Andrews, Texas — A Woman With the Right of Way, a Driver Who Turned Into Her Path, and What the Law Says About What Happens Next
If you are reading this because someone you love was taken from you on FM1788, we want you to hear something first, before anything else about insurance or lawsuits or deadlines: she had the right of way. She was traveling straight, on her own road, doing what she was supposed to do. The law does not blame a person for being in the path of someone who failed to yield. Whatever happened on that Thursday morning at 7:30, the fault does not belong to her.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle wrongful death claims and catastrophic car accident cases across Texas, and we are writing this for one person: the family member who is sitting at a kitchen table in Andrews, or Kermit, or Midland, trying to understand what just happened to their world and what they are supposed to do next. The answer is not complicated, but it is urgent. Evidence is already disappearing. An insurance adjuster may already be preparing to call. And the law gives you a window of time that feels long but is not — not when the proof that decides your case can be legally erased before that window closes.
Here is what happened on FM1788 near the intersection with SE 8000, on a Thursday morning at approximately 7:30 AM, according to the available reporting: a 52-year-old Andrews woman, Patricia Montezuma Busso, was traveling southbound. A northbound vehicle attempted a left turn. The turning driver did not yield. The collision sent her vehicle into a rollover. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating. That is what we know. What follows is everything we know about what the law does with a death like this — what your family is entitled to, what the at-fault driver’s insurance company is already doing, what evidence is dying on a clock, and what the first 72 hours must look like if the truth is going to survive long enough to matter.
The Law That Was Broken: Texas Right-of-Way and the Turning Driver’s Duty
Texas law does not leave the question of who was at fault in a left-turn crash to opinion. The state’s traffic code requires a driver who is turning left to yield the right-of-way to any vehicle approaching from the opposite direction that is within the intersection or so close as to constitute a hazard. This is not a suggestion. It is a statutory command, and when a driver violates it and causes a death, the violation supplies what the law calls presumptive negligence — negligence per se.
A left-turning driver must yield the right-of-way to approaching vehicles that are within the intersection or so close as to constitute a hazard. The failure to yield is an unexcused statutory violation that supplies presumptive negligence.
What this means in plain language: the turning driver does not get to say “I didn’t see her” or “she came out of nowhere” and walk away from responsibility. If she was traveling southbound on FM1788 and he turned left into her path, the law starts with a presumption that he was negligent. He can try to overcome that presumption, but the burden shifts to him — and in a clear failure-to-yield case on a straight road with an oncoming vehicle, that burden is steep.
There is a separate, common-law negligence claim that runs alongside the statutory violation: the turning driver breached his duty of reasonable care by failing to maintain a proper lookout, failing to observe an oncoming vehicle, and turning directly into the path of travel. These two theories — negligence per se and ordinary negligence — give a jury two independent paths to the same conclusion, and both point at the same act: a left turn that should never have been made until the road was clear.
Who Is Responsible: The Driver, the Insurer, and the Question of Employment
The at-fault driver in this crash is the starting point. His negligence — the failure to yield — is the direct cause of Patricia’s death. But identifying the driver is only the first step in identifying who pays.
The at-fault driver’s liability insurer is the first layer of recovery. Every driver in Texas is required to carry minimum liability coverage, but minimum coverage in Texas is $30,000 per person and $60,000 per incident for bodily injury — numbers that a single night in a trauma center can exhaust, and that a wrongful death claim blows past entirely. The driver may carry more than the minimum, or he may carry exactly the minimum, or — and this happens more often than people expect in rural West Texas — he may carry nothing at all or be an uninsured motorist. The policy limits are not something we can know without discovery, and we will not guess at them here.
The question of employment is the second track, and in the Permian Basin it is one of the most important investigative moves a family can make. FM1788 is a farm-to-market road that connects the city of Andrews to broader regional routes and oilfield operations. It carries a mix of local commuter traffic and industrial vehicles. At 7:30 on a Thursday morning, the at-fault driver may have been commuting to work, running a personal errand, or driving in the course and scope of employment — heading to an oilfield site, making a delivery, running a work-related route. If he was acting within the scope of his employment when he turned into Patricia’s path, his employer faces vicarious liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior, and the employer’s commercial insurance coverage may be far deeper than any personal auto policy. This is a discovery target — not something we assume, but something we investigate aggressively and early, because the answer can change the financial reality of the case by an order of magnitude.
Patricia’s own uninsured/underinsured motorist carrier is the third source of recovery, and it is one that families in West Texas frequently do not know they have. If the at-fault driver was uninsured or underinsured — meaning his policy limits are too low to cover the full value of the loss — Patricia’s own auto insurance policy may include UM/UIM coverage that pays the difference. This is a contractual claim, separate from the tort claim against the at-fault driver, and it is pursued against her own carrier. Many families hesitate to pursue UM/UIM because they feel they are “suing their own insurance,” but UM/UIM coverage is something Patricia paid premiums for, precisely for this situation. An insurance claim lawyer can identify the UM/UIM policy, confirm its limits, and open this track in parallel with the liability claim.
The Evidence That Is Dying Right Now — and Why the First Letter Goes Out Before the Funeral
This is the section that matters most in the first days, and the one that families almost never hear about from anyone except a trial lawyer. Every piece of evidence that proves what happened on FM1788 is on a clock, and some of those clocks are brutally short.
The Texas DPS CR-3 crash report is the foundational document. The investigating officer’s report will include a diagram of the impact, road conditions, contributing factors as assessed by the officer, and the officer’s initial assessment of fault. This report is typically available within 10 to 14 days of the crash and is the first thing we order from DPS. It is the starting point — not the endpoint — of the investigation.
Event Data Recorder (EDR) data from both vehicles is the evidence most likely to disappear before anyone thinks to preserve it. Modern vehicles carry a black box that records pre-impact speed, braking application, steering input, and seatbelt status in the seconds before a collision. For the at-fault driver’s vehicle, the EDR can confirm or refute his claimed speed and attention. For Patricia’s vehicle, it can document her velocity and whether she attempted evasive action — proof that she was doing everything right and still could not avoid the collision. The problem is that vehicles involved in fatal crashes may be moved to salvage yards within days. EDR data can be overwritten. Vehicles can be crushed or sold for scrap. The preservation letter that freezes this evidence — ordering the salvage yard, the insurer, and the vehicle owner not to touch, alter, or dispose of the vehicle until it has been inspected and the data has been downloaded — must go out immediately. Not next month. Not after the funeral. The day you call.
Cell phone records for the at-fault driver are the single most common pathway to gross negligence and punitive damages in a failure-to-yield case. If the turning driver was texting, calling, or otherwise using a phone at the moment of impact, that fact transforms the case from ordinary negligence to something worse — and opens the door to punitive damages under Texas law. Cell phone carriers retain usage records for varying windows, commonly 90 to 180 days, after which the data can be purged. The preservation letter to the carrier must go out within weeks, not months, or the single most damaging piece of evidence against the at-fault driver can legally vanish.
Scene evidence — skid marks, yaw marks, debris fields, gouge marks — is physical evidence at the intersection that corroborates approach speeds, the point of impact, and vehicle trajectories. This evidence fades within days due to weather and traffic on FM1788. A reconstruction expert should document the scene with total-station or drone mapping within 48 to 72 hours if DPS has not already done so. Once rain hits that intersection or traffic grinds the evidence into the asphalt, the physical proof of what happened is gone.
Photographic documentation of both vehicles — the damage patterns, the rollover deformation, the interior intrusion — confirms the angle and force of impact and the rollover mechanism. A forensic engineer inspecting the vehicles can identify safety-system performance and any potential product-liability overlay: roof crush, seatbelt failure, airbag deployment issues. But vehicles may be released to insurance carriers and repaired or salvaged within days. The inspection must be scheduled before any disposition.
Witness statements — if any passing motorists saw the crash — are critical. Independent corroboration of the turning driver’s failure to yield and Patricia’s right-of-way compliance is powerful evidence. But witnesses to rural FM-road crashes are often passing motorists who may be difficult to locate later, and memory degrades rapidly. Statements should be taken within weeks, while recollections are still specific.
The at-fault driver’s driving record and employment status — prior violations or at-fault crashes establish a pattern of dangerous driving relevant to punitive damages and negligent entrustment. Employment status at the time of the crash opens the vicarious-liability track. Records are stable, but employment information dissipates as memories fade and personnel files cycle. This is a priority for written discovery early in the case.
Every one of these evidence sources has a clock. The fastest-dying — the EDR data, the scene evidence, the cell records — drives the urgency. The preservation letter that freezes all of it is the first thing a trial lawyer sends, and it goes out the day you call. Not the week after. Not after you have had time to think about it. The day.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook — Three Plays and How to Counter Each One
Within days of the crash, the at-fault driver’s insurance company will begin its own process. It is not your friend. It is not neutral. It is a business with one goal: to resolve this claim for the smallest amount of money possible, as quickly as possible. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — he sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like the reader. He knows the plays because he used to run them. Here are three you should expect, and what to do about each.
Play 1: The friendly “just checking in” call. An adjuster will call you — possibly within days, possibly before the funeral — and say they just want to “check on you” and “get your side of what happened.” The call is recorded. Everything you say is being built into a transcript that will be quoted back to you later. If you say “I’m doing okay” or “I think she might have been speeding” or “I’m not sure exactly what happened,” those words will be used to minimize the claim, to pin comparative fault on Patricia, or to argue that your grief is not as severe as you later claim. The counter is simple: do not speak with the at-fault driver’s insurance company. Not once. Not even to “be polite.” If they call, you say “I am not giving a statement, and I have nothing to say to you” and you hang up. If you have counsel, you say “Call my lawyer” and you hang up. Every word you withhold from the adjuster is a word that cannot be used against your family.
Play 2: The fast settlement check. A check may arrive in the mail quickly — sometimes within weeks — with a release form attached. The release, once signed, extinguishes your right to pursue any further compensation from the at-fault driver or his insurer, no matter what the medical records later show or what the EDR data reveals or what the reconstruction proves. The check may look like real money, but it is almost always a fraction of what the claim is worth, and it is designed to arrive before you have had time to understand the full scope of your loss. The counter: never sign anything from an insurance company without having it reviewed by a lawyer. A release is a permanent surrender of rights, and the insurer knows that a grieving family in the first weeks after a death is in no condition to evaluate whether the amount is fair.
Play 3: The comparative-fault argument. Even in a clear failure-to-yield case, the at-fault driver’s insurer will look for any angle to pin a percentage of fault on Patricia — arguing she was speeding, that she could have braked, that she should have seen the turning vehicle and avoided it. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar: if the plaintiff is found to be 51% or more at fault, recovery is barred entirely. If the plaintiff is found to be, say, 20% at fault, the recovery is reduced by 20%. Every percentage point the insurer can hang on Patricia is money in its pocket. The counter is the evidence: the EDR data showing her speed, the reconstruction showing she had no time to react, the right-of-way law placing the burden on the turning driver. But the EDR data only helps if it has been preserved, and the reconstruction only works if the scene was documented before the evidence faded. The counter to comparative fault is the same as the counter to everything else in this case: preservation, early and aggressive.
What a Wrongful Death Claim in Texas Actually Covers
Texas has two parallel legal tracks after a fatal injury, and a family that walks through only one of them leaves money on the table.
The wrongful death action belongs to the surviving family — the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the decedent. Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, these statutory beneficiaries may recover for the losses they personally suffered because of the death: the loss of the decedent’s earning capacity (the income she would have earned over her remaining working life), the loss of care, maintenance, support, services, advice, and counsel she would have provided, and the mental anguish and loss of companionship and society that her death inflicted on her family. These are not abstract categories — they are specific losses that a forensic economist quantifies and a jury evaluates.
The survival action belongs to the decedent’s estate. It carries the claim that Patricia herself could have pursued had she survived — the conscious pain and suffering she experienced between the injury and death, plus pre-death medical expenses and funeral costs. In a case where death was pronounced at the scene, the window for conscious pain and suffering is compressed, which narrows the survival damages. But the rollover mechanism itself supports an inference of pre-death terror and awareness — the seconds between impact and the fatal event during which she experienced the collision and the rollover. Funeral and burial expenses are recoverable as economic damages.
Punitive damages are a third category, available only when the plaintiff proves gross negligence by clear and convincing evidence. Gross negligence requires proof that the at-fault driver acted with conscious indifference to the safety of others — a standard that ordinary inattention does not meet, but that distracted driving (texting at the moment of impact), excessive speed, or a pattern of reckless driving can. Punitive damages in Texas are subject to statutory caps tied to the defendant’s net worth, and the standard is high. We do not assume punitive damages are available in every case — we investigate for the facts that support them, and if the cell-phone records or the driving history reveals them, we pursue them.
The statute of limitations for both wrongful death and survival actions in Texas is two years from the date of death. This is a hard deadline. Missing it extinguishes the claim entirely, no matter how strong the liability or how devastating the loss. There are limited tolling exceptions that may apply to the estate, and you should confirm the current rule with counsel for your specific situation — but the operating assumption must be that the clock is running and that two years is not as long as it sounds when evidence is disappearing in weeks and months.
Texas applies a modified comparative negligence framework with a 51% bar. The plaintiff is barred from recovery only if found 51% or more at fault. Patricia’s straight-path travel with the right-of-way makes comparative-fault exposure minimal — she was doing what the law required, on her own road, in her own lane. But the insurer will still try, which is why the evidence preservation is the foundation of everything.
UM/UIM: Your Own Insurance May Be the Deepest Pocket
In a clear-liability fatality where the at-fault driver’s insurance limits may be modest — possibly $30,000, possibly $100,000, possibly nothing — the family’s most important recovery source may be Patricia’s own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. UM/UIM is a first-party claim, meaning it is pursued against her own auto insurance carrier, not the at-fault driver’s. It pays when the at-fault driver is uninsured (UM) or when his liability coverage is insufficient to fully compensate the loss (UIM).
The UM/UIM claim is separate from the tort claim against the at-fault driver. It does not require the at-fault driver’s cooperation. It does not depend on his policy limits. It depends on the coverage Patricia purchased — and many Texas drivers carry UM/UIM limits that are substantially higher than they realize, because the coverage is relatively inexpensive and agents often recommend it. The first step is identifying the policy and confirming the limits, which we do through the family and through direct inquiry to the carrier.
UM/UIM carriers in Texas sometimes resist paying UM/UIM claims, even when the at-fault driver’s liability is clear and the coverage is contractually owed. They may dispute the value of the claim, argue that the at-fault driver was not uninsured, or delay evaluation. Texas law provides remedies for an insurer’s failure to timely and fairly evaluate a UM/UIM claim, and a carrier that acts in bad faith in handling the claim can face consequences beyond the policy limits. This is a track that should be opened immediately — not after the liability claim is resolved — because identifying all available sources of recovery is part of the first investigative wave.
How a Case Like This Is Built — The Proof Story
Here is how a wrongful death case arising from a failure-to-yield crash on a rural FM road is actually built, from the day a family calls to the day a number is put on the loss.
Week one: The preservation campaign begins. Letters go out to the at-fault driver, his insurer, any potential employer, both vehicle owners, the salvage facilities holding the vehicles, and the cell-phone carrier. Every letter orders the recipient to freeze specific evidence — the vehicles, the EDR data, the phone records, the employment file — and warns that destruction after receipt of the letter is spoliation. The DPS CR-3 report is ordered. A forensic accident reconstructionist is retained to map the scene, analyze the EDR data when it is pulled, and model the failure-to-yield collision dynamics. If the scene has not been documented by DPS with total-station or drone mapping, the reconstructionist does it within 48 to 72 hours, before weather and traffic erase the physical evidence.
Weeks two through four: The CR-3 arrives. The reconstructionist completes the scene mapping and begins building the collision model — the approach speeds, the point of impact, the turning radius, the sight distance, the time the at-fault driver had to see Patricia’s vehicle before initiating the turn. The vehicles are inspected by a forensic engineer, the EDR data is downloaded from both, and the damage profiles are photographed and documented. If there is a product-liability overlay — roof crush, seatbelt failure, airbag non-deployment — it is identified here. Witness statements, if any, are located and taken.
Months one through three: Discovery opens. Targeted interrogatories and subpoenas pursue the at-fault driver’s cell-phone records, employment status at the time of the crash, driving history, and any prior at-fault incidents. The vicarious-liability track is investigated — was he driving for work? Does an employer carry commercial coverage? The UM/UIM policy is identified and the claim is opened. A forensic economist begins building the economic loss model: Patricia’s lost earning capacity, projected over her remaining working life, adjusted for personal consumption and reduced to present value. Household services — the childcare, cooking, driving, repairs, and household management she performed — are valued using federal time-use data and market replacement wages. The life-care planning element is absent in a wrongful death case, but the economic loss model replaces it with a wrongful death economic projection that accounts for every dollar the family will go without.
Months three through twelve: The case moves toward resolution or trial. If the at-fault driver’s liability limits are low and the liability is clear — and in a failure-to-yield left-turn into a right-of-way holder, it is among the clearest negligence-per-se patterns in motor vehicle litigation — a Stowers-style demand at or above policy limits is evaluated. Under Texas’s Stowers doctrine, an insurer that fails to settle a clear-liability claim within policy limits when presented with a reasonable demand exposes the carrier to excess liability beyond the contract. This is leverage: if the insurer refuses to pay its own policy limits on a claim that is clearly worth more, and a later verdict exceeds those limits, the insurer — not the at-fault driver — pays the excess. The Stowers demand is a tool, not a guarantee, and it must be crafted precisely to trigger the doctrine’s protections.
If the case does not resolve, it moves toward trial. In an Andrews County venue, the case would be filed in Andrews County District Court, within the 106th or 118th Judicial District. The jury that decides what Patricia’s life was worth will be twelve people from Andrews County — her neighbors, people who drive FM1788, people who know what these intersections look like and how oilfield traffic behaves. Voir dire explores their experiences with FM-road intersections, their attitudes toward right-of-way violations, and their understanding of what a life is worth. The damages presentation foregrounds who Patricia was — her role in her family, her community, her earning trajectory, the future that was taken — and the preventability of a crash caused by a single reckless maneuver: one left turn that should never have been made.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do and What Never to Do
If you are in the first days after the crash, here is the practical roadmap — what matters now and what must not happen.
Do not speak with the at-fault driver’s insurance company. We said this before, and we are saying it again because it is the single most common mistake families make. The adjuster’s call is not a courtesy. It is evidence-gathering. Every word you say is being recorded and built into a case against you. If they call, say nothing except “I am not giving a statement” and hang up.
Do not sign anything. No release, no authorization, no form of any kind from any insurance company — not the at-fault driver’s, not your own, not anyone’s — until a lawyer has reviewed it. A release is permanent. Once signed, it cannot be undone.
Do not post on social media. Nothing about the crash, nothing about Patricia, nothing about your grief, nothing about the other driver. Insurance companies monitor social media, and a post that seems innocent — a photo, a comment, a “thank you for your prayers” — can be screenshot and used to argue that your grief is not as severe as you claim or that you are “moving on.” Silence on social media is the safest posture.
Do order the DPS CR-3 crash report. This is the foundational document, and it is available from DPS within 10 to 14 days. If you have counsel, this is handled for you. If you do not yet have counsel, you can request it yourself from the DPS office that investigated the crash.
Do identify Patricia’s auto insurance policy and look for UM/UIM coverage. The declarations page will list the coverages and limits. UM/UIM may be listed as “UM” or “UIM” or “Uninsured Motorist” or “Underinsured Motorist.” The limits may be expressed as split limits (e.g., 30/60) or as a single limit. This information is critical, and it is something a lawyer will confirm immediately upon being retained.
Do preserve everything you have. Patricia’s phone, her vehicle (if it has not been towed), any photos she took that morning, her employment records, her pay stubs, her tax returns — all of it is evidence of who she was and what she contributed, and all of it feeds the economic loss model. Do not discard anything.
Do call a lawyer. Not next week. Not after the funeral. The preservation letters that freeze the EDR data, the cell records, and the vehicle evidence must go out in days, not weeks, because the evidence is on a clock that does not pause for grief. The consultation is free. The fee is contingency — we do not get paid unless we win your case. And the call costs you nothing except the time it takes to dial.
What This Case May Be Worth — Honest Numbers
We will not promise a dollar amount, because every case’s value depends on facts that are still being investigated — the at-fault driver’s policy limits, whether an employer’s commercial coverage is available, the UM/UIM limits on Patricia’s own policy, her earning history and projected remaining working life, and the number and relationship of her surviving statutory beneficiaries. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What we can say is this: the liability picture in this case is exceptionally strong. An unexcused failure-to-yield left-turn collision into a right-of-way holder is among the clearest negligence-per-se fact patterns in motor vehicle litigation. The damages are catastrophic — wrongful death of a 52-year-old woman with earning capacity and statutory beneficiaries. The primary value constraint is collectibility: against a passenger-vehicle defendant with unknown personal auto liability limits, realizable recovery may be limited to the at-fault driver’s bodily-injury coverage plus any UM/UIM coverage on Patricia’s own policy. If the at-fault driver’s limits are at the Texas minimum of $30,000, and Patricia carried no UM/UIM, the realizable recovery from the tort claim alone may be in the range of $30,000 to $100,000. If the UM/UIM limits are substantial, or if a discovered employer provides vicarious liability with commercial coverage, or if gross negligence is discovered and punitive damages are pursued, the case value can reach significantly higher — into the range where a West Texas jury, presented with clear liability and a life wrongfully taken, returns an award that reflects the full measure of the loss. The high end of realistic case value, assuming substantial coverage or a viable commercial defendant, can reach toward $2,000,000 or more. The low end, if the at-fault driver is uninsured or minimally insured and no employer is discovered, may be constrained by what coverage exists.
The honest answer is that the value of this case will be determined by the investigation — and the investigation’s quality depends on how quickly it begins. The evidence that builds the number is the evidence that is dying right now.
Who We Are — Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Ralph P. Manginello is the Managing Partner of The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he writes the way a trial lawyer should — clear, direct, and with an instinct for the fact that wins the argument. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He is Italian-American, born in New York, raised in Houston from the age of five. He speaks Spanish. He has been doing this work since July 18, 2001 — over 24 years.
Lupe Peña is an Associate Attorney, licensed in Texas since December 6, 2012 — 13+ years. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas. He is a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years inside a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how the claim is fed into valuation software that discounts pain it cannot see. He knows how the recorded-statement call is engineered. He knows the IME-doctor selection process and the surveillance tactics. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients. He is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch, born and raised in Sugar Land. He is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
The firm has recovered $50,000,000+ in aggregate (a firm marketing figure), including a $5M+ brain-injury settlement, a $3.8M+ amputation settlement, a $2.5M+ truck-crash recovery, and a $2M+ maritime back-injury settlement. Millions have been recovered in trucking wrongful-death cases. The active $10M+ Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston hazing lawsuit is currently in litigation in Harris County. These are the firm’s verified results, not predictions for your case — every case’s value depends on its own facts, and past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
We work on contingency. The fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The hotline is staffed 24/7 by live people — not an answering service. Hablamos Español. We serve Andrews County, the broader Permian Basin, and communities across Texas from offices in Houston and Austin, with client meetings in Beaumont by appointment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the family sue if the at-fault driver only has minimum insurance?
Yes. The at-fault driver’s insurance is the first layer of recovery, but it is not the only layer. If the at-fault driver is uninsured or underinsured, Patricia’s own uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage may pay the difference. If the at-fault driver was acting within the scope of employment at the time of the crash, his employer’s commercial liability coverage may be available through vicarious liability. The investigation identifies every source of recovery, not just the at-fault driver’s personal policy.
How long does the family have to file a wrongful death claim in Texas?
Texas law gives surviving spouses, children, and parents two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death action, and the estate has the same two-year window for a survival action. This is a hard deadline — missing it extinguishes the claim. There are limited tolling exceptions that may apply in specific circumstances, and you should confirm the current rule with counsel for your situation. But the operating assumption must be that the clock is running. Two years feels long in the first weeks of grief; it is not long when evidence is disappearing in weeks and months.
Was Patricia at fault if she was speeding?
The at-fault driver’s insurer may argue comparative fault — that Patricia was speeding, that she could have braked, that she should have seen the turning vehicle. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar, meaning recovery is barred only if the plaintiff is found 51% or more at fault. Patricia was traveling straight on FM1788 with the right-of-way. The law places the burden on the turning driver to yield. Even if the insurer argues some percentage of fault, the EDR data from Patricia’s vehicle — showing her actual speed and whether she braked — is the evidence that answers the argument. But that data only exists if the vehicle is preserved before it is scrapped or the data is overwritten.
What if the at-fault driver was on his phone?
If cell-phone records show the at-fault driver was texting, calling, or using his phone at the moment of impact, the case may elevate from ordinary negligence to gross negligence — the standard for punitive damages under Texas law. Gross negligence requires clear and convincing evidence of conscious indifference to the safety of others. Distracted driving at the moment of a failure-to-yield collision is exactly the kind of fact that supports that standard. Cell-phone carrier retention windows vary — commonly 90 to 180 days for usage records — which is why the preservation letter to the carrier must go out within weeks, not months.
Does the family have to go to court?
Most wrongful death cases settle before trial. But the strength of a settlement offer is directly proportional to the other side’s assessment of what would happen at trial — and that assessment depends on how well the evidence has been preserved and how prepared the case is for a jury. A case that is not prepared for trial will not settle for what it is worth. The decision to go to trial is always the family’s, but the best way to avoid trial is to build a case that is so well-prepared the other side chooses to settle rather than face a jury.
Can the family recover if the at-fault driver was uninsured?
Yes, through Patricia’s own UM/UIM coverage, if she carried it. UM/UIM is a first-party claim against her own auto insurance policy, separate from the tort claim against the at-fault driver. It pays when the at-fault driver is uninsured (UM) or when his limits are too low to cover the full value of the loss (UIM). Many Texas drivers carry UM/UIM limits that are substantially higher than they realize. The policy declarations page identifies the coverage and limits, and this is one of the first things we confirm.
What is a Stowers demand?
Under the Texas Stowers doctrine, if a liability insurer is presented with a settlement demand within the policy limits and the claim is one in which a reasonably prudent insurer would settle, the insurer’s failure to settle exposes it to liability beyond the policy limits if a later verdict exceeds those limits. In a clear-liability fatality like a failure-to-yield crash, a Stowers demand at or above the at-fault driver’s policy limits creates pressure on the insurer to settle — because if it refuses and the jury awards more, the insurer pays the excess, not just its policy limits. The Stowers demand must be crafted precisely to trigger the doctrine’s protections.
What should the family do right now?
Three things. First, do not speak with the at-fault driver’s insurance company — not a word, not a statement, not a “quick question.” Second, do not sign anything from any insurance company until a lawyer has reviewed it. Third, call a lawyer. The preservation letters that freeze the EDR data, the cell-phone records, and the vehicle evidence must go out in days, not weeks, because the evidence that decides this case is on a clock. The consultation is free. The fee is contingency — no fee unless we win. And the call costs nothing except the time it takes to dial 1-888-ATTY-911.
The Last Thing
Patricia Montezuma Busso was 52 years old. She was a person — not a case number, not a claim file, not a line in an insurance adjuster’s software. She had a life, relationships, a future, and a family that is now sitting with a hole where she used to be. The law cannot fill that hole. What the law can do is force the person who caused this — and the insurance company standing behind him — to account for what they took, in the only language the insurance industry understands: money. Not as a substitute for her life, but as the closest thing the civil justice system has to justice when someone’s negligence kills a person who was doing everything right.
If your family is facing this, contact us. The call is free. The consultation is confidential. The fee is contingency — we do not get paid unless we win your case. The hotline is 1-888-ATTY-911, and it is staffed 24/7 by live people. Hablamos Español. We handle wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases across Texas, including Andrews County and the entire Permian Basin, from offices in Houston and Austin.
The evidence is dying on a clock. The adjuster is already working. The law gives you two years, but the proof gives you days. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Call today.
1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.