. The driver’s hours-of-service logs, drug-test results, and vehicle inspection reports are all subject to federal retention requirements — and all discoverable in a civil case.
We have pursued commercial truck crash cases across the Permian Basin — against water haulers, sand trucks, and oilfield fleets that run these roads on deadlines that push drivers past the edge of safety. If a commercial vehicle killed this child and fled, the case is not just about the driver — it is about the company that put that truck on the road, the company that trained (or failed to train) that driver, and the company whose insurance tower may reach into the millions.
The Permian Basin Traffic Reality
The Permian Basin is the most productive oil basin in the United States. Midland and Odessa sit at its center, connected by Highway 191 and straddling Interstate 20. The oil boom that transformed this region over the past two decades brought jobs, prosperity, and a volume of truck traffic the roads were never designed to carry. Water-hauling trucks run 24 hours a day. Frac sand trucks by the hundreds move along the corridors between well sites and sand mines. Crude-oil tankers and equipment haulers share the same two-lane highways and interstate ramps as family cars, school buses, and children on bicycles.
The people who live here know this danger in their bones. They see it at shift change, when the industrial corridors — Industrial Avenue, Highway 349, FM 1788 out toward the airport and the oilfield — fill with trucks running on schedules that do not account for a child who might be crossing. They see it on Loop 250, where the Midland loop traffic meets the oilfield traffic. They see it on the Highway 191 stretch between Midland and Odessa, where the speed limit says 75 and the trucks say faster.
A hit-and-run in this environment is not an abstract risk. It is the specific, foreseeable danger of a region where massive commercial vehicles share roads with families, and where a driver who strikes a child may be a trucker on a deadline who calculates that fleeing costs less than stopping — or may be a local driver who panics and runs. Either way, the Permian Basin traffic context is part of the case — it is the foreseeability, the environment, and, if a commercial vehicle is involved, the defendant.
The Evidence Clock in a Hit-and-Run — What Exists and How Fast It Dies
A hit-and-run case is an evidence race. The police are racing to identify the driver. We are racing to freeze the proof before it legally disappears. Every type of evidence in this case has a shelf life — and some of them are measured in days, not months.
Surveillance Video — 30 Days or Less
The single most important piece of evidence in a hit-and-run is often surveillance video from a nearby business, a traffic camera, or a dashboard camera in a passing vehicle. Midland and Odessa have commercial corridors lined with businesses that maintain exterior cameras — gas stations, truck stops, convenience stores, parking lots. That footage may show the vehicle, the driver, the license plate, the moment of impact, and the flight from the scene.
Here is what the business will tell you: the camera recorded it. Here is what they will not tell you unless someone asks in time: the camera records over itself. Most commercial surveillance systems overwrite on a rolling loop — commonly 30 days, sometimes as little as a week, occasionally longer. Once the loop completes, the footage of the vehicle that killed this child is gone. Permanently. Not deleted on purpose — erased by the machine’s own design.
The preservation letter — a formal written demand that the business save the footage — is what stops that clock. The day we are retained, letters go out to every business within camera range of the crash scene. Not next month. Not after the funeral. That week. Because the video that proves what happened is recording over itself right now.
Police Body Camera and Dash Camera Footage
When Midland Police, Ector County Sheriff’s deputies, or Texas DPS troopers respond to the scene of a fatal hit-and-run, their body cameras and vehicle dash cameras are running. That footage captures the scene as it was found — the position of the child, the debris field, the skid marks, the witnesses, the conditions. It is primary evidence, and it is retained by the law-enforcement agency according to its own retention policy — which can be as short as 90 days for non-evidentiary recordings, though footage in an active death investigation is typically held longer.
This footage must be requested formally and early. A public-records request through the Texas Public Information Act can obtain it, but the agency may withhold active-investigation material until the criminal case is closed. A civil preservation letter, served on the agency, creates a separate obligation to maintain the footage for the civil case.
Vehicle Debris and Scene Evidence
A vehicle that strikes a human being — especially at speed — leaves pieces of itself behind. Paint chips, glass fragments, mirror pieces, grille components, trim. These are not just debris — they are physical evidence that can identify the make, model, and year of the striking vehicle. A fragment of a headlight assembly can be matched to a specific vehicle model. A paint chip can be chemically analyzed and compared to a suspect vehicle. A piece of a mirror can carry a part number.
The police crime-scene unit collects this evidence, but the scene itself is perishable. Weather removes it. Traffic drives over it. The city cleans the road. Every day that passes, the scene degrades. If the family has not yet had the scene independently documented — photographed, measured, debris collected — that work should be done immediately. The police do their best, but they are building a criminal case, and their priorities are not always the family’s priorities.
The Victim’s Vehicle Black Box
If the child was in a vehicle when struck — a car seat, a booster, a seatbelt — the vehicle’s event data recorder (EDR) captured the crash forces. Federal law (49 CFR Part 563) requires that the EDR record the seconds before and during the crash: vehicle speed, brake application, throttle position, seatbelt status, airbag deployment timing, and the change in velocity (delta-V) that the vehicle experienced. This data is the crash’s sworn testimony — recorded by the machine, not by a witness whose memory will change.
But the EDR data is fragile. If the vehicle is repaired, sold, or scrapped, the data goes with it. If the airbags did not deploy, the recording may not be locked — meaning the next hard event can overwrite it. The EDR must be imaged by a trained technician with the right forensic equipment before the vehicle moves. Knowing what to do after a crash — and doing it fast — is the difference between having the machine’s testimony and not.
If the Hit-and-Run Vehicle Was Commercial — the Federal Evidence Clock
If the striking vehicle was a commercial truck, the evidence landscape changes — and the clocks get even tighter. The carrier is required by federal law to retain the driver’s records of duty status (the hours-of-service logs) for six months under 49 CFR 395.8(k). The driver’s vehicle inspection reports — which would show whether the truck had bad brakes, bald tires, or broken lights — are only retained for three months under 49 CFR 396.11. The carrier’s accident register is kept for three years. And the truck’s engine control module (ECM) — the commercial equivalent of a black box — records speed, hard-braking events, and last-stop data, but it overwrites itself when the truck is driven again.
If the commercial vehicle that fled this scene is identified, the preservation letter goes to the carrier that day — freezing the logs, the inspection reports, the ECM data, and the driver’s qualification file before the six-month and three-month clocks erase them. This is why we say the day you call is the day the clock starts working for you. Every day you wait is a day the company can legally destroy evidence.
The Permian Basin is full of commercial vehicles — and we have spent years pursuing oilfield truck crash cases where the evidence survived only because someone moved fast enough to freeze it. The same urgency applies here.
The Insurance Reality — What Coverage Exists and What Doesn’t
The hardest conversation we have with a family is about money — not because the child’s life can be priced, but because the insurance system’s math is brutal, and the family deserves to know the truth before an adjuster calls with a number that sounds like a lot and is not.
Texas Minimum Insurance: $30,000
If the hit-and-run driver is identified and carries Texas minimum insurance, the policy pays $30,000 per person for bodily injury. That is the floor the state of Texas has set — the lowest amount a driver is legally allowed to carry. For the death of a child, $30,000 will not cover the funeral, let alone the lifetime of loss. It is a number that should make every driver in this state check their own policy and raise their limits — but it is the reality we work with when the at-fault driver has nothing more.
Uninsured Motorist Coverage — the Family’s Own Policy
If the driver is never found — or if the driver is found but has no insurance — the family’s own uninsured-motorist (UM) coverage becomes the primary source of compensation. Texas Insurance Code requires insurers to offer UM coverage, and most Texas families carry it unless they signed a written rejection. The UM coverage limits mirror the family’s own liability limits: if the family carries 100/300 liability, they typically carry 100/300 UM.
UM coverage in a hit-and-run requires: (1) the accident was reported to the police, (2) the accident was reported to the insurance company within the policy’s deadline (often 30 days, sometimes sooner), and (3) there is evidence of physical contact with the unidentified vehicle. The police report and the scene evidence establish the contact. The reporting deadline is real — miss it and the UM carrier can deny the claim.
The UM carrier will treat the claim exactly the way the at-fault driver’s carrier would have — investigating, disputing liability, valuing the loss as low as possible. The UM carrier is not your friend. They are the at-fault driver’s stand-in, and they have every incentive to pay as little as possible. Knowing how uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage works — and how the carrier will fight the claim — is half the battle.
Underinsured Motorist Coverage — When the Driver Is Found but the Policy Is Too Small
If the hit-and-run driver is identified but carries only $30,000 in coverage, the family’s underinsured-motorist (UIM) coverage sits on top of the at-fault policy. The at-fault carrier pays its $30,000, and the UIM carrier pays the difference up to the family’s UIM limits. But the UIM carrier must approve the underlying settlement before the family accepts it — a Texas-specific requirement that can complicate the process if not handled correctly.
Commercial Coverage — If a Truck Was Involved
If the hit-and-run vehicle was a commercial truck, the coverage picture is entirely different. The federal minimum for a general-freight interstate carrier is $750,000. A hazmat hauler may carry $1 million or $5 million. Many Permian Basin carriers carry layered towers — primary coverage, excess coverage, and umbrella coverage that stack into the millions. The coverage tower is one of the first things we map when a commercial vehicle is identified, because the tower determines the realistic recovery ceiling.
The Coverage Gap — Why It Matters
The gap between what a child’s life is worth and what insurance will pay is the central tragedy of wrongful-death coverage. Texas law values a child’s life in full — the love, the companionship, the lost future, the parents’ grief — but the insurance system values it at whatever the policy limit is. When the at-fault driver carries $30,000, the gap between the value of the loss and the available insurance can be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. UM/UIM coverage on the family’s own policy is the bridge across that gap — which is why we tell every family we meet to carry the highest UM limits they can afford.
The Medicine — What Happens to a Child’s Body in a Crash
We write this section with restraint, because the reader is a grieving parent, not a medical student. But the law requires proof of what happened — the mechanism, the injuries, the cause of death — and the family will face this evidence in the medical records, the autopsy report, and possibly at trial. They deserve to understand it from someone who treats them as a person, not a case file.
Crash Forces on a Child’s Body
A child’s body is not a scaled-down adult’s body. The head is proportionally larger, the neck muscles are weaker, the rib cage is more flexible, and the internal organs are less protected by bone and muscle. When a vehicle strikes a child — whether the child is a pedestrian, on a bicycle, or in a car — the forces act on a body that is biologically more vulnerable to each of them.
For a child struck as a pedestrian, the mechanism depends on the height of the child and the height of the vehicle’s front end. An adult struck by a car typically takes the impact in the legs, then the torso, then the head — the “wrap-around” trajectory. A small child struck by a truck or SUV may take the full force directly in the head and torso — there is no wrap-around because the child’s head is at the level of the vehicle’s hood or grille. This is why pedestrian crashes involving children and high-front-end vehicles are disproportionately fatal.
For a child in a vehicle, the crash forces depend on the restraint system, the direction of impact, and the vehicle’s crashworthiness. A properly secured child in a car seat is dramatically better protected than an unrestrained child — but even a restrained child can suffer fatal injuries in a high-speed or high-force crash, particularly if the vehicle rolls over, if there is intrusion into the passenger compartment, or if the child is struck by a deploying airbag at the wrong age or weight.
Fatal Injury Patterns
The most common causes of death in pediatric crash victims are traumatic brain injury, internal organ rupture (particularly the liver, spleen, and bowel), and major blood-vessel injury. A child’s brain is more susceptible to rotational acceleration injury — the same forces that cause diffuse axonal injury in adults can be catastrophic in a child whose brain has less structural support. Internal organs can rupture from blunt force without external signs — a child who appears uninjured on the surface can be bleeding internally in a way that is fatal within minutes.
The medical record in a fatal case includes the EMS run sheet (the paramedics’ first observations), the emergency department records (if the child was transported), the autopsy report (if one was performed — and in a hit-and-run fatality, one typically is), and the death certificate. These documents establish the mechanism, the injuries, the cause of death, and — critically — whether the child experienced pain or consciousness between the injury and death. That last point matters for the survival action, which compensates the child’s estate for the pain and fear the child experienced before death.
The Trauma-Center Reality in the Permian Basin
Midland Memorial Hospital and Medical Center Hospital in Odessa serve the Permian Basin, but neither is a Level I trauma center — the highest level of trauma care, with a full trauma surgery team in the building 24 hours a day. The nearest Level I trauma centers are hours away — in Lubbock, in Fort Worth, in El Paso. For a child with catastrophic injuries from a crash, those hours can decide survival. For a child who is killed at the scene, the distance to a Level I center is irrelevant to the outcome — but it is relevant to the medical record, which will show whether the child was transported, how long transport took, and what care was provided en route.
This is not a criticism of the local hospitals. It is a geographic reality of living in the Permian Basin — the same reality that means a child injured on a rural oilfield road may wait longer for advanced trauma care than a child injured in a city with a Level I center. In a wrongful-death case, the transport time and the trauma-care level are part of the record, part of the story, and sometimes part of the damages.
What a Child’s Life Is Worth Under Texas Law
This is the section the insurance adjuster does not want you to read. Because the answer is: more than their policy will pay, and a Texas jury decides what that number is — not the adjuster, not the software, not the company.
No Cap on Non-Economic Damages
Texas has no statutory cap on non-economic damages in a non-medical-malpractice wrongful-death case. This is one of the strongest features of Texas wrongful-death law. The grief of a parent who has lost a child — the loss of love, companionship, society, care, attention, advice, counsel, training, guidance, and education — is compensable in full, with no artificial ceiling. A jury in Midland County — twelve people who drive these same roads, who know this same community, who understand what it means to lose a child — is empowered to put a dollar number on that loss that reflects its true weight.
This is not true everywhere. Some states cap non-economic damages in wrongful-death cases. Texas does not — not for a crash, not for a hit-and-run, not for the death of a child on a Permian Basin road. The absence of a cap is a weapon, and the insurance company knows it.
The Value of a Child’s Life — Not Just Lost Earnings
In a wrongful-death case involving a child, the defense will try to reduce the value to what the child would have earned — a calculation that, for a minor, is inherently speculative and almost always produces a number the defense likes. Texas law does not let them get away with that. The recovery for the death of a child includes:
- The loss of the child’s companionship, love, and society — the relationship between parent and child that was taken
- The mental and emotional pain and anguish of the parents — the grief, which is real, which is compensable, and which does not have a price tag the insurance company can cap
- The loss of the child’s future advice, counsel, and guidance — the counsel a child gives a parent as they grow, and the guidance a parent loses when a child never grows up
- In the survival action: the child’s pain and suffering between injury and death, the medical expenses, and the funeral costs
The value of a child’s life is not a formula. It is a story told to a jury — the story of who this child was, what this child meant to the family, and what was taken when a driver struck and fled. The jury translates that story into a verdict. That verdict, in a case with adequate insurance or a commercial defendant, can reach numbers that reflect the true magnitude of the loss.
Punitive Damages — the Fleeing Driver
Texas allows exemplary — punitive — damages in cases involving gross negligence or malice. A driver who strikes a child and flees the scene has given the strongest possible argument for both. The decision to leave a dying child on the road is not a moment of poor judgment — it is a choice that demonstrates indifference to human life. Under Texas law, that choice can support a punitive-damages award on top of the compensatory damages.
Punitive damages in Texas are subject to statutory limitations under Chapter 41 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, but the availability of the remedy is a powerful leverage point — it tells the insurance company that a jury may not only compensate the family but also punish the driver. And in a case where the fleeing driver’s conduct is egregious — high speed, impairment, a commercial driver abandoning a scene — the punitive argument can move the settlement number significantly.
What These Cases Are Worth — Honest Numbers
We do not promise outcomes. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But we can tell you what the firm has recovered in cases involving catastrophic injury and death, because those numbers are our record, not a prediction:
The firm has recovered over $50 million in aggregate across its caseload — a marketing figure that represents the total of the firm’s recoveries over its years of practice. The firm has recovered $5 million-plus in a brain-injury settlement, $3.8 million-plus in an amputation settlement, $2.5 million-plus in a truck-crash recovery, and $2 million-plus in a maritime back-injury settlement. Millions have been recovered in trucking wrongful-death cases.
These numbers tell you what is possible when the evidence is preserved, the law is applied, and the insurance company is forced to account for the full measure of the loss. They do not tell you what your case is worth — only the specific facts of this crash, this child, this family, and this defendant can answer that. But they tell you that the firm standing beside you has faced the insurance industry before and has won.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook in a Hit-and-Run Case
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before he came to our side of the table. He sat in the rooms where adjusters priced claims. He knows the software they use to value injuries — programs like Colossus that reduce a human being’s suffering to a set of inputs and spit out a number that is always lower than the loss is worth. He knows the tactics because he used to deploy them. Here is what the insurance industry does to a hit-and-run family — and here is what we do about it.
Play 1: The “Friendly” Call
Within days of the crash, someone will call. They will sound sympathetic. They will say they are “just checking on the family” and ask if everyone is doing okay. They will ask you to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording. Everything you say will be transcribed, and every word will be searched for something they can use: a statement that you are “holding up,” a comment that the child “wasn’t paying attention,” a casual “I’m doing fine” that they will later use to argue the family’s grief is not as severe as claimed.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement. You are not required to. The insurance company is not investigating to help you — they are investigating to limit what they pay. When they call, you say: “I am not giving a statement. I have retained counsel. Contact my attorney.” Then you call us.
Play 2: The Fast Check
A check may arrive in the mail — quickly, before the funeral, before the family has had time to think. It will come with a release document. The release says: if you sign and cash this check, you give up your right to pursue any further claim against the insurance company. The amount on the check will look like it helps — a few thousand dollars, maybe the policy limits on a small policy — but it is a fraction of what the case is worth, and signing the release closes the case forever.
The counter: Do not sign anything. Do not cash any check from an insurance company. Do not even open the envelope if you can help it. Every document the insurance company sends you is designed to close the case cheaply. Bring everything to us. We read every word, and we tell you what it actually means — not what the cover letter says it means.
Play 3: The UM Carrier’s “Investigation”
If the hit-and-run driver is unidentified and the claim is against the family’s own UM coverage, the UM carrier will assign an adjuster who will “investigate” the claim. This investigation is not designed to pay the family — it is designed to find reasons not to pay. The adjuster will look for: failure to report the accident to the police within the policy’s deadline, lack of physical-contact evidence, alternative explanations for the injuries, and any statement from the family that can be used to minimize the claim.
The counter: We handle the UM claim from the start. We ensure the police report is filed, the carrier is notified within the policy deadline, and the physical-contact evidence is documented. We do not let the UM adjuster take the family’s statement unrepresented. The UM carrier is not the family’s friend — they are the at-fault driver’s stand-in, and we treat them accordingly.
Play 4: The “Pre-Existing Condition” Argument
If the child had any prior medical history — a previous injury, a developmental condition, anything — the defense will try to attribute the death to that condition rather than to the crash. This is the eggshell-plaintiff doctrine in reverse: the defense argues the child was unusually vulnerable, so the crash was not really the cause.
The counter: Texas follows the eggshell-plaintiff rule — the defendant takes the victim as they are. A pre-existing condition does not reduce the defendant’s liability; it can increase the damages if the condition made the injuries worse. The child’s medical history is part of the record, but it is not a defense to the crash that killed them.
Play 5: The Delay
The insurance company knows that time is on their side. Every month that passes, evidence degrades. Witnesses forget. The family, exhausted by grief, may accept a low settlement just to be done with it. The adjuster will say they need “more documentation,” “more time to investigate,” “more information from the police.” Each request is a delay tactic aimed at running the clock and wearing the family down.
The counter: We move the case forward. We set deadlines. We demand responses. We file suit when the carrier will not negotiate in good faith. Under the Texas Stowers doctrine — a rule unique to Texas insurance law — if the claimant makes a reasonable settlement demand within the policy limits and the insurer refuses, the insurer can be held liable for the full verdict even if it exceeds the policy limits. The Stowers doctrine is a weapon the insurance company does not want you to know about, and we use it.
The Proof Story — How a Hit-and-Run Case Is Actually Built
Here is how the case moves from the day you call to the day a jury — or a settlement — delivers a number.
Week One: The Preservation Letters
The day we are retained, letters go out. To every business within camera range of the crash scene: preserve your surveillance footage. To the police agency: preserve the body-cam and dash-cam footage, the police report, the crime-scene photos, and the physical evidence. To the family’s insurance carrier: open the UM claim, preserve all coverage records, and do not take any statement from the family without counsel present. If a commercial vehicle is suspected: a separate letter to every carrier whose trucks run that corridor, demanding preservation of logs, ECM data, and driver records.
These letters are not requests — they are legal demands that create a duty to preserve. Once the letter is received, the recipient cannot destroy the evidence without facing sanctions. If surveillance footage disappears after a preservation letter is on file, the court can instruct the jury to assume the missing footage would have helped the family. The preservation letter is the single most important document in the first 72 hours, and it is why the day you call is the day the evidence stops dying.
Weeks Two Through Eight: The Investigation
While the police pursue the criminal investigation, we build the civil case. We obtain the police report, the crash-scene photos, the physical-evidence inventory, and the witness statements. We send an independent investigator to the scene to photograph, measure, and document before weather and traffic erase the skid marks and the debris. We pull the victim’s vehicle data if the child was in a vehicle — imaging the EDR before the vehicle is repaired or scrapped.
If the hit-and-run driver is identified, we pull their insurance records, their driving history, and — if they were driving a commercial vehicle — the carrier’s FMCSA SAFER profile, CSA safety scores, crash history, and out-of-service inspection rates. We subpoena the driver’s hours-of-service logs, post-crash drug and alcohol test results, and vehicle inspection reports. We look for prior complaints, prior crashes, and prior citations that establish a pattern the carrier knew about and ignored.
If the driver is not identified, we build the UM case — documenting the physical-contact evidence, the police report, the reporting timeline, and the family’s losses, and we prepare the UM claim for presentation to the family’s carrier.
Months Two Through Six: The Medical and Damages Picture
We assemble the full medical record — the EMS run sheet, the emergency-department records, the autopsy report, the death certificate. We work with a forensic pathologist who can explain, to a jury, exactly what the crash forces did to this child’s body and how the injuries caused death. We retain a life-care planner and a forensic economist if the case involves a survived injury, or we build the wrongful-death damages model if the child did not survive — quantifying the loss of the child’s companionship, the parents’ grief, and the future the child will never have.
We document every dollar the family has spent — the funeral, the medical bills, the counseling, the lost wages from taking time off work. And we build the human story — the photographs, the school records, the testimony of family members and friends who knew this child and can tell a jury who they were.
Months Six Through Trial: The Fight
If the insurance company will not offer a fair settlement — and they usually will not, at first — we file suit. In Midland County, the case goes to the district courts that serve Midland County, where a jury of twelve people from this community will hear the evidence. In Ector County, the same — the Odessa courts, the Odessa jurors, the people who live on these same roads.
Discovery follows: depositions of the at-fault driver (if identified), the investigating officers, the insurance adjuster, and every witness. Interrogatories and document demands that pull the insurance file, the carrier’s safety records, and the defense experts’ opinions into the open. Motions that test the legal sufficiency of every defense. And mediation — a formal settlement conference where the insurance company puts its best offer on the table and the family decides whether to accept or take the case to a jury.
If the case goes to trial, we present the full picture: the mechanism of the crash, the failure of the driver to stop, the injuries that killed the child, the losses the family has suffered, and the number that a jury of twelve Midland or Odessa residents believes is justice. The jury decides. The insurance company does not.
The First 72 Hours — What to Do and What Not to Do
If you are reading this in the first days after the crash, here is the practical roadmap — what to do, what to refuse, and what to protect.
What to Do
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Get the police report number. The Midland Police Department, Ector County Sheriff’s Office, or Texas DPS will have a case number for the crash investigation. Write it down. We will need it to obtain the full report and the evidence the police are collecting.
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Notify your own auto insurance carrier. If the hit-and-run driver is unidentified, the family’s UM coverage is the path to compensation. Most policies require notification within 30 days — some require it sooner. Call the carrier, report the crash, get a claim number, and then call us before giving any statement.
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Preserve everything. Do not let anyone repair, sell, or scrap the vehicle the child was in (if applicable). Do not delete any photos, texts, or voicemails from the day of the crash. Do not throw away any paperwork from the hospital, the funeral home, or the police. Bring all of it to us.
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Photograph the scene. If the crash site has not been cleaned, go back with a camera. Photograph the road, the skid marks, the debris, the traffic signs, the sight lines. If businesses near the scene have exterior cameras, note which ones — we will send preservation letters the day we are retained.
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Write down what you remember. The family’s own memory of the day — what was said, who was called, what the weather was, what the road conditions were — is evidence that will fade. Write it down now, while it is fresh.
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Call us. 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. And the preservation letters go out the day we are hired — not the day the case is filed, not the day the insurance company calls, the day you call.
What Not to Do
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Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company. Not the at-fault driver’s carrier, not your own carrier, not anyone. You are not required to, and everything you say will be used to minimize the claim.
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Do not sign any document from an insurance company. No release, no authorization, no settlement offer — nothing. Bring every document to us before you sign, initial, or return it.
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Do not accept a check from an insurance company. Cashing a check can constitute acceptance of a settlement and release of the claim — even if you did not intend to release anything.
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Do not post on social media. The insurance company and their investigators monitor social media. A photograph, a comment, a “like” — anything that can be used to argue the family is not grieving as severely as they claim will be found and used. Assume every post is being read by the insurance adjuster. It is.
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Do not wait. Evidence is disappearing. The statute of limitations is running. The insurance company is building its defense. Every day you wait is a day the other side is ahead.
The Permian Basin Courthouse and the Jury That Decides
A wrongful-death case in Midland County is decided by a Midland County jury. In Ector County, by an Ector County jury. These are not abstract forums — they are the people who live here, who drive these same roads, who know the oilfield traffic from the inside, who understand what it means to lose a child in a community where families look out for each other.
The insurance company knows this. They know that a Midland jury is not going to look kindly on a driver who struck a child and fled. They know that a Permian Basin jury understands the danger of these roads — they live with it every day. And they know that a jury that understands the community is a jury that will value the loss honestly.
This is not just sentiment — it is strategy. The forum where the case is filed, the jury that hears it, and the community that sits in the box are all part of the case. A local jury that knows the roads, knows the traffic, and knows the value of a child’s life in this community is a powerful thing. The insurance company’s lawyers fly in from towers in other cities. The jury lives here. That is the home-field advantage, and it belongs to the family.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we sue if the hit-and-run driver is never found?
Yes. If the driver is never identified, the family can pursue a claim through their own uninsured-motorist (UM) coverage, which Texas law requires insurers to offer and which applies when the at-fault driver is unidentified. The UM carrier steps into the shoes of the at-fault driver and becomes the defendant. The family must show that the accident was reported to the police, that it was reported to the insurance company within the policy’s deadline, and that there was physical contact with the unidentified vehicle. We handle every element of this process so the family does not face the UM carrier alone.
How long do we have to file a wrongful-death case in Texas?
Two years from the date of death. This is the Texas statute of limitations for wrongful death — a hard deadline that, if missed, permanently bars the claim regardless of its strength. There are very narrow exceptions, but the general rule is unforgiving. The criminal investigation does not pause this clock. The insurance investigation does not pause it. Two years sounds like a long time in the first days of grief; it is not. Call us early so the clock works for you, not against you.
What if the hit-and-run driver is found but has no insurance?
If the driver is identified but uninsured, the family’s UM coverage applies — the same coverage that would apply if the driver were never found. If the driver has some insurance but not enough (for example, Texas minimum of $30,000), the family’s underinsured-motorist (UIM) coverage sits on top of the at-fault policy and pays the difference up to the family’s UIM limits. We map every layer of coverage — the at-fault driver’s policy, the family’s UM/UIM, any excess or umbrella policies, and any employer coverage if the driver was on the job — to find every source of compensation.
Can we pursue punitive damages against a driver who fled the scene?
Yes. Texas allows exemplary (punitive) damages in cases involving gross negligence or malice. A driver who strikes a child and flees the scene has demonstrated exactly the kind of conscious indifference to human life that supports a punitive-damages claim. The decision to leave a dying child on the road is not ordinary negligence — it is an aggravating act that a jury can punish. Punitive damages in Texas are subject to statutory limitations, but the availability of the remedy is a powerful leverage point in settlement negotiations.
Is there a cap on damages for a child’s wrongful death in Texas?
No. Texas has no statutory cap on non-economic damages in a non-medical-malpractice wrongful-death case. The grief of the parents, the loss of the child’s companionship, and the emotional pain of the family are compensable in full, with no artificial ceiling. A jury decides what the loss is worth — not the legislature, not the insurance company, not the defense lawyer. This is one of the strongest features of Texas wrongful-death law, and it is why a child’s death case can carry a value that reflects the true magnitude of the loss.
What if the hit-and-run vehicle was a commercial truck?
If the striking vehicle was a commercial truck — a water hauler, a frac sand truck, a crude tanker, a delivery van — the case changes dramatically. Commercial vehicles are subject to federal safety regulations under the FMCSA, which means the carrier must carry at least $750,000 in coverage (and up to $5 million for certain hazmat), retain hours-of-service logs, conduct post-crash drug and alcohol testing, and maintain vehicle inspection records. The carrier’s safety record is public through the FMCSA SAFER database. If the truck can be identified, the carrier becomes a defendant with a deeper pocket, a public safety record, and federal obligations that create powerful evidence of negligence.
How much is a wrongful-death case worth for a child?
There is no formula. The value of a child’s wrongful-death case is what a jury says it is — based on the loss of the child’s love, companionship, society, and future, and the parents’ grief and mental anguish. The firm has recovered $5 million-plus in a brain-injury settlement, $2.5 million-plus in a truck-crash recovery, and millions in trucking wrongful-death cases. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But the value of a child’s life under Texas law is not capped, not formulaic, and not something the insurance company gets to decide unilaterally. A jury decides. We make sure they have the full picture.
Should we wait for the criminal case to resolve before pursuing a civil case?
No. The criminal case and the civil case run on separate tracks with separate timelines. The criminal investigation can take months or years, and the two-year civil statute of limitations does not pause while the police search for the driver. The civil case can proceed even if the driver is never charged — through UM coverage if the driver is unidentified, or through a civil lawsuit if the driver is known. Waiting for the criminal case can cost the family both time and evidence — the surveillance footage, the witness memories, and the scene evidence that the civil case needs are dying on the same clock as the criminal case. Move on both tracks simultaneously.
What does it cost to hire Attorney911?
Nothing up front. We work on contingency — we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% of the recovery before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day. We have live staff — not an answering service — and we answer the phone when you call. If we are not the right fit for your case, we will tell you. And if we are, we will fight for your family the way we would fight for our own.
The Firm — Who Is Standing Beside You
Ralph Manginello is the managing partner of Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27-plus years of trial practice in Texas courtrooms, including the U.S. District Court for the 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 in language they understand. He is admitted to practice in federal court. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He leads the active $10 million-plus hazing wrongful-death lawsuit at the University of Houston — a case that, like yours, is about accountability for a young life taken by someone else’s choices. He does not lose cases because he was outworked.
Lupe Peña is an associate attorney at the firm, licensed in Texas since December 2012. Before he came to this side of the table, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to value, delay, and deny claims. He knows Colossus — the valuation software insurers use to reduce a human being’s suffering to inputs. He knows how adjusters set reserves in the first 48 hours, before the real injuries are known. He knows the IME doctors insurers send claimants to and the surveillance tactics they deploy. And he uses all of that knowledge for injured families now. Lupe is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — and he is a third-generation Texan with family roots that run deep in this state.
Together, Ralph and Lupe bring the insider’s knowledge of how the insurance industry works and the trial lawyer’s skill to make it answer. We are the firm that takes these cases — the Permian Basin crash, the hit-and-run, the child killed on a road that should have been safe. We are not the biggest firm. We are the firm that treats your family’s case as if it were our own, because in every way that matters to the work, it is.
Hablamos Español. Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish, and our staff is bilingual. If your family prays in Spanish, we speak your language.
The Call
1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, live staff — not an answering service.
The evidence is dying. The clock is running. The insurance company is already building its defense. And the family of a child killed in a Permian Basin hit-and-run deserves someone who knows this fight — the law, the roads, the insurance industry, and the courthouses — and who will use every tool the law provides to hold the responsible party accountable.
Call. The preservation letters go out the day you hire us. The investigation starts the day you call. And the fight for this child’s life — for its value, for its meaning, for the accountability a fleeing driver tried to escape — begins the moment you say yes.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential. We serve Midland, Odessa, and the Permian Basin, and we take cases across Texas.