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Fatal Semi-Truck Crash at Jordan Lake Road & West Clarksville Road in Odessa Township, Ionia County: Attorney911 Brings 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice to Rural Michigan Wrongful-Death Claims Involving Commercial Vehicles, We Investigate the Mass-Ratio Physics of a Chevrolet Impala Versus an 80,000-Pound Rig and the Sightline, Signage and Speed Factors at Unsignalized Rural Crossings Where the Crash Investigation Remains Open, We Pull the ELD and ECM Black-Box Data Before the Overwrite and Pursue the Carriers and Commercial Operators Behind the Truck Under 49 CFR Financial-Responsibility Rules, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Values and Denies Fatal Crash Cases, Michigan’s Wrongful-Death Act and Comparative-Fault Doctrine, the Firm Has Recovered Millions in Wrongful-Death Cases and $2.5M+ in a Truck-Crash Recovery — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

July 17, 2026 31 min read
Fatal Semi-Truck Crash at Jordan Lake Road & West Clarksville Road in Odessa Township, Ionia County: Attorney911 Brings 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice to Rural Michigan Wrongful-Death Claims Involving Commercial Vehicles, We Investigate the Mass-Ratio Physics of a Chevrolet Impala Versus an 80,000-Pound Rig and the Sightline, Signage and Speed Factors at Unsignalized Rural Crossings Where the Crash Investigation Remains Open, We Pull the ELD and ECM Black-Box Data Before the Overwrite and Pursue the Carriers and Commercial Operators Behind the Truck Under 49 CFR Financial-Responsibility Rules, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Values and Denies Fatal Crash Cases, Michigan's Wrongful-Death Act and Comparative-Fault Doctrine, the Firm Has Recovered Millions in Wrongful-Death Cases and $2.5M+ in a Truck-Crash Recovery — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911 - Attorney911

The Phone Call at 7:45 on a Friday Morning: Losing Someone on Jordan Lake Road

The phone rings, or maybe it does not — maybe it is a sheriff’s deputy at the door in Odessa Township, or a call that started with “we need you to come” and ended with the worst words you have ever heard. A man you love left the house on West Clarksville Road heading east toward something ordinary. The route he drove a thousand times. At the intersection with Jordan Lake Road, a semi-truck was traveling north. The preliminary report from the Ionia County Sheriff’s Office says the Chevrolet did not stop. And now a 64-year-old man from Lake Odessa is gone, and the truck driver walked away without a scratch, and you are sitting at a kitchen table trying to understand how a Friday morning became the last morning.

We are writing this for you. Not for a search engine, not for a marketing file — for the person who just lost someone on a road they have driven their whole life and now has to make decisions they never prepared for while an insurance adjuster is already, at this very hour, building a file to pay as little as possible. Everything on this page is what we would tell you if we were sitting across that kitchen table with you right now. It is the law of Michigan as it applies to your situation, the federal rules that govern the truck that was on that road, the evidence that is already dying on a clock you cannot see, and the things you should and should not do in the hours and days ahead. It is free. It is yours. And if what you read makes sense, the call is free too: 1-888-ATTY-911. Twenty-four hours a day, a live person — not an answering service.

We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle wrongful death and commercial-vehicle cases in Michigan. The man who founded this firm, Ralph Manginello, has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. The associate who works beside him, Lupe Peña, spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims from people exactly like you — before he chose to sit on your side of the table. He is fluent in Spanish. We say that with pride, because it means we serve families fully in the language they think and grieve in. We do not get paid unless we win your case.

This page is legal information, not legal advice, and contacting the firm is free and confidential. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.

Michigan’s Wrongful Death Law: Who Can File, What Can Be Recovered, and the Three-Year Clock

When someone is killed in a crash in Michigan, the law does not treat it as an ordinary injury case. It opens a specific legal path with its own rules, its own deadlines, and its own procedures. Here is what you need to understand.

Michigan’s Wrongful Death Act provides that when a person’s death is caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or fault of another, the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate may bring a claim. This is the first mechanical step: a personal representative must be appointed by the probate court before any lawsuit is filed. The personal representative is typically a family member — a spouse, an adult child, a parent — and the appointment process takes time. This is one of several reasons that contacting a lawyer early matters: the probate appointment is a prerequisite to everything else, and it does not happen automatically.

The statute of limitations. Michigan’s wrongful death statute of limitations is three years from the date of death. That is the hard deadline. Miss it, and the claim is gone — no matter how strong the evidence, no matter how clear the fault. Three years sounds like a long time when you are standing in a hospital hallway or a funeral home. It is not. The first months are consumed by grief, by arrangements, by the immediate aftermath. The investigation takes time. The probate appointment takes time. And the evidence — the truck’s electronic logs, the scene measurements, the camera footage — is dying on clocks far shorter than three years. The three-year clock is the outer wall. The real deadline is the day the evidence starts to disappear, and that clock is already running.

Who can recover. Michigan’s wrongful death statute specifies a hierarchy of beneficiaries. The damages recovered are distributed according to this statutory framework, not necessarily according to the deceased person’s will. The typical hierarchy includes the surviving spouse and children first, then parents, then siblings, then other heirs. Whether a particular family member can recover, and in what proportion, is a question of Michigan statutory law that must be examined for each family’s circumstances.

What can be recovered. A wrongful death claim in Michigan seeks compensation for the losses the surviving family has suffered. These include:

  • Loss of financial support — the income and financial contributions the deceased would have provided to the family over his expected lifetime, reduced to present value
  • Loss of society and companionship — the guidance, advice, training, companionship, and comfort the deceased would have provided
  • Funeral and burial expenses — though some of these may be covered by Michigan no-fault PIP benefits (see the next section)
  • Conscious pain and suffering — if there was a period between the injury and death during which the deceased was conscious and experienced pain, the estate may pursue a separate survival claim for that suffering
  • Medical expenses incurred between injury and death — if any treatment was provided before death

The value of these losses is not a number an adjuster picks. It is built from the deceased person’s earnings history, his life expectancy, his family relationships, and the specific facts of how the crash occurred and how death came. A forensic economist projects the lost financial support across the working years the deceased had remaining. A life-care planner is not typically needed in a death case, but the economic and human losses are quantified with the same rigor.

Michigan does not generally allow punitive damages in ordinary negligence wrongful death cases. We tell you this honestly because you deserve the truth, not a promise designed to sound good. The focus is on full and fair compensation for the actual losses — economic and non-economic — not on punishment.

When Fault Is Shared: Michigan’s Comparative Negligence Rule

We are going to be honest with you about something the insurance adjuster will use against your family, because honesty is how we protect you.

The preliminary report indicates the Chevrolet entered the intersection without stopping. The insurance company for the trucking company will point to this and argue that the driver of the Chevrolet was at fault — and they will use that argument to try to pay nothing, or to pay a fraction of what the claim is worth.

Here is what Michigan law actually says.

Michigan follows a modified comparative negligence rule. Under this rule, the fault of each party is apportioned as a percentage. If the deceased is found to bear some share of fault, the family’s recovery is reduced by that percentage. But — and this is the critical part — if the deceased’s share of fault is not more than half, the family can still recover. Only if the deceased is found to bear more than fifty percent of the fault does the law bar recovery entirely.

This means that even in a crash where the preliminary report suggests the Chevrolet failed to stop, the case is not over. The question is not binary — “at fault or not at fault.” The question is: what percentage of fault does each party bear, and is the deceased’s share at or below the threshold?

A thorough investigation may establish that the truck driver bears a meaningful share of fault — for speeding, for distraction, for fatigue, for failing to take evasive action that was available, for operating a vehicle with defective brakes, or for other factors that the preliminary report does not capture. Every percentage point of fault shifted from the deceased to the truck driver is money in the family’s recovery. This is exactly why the adjuster works so hard to pin the maximum percentage on the person who cannot speak for himself anymore. Every point is dollars.

And this is why the evidence matters more than the preliminary report. The ELD data, the ECM download, the skid-mark analysis, the sight-distance measurement, the sun-position calculation, the driver’s phone records, the post-crash toxicology — each piece of evidence can shift the fault picture. The preliminary report is the insurance company’s opening bid. The evidence is your answer.

“Large trucks often weigh 20-30 times as much as passenger vehicles.” — Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

The Evidence Clock: What Records Exist and How Fast They Legally Disappear

This is the most urgent section on this page. If you read nothing else, read this.

Every piece of evidence that tells the true story of this crash exists right now, today, on a clock. Some of it is already gone. Some of it will be gone in days. Some of it will be gone in months. None of it waits for the family to be ready.

The truck’s electronic logs (ELD/RODS) — 6-month clock. Federal law requires the trucking company to retain the driver’s records of duty status and supporting documents for six months from the date of receipt.

“A motor carrier shall retain records of duty status and supporting documents required under this part for each of its drivers for a period of not less than 6 months from the date of receipt.” — 49 CFR § 395.8(k)(1)

After six months, the company is legally permitted to destroy them. These logs show how long the driver had been on the road, whether he had exceeded the federal hours-of-service limits, and whether fatigue may have played a role. They are the single most important document in a fatigue case, and the law gives the company permission to erase them before a grieving family ever asks for them. The preservation letter that freezes those logs has to go out in days, not months.

The truck’s engine control module (ECM) data — can overwrite on the next trip. The truck’s engine computer records hard-brake events, last-stop data, speed, throttle, and brake application in the seconds before impact. Unlike a passenger car’s event data recorder, this data is not locked by regulation. It sits in a small buffer and can be overwritten when the truck is put back in service. If the carrier puts that rig back on the road after the crash — and carriers often do — the evidence of the truck’s speed and braking in the moments before impact is gone. Potentially within hours.

The Chevrolet’s event data recorder (EDR) — can overwrite if airbags did not deploy. Under federal regulation (49 CFR Part 563), the Chevrolet’s black box records pre-crash speed, brake application, throttle position, seatbelt status, and the change in velocity at impact. If the airbags deployed, federal law requires that data to be locked so it cannot be overwritten. If the airbags did not deploy, the data is not locked — and the next hard event can write over it. The vehicle must not be released from the tow yard, repaired, or driven until the EDR is imaged by a trained technician with the right forensic equipment. The tow yard is charging storage fees every day, and the insurance company may push to “total it out” and send it to salvage — which destroys the data. The vehicle is evidence. It must be preserved.

Post-crash drug and alcohol testing — the window has already closed or is closing. Federal law required the trucking company to test the driver for alcohol within eight hours of the crash and for controlled substances within thirty-two hours. If the test was not done within those windows, the company must document in writing exactly why it was not done. The test results — or the written explanation for the absence of a test — are discoverable. If the testing window has already passed, the question becomes: did the company comply with its federal obligation, or did it let the evidence disappear?

The driver qualification file — retained during employment plus three years. The trucking company must maintain a file on every driver showing the employment application, motor vehicle record, road test certificate, annual driving-record review, and medical examiner’s certificate. This file reveals whether the driver was qualified, whether his record was clean, and whether the company was monitoring him as the law required. It is retained for as long as the driver is employed plus three years after separation — so for a currently employed driver, it is alive now and must be demanded before a separation starts the three-year destruction clock.

Daily vehicle inspection reports (DVIR) — three-month retention. Drivers are required to inspect the truck every day and write up any safety defects — bad brakes, bald tires, broken lights. The company must certify that defects were repaired. These reports are only required to be kept for three months from the date they were prepared. Three months. If the truck had a brake defect that a prior driver had already reported, that document is the proof — and it dies faster than anything else in the file.

Scene evidence — documented by the Ionia County Sheriff’s Office, but finite. Skid marks fade. Debris is cleared. Vehicle positions are measured once and then the vehicles are towed. The ICSO crash report is being prepared, and it may take weeks. The scene itself is already gone. What remains is whatever the deputies measured and photographed, whatever witnesses saw, and whatever the physical evidence on the vehicles reveals. A reconstructionist can work from the crash report and the vehicle damage, but the sooner the vehicles are examined in the tow yard, the better.

Camera footage — the shortest clock of all. If there are security cameras on any nearby property — a farm, a business, a residence near the intersection — that footage is almost certainly on a rolling overwrite loop. Common retention is 30 days or less. Some systems overwrite in days. If there is a camera that captured the intersection, the footage must be demanded in writing immediately, or it records over itself and the truth is gone.

The driver’s phone records. If the driver was on a phone — handheld or hands-free — in the moments before the crash, the phone records prove it. But those records are held by a cellular carrier with its own retention schedule, and obtaining them requires a preservation letter or, in some cases, a subpoena. The longer the family waits, the more likely the carrier’s routine purge takes the data.

This is why the first thing we do — the day a family calls us — is send a preservation and spoliation letter to every entity that holds evidence: the trucking company, the truck’s insurer, the ELD vendor, the camera-footage owner, the tow yard, and the cellular carrier. That letter converts routine deletion into sanctionable destruction. Once the letter is on file, if the company lets evidence die, the jury can be told to assume the lost record was as bad as the plaintiff says it was. The letter is the shield that stops the clock. Without it, the evidence disappears on a schedule the family never asked for and the company never had to announce.

The Physics of a Car-vs-Truck Crash: Why the Outcome Is Never Fair

We want you to understand the physics of what happened on Jordan Lake Road, because the physics explains why the truck driver walked away and the man in the Chevrolet did not. It is not luck. It is mass.

A loaded semi-truck can weigh up to 80,000 pounds. A Chevrolet Impala weighs roughly 3,500 to 4,000 pounds. The truck outweighs the car by a factor of 20 to 30. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has documented that in fatal crashes involving large trucks, approximately two out of every three people killed are not in the truck — they are in the other vehicle.

The kinetic energy of a moving vehicle is proportional to its mass once, but to the square of its velocity. A truck traveling at 55 mph carries enormous kinetic energy. When that truck strikes a passenger car, the momentum is transferred — and because the truck’s mass is so much greater, the car undergoes the larger change in velocity. The car’s occupant absorbs the violence. The truck’s occupant, cushioned by twenty to thirty times the mass, may walk away unharmed. That is exactly what happened here.

The stopping distance of a loaded tractor-trailer at 65 mph is approximately 525 feet under ideal conditions — nearly the length of two football fields. In the real world — with reaction time, with brake lag, with road conditions — the distance is longer. A truck driver who is distracted or fatigued adds seconds of delay before braking begins, and at highway speed, every second is 80 to 90 feet of road that disappears before the brakes engage.

In an intersection collision where a passenger car enters the path of a truck, the angle of impact, the speed of the truck, and the point of impact on the car determine the severity of the forces transmitted to the occupant. A T-bone impact on the driver’s side door — the most devastating configuration — directs the full force of the truck’s momentum into the occupant compartment. The car’s crash structures — the crumple zones, the door beams, the side airbags — are engineered for collisions with vehicles of similar mass. They are not engineered to stop 80,000 pounds. The occupant compartment can be penetrated, the survival space can be crushed, and the forces transmitted to the human body can exceed what any body can withstand.

This is the physics that the reconstructionist reconstructs. The skid marks (or their absence) tell whether the truck braked. The damage pattern tells the angle and speed of impact. The EDR data from the Chevrolet tells the change in velocity — the delta-V — that the occupant experienced. The ECM data from the truck tells the truck’s speed and throttle and brake status in the seconds before collision. Together, they build a physical model of the crash that is more accurate than any witness’s memory and more persuasive than any preliminary report.

Can you sue after being hit by a semi-truck? Yes. The physics of the crash do not determine the legal outcome — the evidence does. And the evidence is what we go find.

The Insurance Coverage Ladder: Where the Money Actually Comes From

The question that matters most to a grieving family — after “who is responsible” — is “is there money to recover.” A verdict against a bankrupt trucking company is a piece of paper. A verdict against a company with a $5 million insurance tower is a recovery. Here is how the coverage works in a crash like this.

Rung 1: Michigan No-Fault PIP. The deceased’s own auto insurance — or the policy of a relative in the household — pays funeral and burial expenses up to a statutory cap, survivor’s loss benefits to dependents, and any medical expenses incurred before death. These are first-party benefits, paid regardless of fault. They are the economic floor.

Rung 2: The truck’s primary liability coverage. If the truck is an interstate carrier, federal law requires at least $750,000 in liability coverage. Many carriers carry $1 million or more. The primary policy is the first layer of third-party coverage available to the wrongful death claim.

Rung 3: Excess and umbrella layers. Above the primary policy, many carriers carry layered excess coverage — a $1 million primary, a $5 million excess, and potentially an umbrella above that. The total tower can reach into the tens of millions for the largest national carriers. The specific tower for the carrier in this crash is a matter of discovery — we pull the FMCSA insurance filings, demand the policies in litigation, and trace every layer.

Rung 4: Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage (UM/UIM). If the truck’s coverage is insufficient — or if the carrier is uninsured — the deceased’s own UM/UIM coverage may provide additional recovery. Michigan’s no-fault system interacts with UM/UIM in specific ways that must be examined for each policy. This is a coverage source that many families do not know they have.

Rung 5: Self-insured retention. Large national carriers often self-insure the first layer of risk — meaning the company’s own money sits below the insurance policy, and the insurer only pays above the retention. A carrier with a large self-insured retention is a carrier with skin in the game — they fight harder, but they also have more to lose.

The total available coverage is the ceiling on what can be recovered. The actual recovery is driven by the severity of the loss, the strength of the evidence, the clarity of fault, and the willingness of the insurer to pay fair value before trial. An adjuster who knows the evidence is strong and the coverage is deep is an adjuster who has an incentive to settle. An adjuster who thinks the family will accept the first offer is an adjuster who will make a low one.

How a Case Like This Is Actually Built: The Proof Story

Here is how a wrongful death case arising from a car-versus-truck crash in Ionia County is actually built, from the first call to resolution.

Week one. The family calls. We send a preservation and spoliation letter that day to the trucking company, its insurer, the ELD vendor, the tow yard holding the vehicles, and any property owner near the intersection who may have camera footage. The letter freezes the evidence. We begin the probate-court process to appoint a personal representative — the person Michigan law authorizes to bring the wrongful death claim. We pull the FMCSA SAFER database to identify the operating carrier, its USDOT number, its insurance filings, and its safety record. We request the Ionia County Sheriff’s Office crash report. We arrange for the Chevrolet to be examined in the tow yard and its EDR to be imaged before the vehicle is sent to salvage.

Weeks two through four. We demand the truck’s ELD/RODS data, the driver’s qualification file, the daily vehicle inspection reports, the post-crash drug and alcohol testing records, the truck’s ECM data, and the carrier’s accident register. We subpoena the driver’s phone records. We hire a forensic reconstructionist to examine the scene measurements, the vehicle damage, and the physical evidence. We obtain the medical examiner’s report and the EMS run sheet. We pull the Ionia County Road Commission’s records on the intersection — prior crash history, signage, sight-distance studies, complaints.

Months two through six. We take the depositions of the truck driver, the carrier’s safety director, and any witnesses. Under oath, the safety director explains the company’s hiring, training, and supervision practices. The driver explains his hours, his attention, his reaction. The reconstructionist presents the physical model of the crash. The economic losses are quantified by a forensic economist who projects the deceased’s lost earning capacity, lost financial support, and the present value of the lifetime of support the family has lost.

The demand and the trial. We present the full case to the carrier’s insurer with a demand that reflects the true value — not the adjuster’s first offer, not a quick-check number, but the figure that a jury in the Ionia County courthouse would return if it heard all the evidence. If the insurer pays fair value, the case resolves. If it does not, we try the case in front of twelve people from this community — people who drive these roads, who know these intersections, who understand what it means to lose someone on a Friday morning in a place where everyone knows your name.

The car accident practice at our firm and our 18-wheeler accident work are built on this exact process. The firm has recovered $2.5 million-plus in truck crash cases and millions more in wrongful death. The firm’s aggregate recoveries exceed $50 million.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we still bring a claim if the preliminary report says our loved one ran the stop sign?

Yes. A preliminary report is a starting point, not a final determination of fault. Michigan follows a modified comparative negligence rule, which means your family can recover as long as your loved one’s share of fault is not more than half. The full investigation examines the truck’s speed, the driver’s attention and hours of service, the visibility conditions at the intersection, whether the truck driver could have taken evasive action, and whether the intersection itself contributed to the crash. Every percentage of fault shifted from your loved one to the truck driver is recovery for your family. The preliminary report is the insurance company’s opening argument — it is not the last word.

How long do we have to file a wrongful death claim in Michigan?

Michigan’s wrongful death statute of limitations is three years from the date of death. That is the hard deadline — miss it and the claim is gone. But the real deadline is shorter, because the evidence is on clocks far shorter than three years. The truck’s electronic logs can be legally destroyed in six months. The truck’s engine computer data can be overwritten the next time the truck is driven. Camera footage from nearby properties may be gone in 30 days. The three-year clock is the outer wall. The evidence clock is the real deadline, and it is already running.

What if the trucking company says the driver is an independent contractor, not an employee?

That argument does not end the case. Under federal leasing regulations (49 CFR 376.12), when a carrier leases a truck and driver, the carrier has “exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment” and “shall assume complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment.” The carrier cannot escape responsibility by calling the driver a contractor. Additionally, the case may proceed on direct negligence theories — negligent hiring, negligent entrustment, negligent supervision — that do not require an employment relationship at all. The “independent contractor” label closes one door. It does not close the building.

The truck driver was not hurt. Does that mean the crash was not that severe?

No. It means the truck’s mass protected its driver. A loaded semi-truck can weigh 80,000 pounds — 20 to 30 times the weight of a passenger car. In a collision between vehicles of such unequal mass, the lighter vehicle and its occupants absorb the vast majority of the change in velocity. The truck driver walks away because physics, not because the crash was minor. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has documented that in fatal large-truck crashes, approximately two out of every three people killed are in the passenger vehicle, not the truck.

What is Michigan’s no-fault system, and how does it affect our wrongful death claim?

Michigan is a no-fault state, which means two separate claims may run in parallel after a fatal crash. First, no-fault PIP benefits — funeral expenses, survivor’s loss benefits, medical expenses — are paid by the deceased’s own auto insurance regardless of fault. Second, a tort claim for non-economic damages — loss of society and companionship, loss of guidance — is pursued against the at-fault party. A death meets Michigan’s tort threshold, so the family’s right to pursue non-economic damages against the trucking company is not blocked by the no-fault system. Both tracks are real, and both matter.

How much is a wrongful death case like this worth?

There is no fixed number. The value of a wrongful death claim depends on the deceased’s age, earnings, life expectancy, family relationships, the circumstances of the crash, the clarity of fault, and the available insurance coverage. A 64-year-old man who was still working may have significant lost earning capacity. The loss of society and companionship to a spouse, children, or parents is compensable. The conscious pain and suffering the deceased experienced, if any, between the crash and death is compensable. The available insurance coverage — the truck’s primary liability policy, its excess layers, and any UM/UIM coverage — sets the practical ceiling. We build the number from the evidence, not from a formula. We can tell you, honestly, what cases like this are worth once we have examined the facts. We will not inflate the number to get your case, and we will not deflate it to settle quickly.

Do we have to go to court?

Not necessarily. Many wrongful death cases settle before trial — the insurer pays fair value rather than face a jury. But the willingness to try the case is what drives the settlement value. An insurer who knows the family’s lawyer will take the case to trial is an insurer with an incentive to offer fair value. An insurer who thinks the lawyer will accept any offer is an insurer who will make a low one. We prepare every case for trial. If the insurer pays fair value, the case resolves. If it does not, we are ready.

How much does a lawyer cost?

Nothing upfront. We work on contingency — 33.33 percent before trial, 40 percent if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The first phone call costs nothing. The preservation letter that saves the evidence costs nothing until there is a recovery. We take the financial risk. You take the time to grieve and heal. That is the arrangement, and it is in writing.

We speak Spanish at home. Can we work with you in our language?

Yes. Lupe Peña is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. We serve your family fully in the language you think and grieve in. Hablamos Español.


Why This Firm: The People Who Will Stand With You

We are not a billboard law firm. We are not a volume operation that files your case and hands it to a case manager you never meet. We are Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña, and we try cases.

Ralph P. Manginello — Managing Partner. Twenty-seven-plus years of trial practice, including federal court. Texas Bar #24007597, admitted November 6, 1998. A journalist before he was a lawyer, Ralph approaches every case the way a reporter approaches a story: find the facts, follow the evidence, and tell the truth to a jury in language they cannot ignore. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He leads the active $10 million-plus hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi and the University of Houston. He was born in New York, raised in Houston, and has spent his professional life in courtrooms.

Lupe Peña — Associate Attorney. Texas Bar #24084332, admitted 2012. Before he joined this firm, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to value, delay, and deny claims from injured people. He knows how the machine works from the inside. He knows how reserves are set in the first 48 hours. He knows how the recorded-statement call is engineered. He knows which doctors the insurers send claimants to for “independent” medical exams that are neither independent nor objective. He now uses that knowledge for the families the insurance machine was built to pay as little as possible. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations without an interpreter.

We take wrongful death and commercial-vehicle cases in Michigan. We work with local counsel where required. We do not claim an office in Michigan, and we do not pretend to be something we are not. What we are is a trial firm with 27-plus years of courtroom experience, a former insurance-defense insider who knows the other side’s playbook, and a record of millions of dollars recovered for families who lost someone they loved.

The call is free. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, a live person — not an answering service.

If you have lost someone on Jordan Lake Road or anywhere in Ionia County, if a semi-truck took the life of someone you love, call us. We will tell you, honestly, whether you have a case and what it is worth. If we are the right fit, we will tell you. If we are not, we will tell you that too — and we will point you to someone who is.

That is the promise. That is the standard. That is what the Manginello name means.

Hablamos Español.

1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.

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.

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