The Highway Is Open Again — Your Life Is Not
You are reading this because an 18-wheeler shut down I-20 eastbound in Ector County, and something broke that cannot be unbroke. Maybe you are in a hospital bed at Medical Center Hospital in Odessa. Maybe someone you love did not come home. Maybe you are sitting at a kitchen table at 2 a.m. with a phone full of missed calls from an insurance adjuster who sounds sympathetic and is not. The highway reopened. The tow trucks cleared the wreckage. The news cycle moved on. Your life did not.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle 18-wheeler and commercial truck crash cases across Texas, and we are writing this for one person: you, the one whose world just collided with 80,000 pounds of steel on a Permian Basin highway. Everything that follows is what we wish you knew right now — the law, the evidence, the money, the medicine, and the plays the other side is already running while you are still trying to breathe.
Here is the first thing to understand: a commercial truck crash is not a bigger car wreck. It is a different species of case. Different defendants, different insurance, different federal rules, different evidence that dies on a different clock. The company that owned that truck has a team of lawyers and adjusters who were activated within hours of the crash — people whose job is to protect the company’s money, not to help you. This page is the counterweight. It is long because the truth is long. Read what you can. Call us when you are ready. The consultation is free, and we do not get paid unless we win.
What an 18-Wheeler Crash on I-20 in Ector County Really Means
I-20 runs east-west through the heart of the Permian Basin, and Ector County — Odessa — sits at its center. This stretch of interstate carries two kinds of truck traffic that most of the country never sees at this density: long-haul freight moving between Dallas and El Paso, and oilfield trucks moving water, frac sand, crude oil, and equipment between well sites across the basin. The Permian Basin produces more oil than any other field in the United States, and every barrel of that production rides a truck at some point. Millions of gallons of water, hauled to and from each fracked well. Thousands of tons of sand, trucked in for each completion. Equipment that does not fit on any other vehicle. All of it moves through Ector County, and a large share of it moves on I-20.
We handle Permian Basin oilfield truck crash cases because the oilfield is different. Federal hours-of-service rules include special provisions for oilfield operations that can allow drivers to stay on the road longer than a standard trucker — the waiting-time exception lets certain oilfield-related waiting periods be excluded from on-duty calculations. In practice, this means a water hauler working the Permian Basin can legally accumulate more road time than a linehaul driver running Dallas to Houston. More road time means more fatigue. More fatigue means more crashes. Federal researchers have found that transportation incidents are the leading cause of death for oil and gas extraction workers — and the vehicle, not the wellsite, is where the danger lives.
When an 18-wheeler shuts down I-20 eastbound in Ector County, the crash scene tells you one thing immediately: this was not a fender-bender. A commercial truck weighs 20 to 30 times what a passenger car weighs. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that in fatal crashes involving large trucks, roughly two out of every three people killed are not in the truck — they are in the other vehicle. The physics do not forgive. And the legal landscape that follows does not resemble anything from a normal car-wreck claim.
The Real Questions, Answered Directly
Can I sue the trucking company, or just the driver?
You can sue both — and in most serious cases, you should. The driver operated the truck, but the company that employed him, leased the rig, dispatched the load, and set the schedule made the choices that put him on that road in that condition. Federal leasing rules (49 CFR § 376.12) make the authorized carrier take “exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment” and “complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment” for the duration of the lease. That means the company whose name is on the trailer door — or whose USDOT number is on the cab — generally stands behind the driver’s conduct on the road, even if the driver is labeled an “independent contractor.” The contractor label is the start of the fight, not the end of it.
How long do I have to file a claim?
Texas law gives you two years. The statute of limitations for personal injury in Texas — and for wrongful death — runs two years from the date of the crash. Miss that deadline and the case is over, no matter how strong the evidence is. But two years is the ceiling, not the strategy. The evidence that wins a truck-crash case disappears in months, not years. The federal log-retention clock is six months. The daily vehicle inspection report clock is three months. The scene evidence — skid marks, fluid trails, camera footage — is gone in days. The two-year deadline is the law. The evidence deadline is the emergency.
What if I was partly at fault?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. If you are 50% or less at fault, you can recover — reduced by your percentage. If you are 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing. This is exactly why the adjuster works so hard to pin fault on you in the first recorded statement: every percentage point of fault they assign to you is money off their payout. Every point matters. A 20% finding against you on a million-dollar case is $200,000 gone.
How much is my case worth?
We cannot answer that without seeing the medical records, the crash report, and the truck’s logs — and anyone who gives you a number before seeing those is not telling you the truth. What we can tell you is how the number is built: past and future medical bills, past and future lost wages and earning capacity, the cost of a life-care plan if the injury is catastrophic, pain and suffering, disfigurement, loss of consortium, and — where the company’s conduct was gross — punitive damages. The firm has recovered $2.5 million-plus in truck-crash cases, $5 million-plus in brain-injury cases, and $3.8 million-plus in amputation cases. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But those numbers tell you the range a serious truck-crash case can reach when it is built right.
Texas Law: Your Rights After an 18-Wheeler Crash
Texas law gives you powerful tools that many states do not. Understanding them — in plain English — is the first layer of protection.
The two-year statute of limitations. Texas’s statute of limitations for personal injury and wrongful death runs two years from the date the cause of action accrues — for a crash, that is the date of the crash. There is no extension for waiting. There is no grace period because the insurance company was “still investigating.” The clock starts the day it happens, and it does not pause. In a wrongful-death case, the same two-year window applies, and the claim belongs to the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the person killed — in that order of priority. If the person did not die immediately but lived for hours or days before succumbing to their injuries, a separate survival action belongs to the estate and covers the pain, suffering, and medical costs the person experienced between the crash and their death. These are two distinct claims with two distinct damage models, and a family that walks through only one door leaves money on the table.
The 51% comparative-fault bar. Texas is a modified comparative negligence state. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault — but if you are 51% or more at fault, you are barred entirely. The trucking company knows this. Their defense strategy often begins and ends with shifting percentage points onto you: you were speeding, you changed lanes, you were in a blind spot, you should have seen the truck. Every one of these arguments has an answer, but only if the evidence was preserved and the reconstruction was done right. A former insurance-defense attorney on our team sat in the rooms where these fault-shifting strategies were built — and now uses that knowledge for the people the strategies were built against.
No caps on non-economic damages in trucking cases. Unlike medical-malpractice cases in Texas — where non-economic damages are capped — ordinary negligence and trucking cases have no statutory cap on pain-and-suffering damages. A jury can award what the harm is actually worth. This matters enormously in catastrophic cases: a brain injury, a spinal cord injury, an amputation, a death — the human cost of these injuries is not capped by a formula. It is measured by the evidence.
Punitive damages. Texas allows exemplary (punitive) damages when the defendant acted with malice or gross negligence. Gross negligence means the company acted with conscious indifference to the safety of others — a driver pushed past the 11-hour driving limit because the dispatcher demanded it, brakes with a known defect that were written up on a daily inspection report but never repaired, a carrier that hired a driver with a known history of violations. Punitive damages are not available in every case, but when the facts support them, they change the entire value and posture of the case.
Hospital liens. Texas has a hospital lien statute that allows a hospital that treated you within 72 hours of the crash to file a lien against any settlement or judgment you recover. The hospital’s bill can eat into your recovery if it is not negotiated. Knowing the lien exists — and having someone negotiate it down — is part of what we do.
UM/UIM coverage. If the truck that hit you was uninsured or underinsured — or if the at-fault driver fled the scene — your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage may step in. Texas requires insurers to offer UM/UIM coverage unless you signed a written rejection. Many people do not know they carry this coverage, and insurers do not volunteer it.
Who Is Responsible — the Corporate Structure Behind the Truck
The truck that hit you on I-20 may look like one vehicle with one company’s name on the door. It is almost never that simple. The corporate fleet and carrier structure behind an 18-wheeler is a stack of separate legal entities, each designed to distance the deep pocket from the crash.
Here is what the stack can look like:
The operating carrier — the entity holding the USDOT number and FMCSA operating authority. This is the company whose driver was behind the wheel and whose safety record is on file with the federal government. It may be a national fleet, a regional hauler, or a Permian Basin oilfield services company. It might be thinly capitalized — a single-truck LLC or a small fleet with minimal assets.
The holding company — the parent corporation that owns the operating carrier, collects the profits, and sets the policies. This is where the balance sheet lives. The holding company will argue it does not control day-to-day operations and therefore cannot be liable for the driver’s conduct. Whether that argument holds depends on the facts — and on the discovery we demand.
The leasing company — the entity that owns the tractor or trailer and leases it to the operating carrier. Federal leasing rules (49 CFR § 376.12) make the authorized carrier responsible for the leased equipment while it is in operation, but the leasing entity may carry separate insurance and may have its own maintenance obligations.
The broker or shipper — the company that arranged the load. If the truck that hit you was carrying a brokered load, the broker may bear responsibility for negligently selecting an unsafe carrier. This is a contested area of law, with preemption defenses under the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, but it is a live theory in serious cases.
The driver — whether classified as an employee or an independent contractor, the driver is a defendant. But the driver’s individual insurance is usually a fraction of what the carrier carries. The real money is in the carrier’s policy and the layers above it.
The shell game is the defense’s first move. Each entity points at the others. The operating carrier says the holding company does not control operations. The holding company says the driver is an independent contractor. The broker says it just arranged the load and had no control over the driver. Sorting through this structure — naming the right entities, demanding the right insurance policies, piercing the contractor label with the facts of control — is foundational work that begins the day you call.
The Evidence Clock — What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Disappears
This is the section that decides whether your case is strong or impossible. Every commercial truck on I-20 is a rolling data-collection device, and federal law forces the carrier to keep specific records. But each of those records has an expiration date — and after that date, the company can legally destroy it.
The driver’s hours-of-service logs — six months
“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)
The driver’s Record of Duty Status — the electronic log (ELD) or paper log that shows when the driver was driving, when they were off-duty, and when they were in the sleeper berth — is only required to be kept for six months. After that, the carrier can legally delete it. If your case sits unfiled for a year, the single most important proof of a fatigued driver can be gone — legally — before anyone ever asks for it.
Supporting documents — up to eight per 24-hour on-duty period, including fuel receipts, dispatch records, tolls, bills of lading, payroll records, and GPS pings — live on the same six-month clock. These are the cross-check that catches a falsified log. The log says the driver was in the sleeper berth at 3 a.m.; the fuel receipt says he bought diesel in Monahans at 3:15 a.m. That gap is the case. But the fuel receipt dies on the same clock.
The daily vehicle inspection report — three months
The driver is required to inspect the truck at the end of each day and write up any defects — bad brakes, bald tires, broken lights, a cracked windshield. The carrier must keep these reports for three months from the date they were prepared. Three months. This is the shortest retention clock in the entire FMCSA regime. If a prior driver wrote up those brakes three months before the crash and the carrier never fixed them, that report is the proof — but it can be legally destroyed before a slow-moving claim ever reaches it.
The post-crash drug and alcohol test — eight hours and thirty-two hours
After a serious crash — one involving a fatality, or bodily injury requiring medical treatment away from the scene, or disabling damage requiring a tow — federal law requires the carrier to test the driver for alcohol and controlled substances. The alcohol test window closes at eight hours. The drug test window closes at thirty-two hours. If the carrier does not test within those windows, it must document in writing why it failed to do so. A missing test — or a written excuse for a missing test — is its own kind of evidence.
The driver qualification file — employment plus three years
Before the carrier ever let the driver behind the wheel, federal law required it to build a qualification file: the employment application, the motor vehicle record from each licensing authority, the road-test certificate, the annual driving-record review, and the medical examiner’s certificate. This file must be retained for as long as the driver is employed plus three years after departure. What this file shows — or fails to show — is the difference between an accident and a corporate decision. A driver with a history of violations, hired without a proper background check, put behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound truck on I-20 — that is not a crash. That is a choice the company made.
The accident register — three years
The carrier must maintain a register of all crashes for the past three years. This is where a pattern hides. If this carrier has been involved in multiple crashes on the same corridor, with the same type of vehicle, involving the same type of violation, that pattern is proof of notice — proof the company knew the danger and did nothing.
The truck’s engine computer — hours, not months
The engine control module (ECM) on a heavy truck records hard-brake events, last-stop data, speed, RPM, throttle position, and brake application. Unlike a passenger car’s event data recorder, which federal regulation locks when the airbags deploy, the truck’s ECM data is not locked. It overwrites itself when the truck is driven away. If the carrier puts the truck back on the road after the crash — and they often do, within days — the crash data is written over and gone. This is the fastest-dying evidence in the entire file.
What we do about it
The preservation letter — a formal demand that the carrier freeze all evidence related to the crash — goes out the day you call us. Not the month. Not the season. The day. That letter is what converts a legal destruction clock into a spoliation problem for the carrier. If they destroy evidence after receiving a preservation letter, a judge can instruct the jury to assume the destroyed evidence was as bad for the company as we say it was. The letter is the single most time-sensitive action in a truck-crash case, and it is why we tell every caller the same thing: call today, not next week. Learn more in our definitive guide to commercial truck accidents.
The Insurance Tower — Where the Money Actually Is
A regular car wreck runs on a personal auto policy with limits that might be $30,000 or $100,000. An 18-wheeler crash runs on a completely different structure — and knowing that structure is half the value of the case.
The federal minimum. Federal law (49 CFR § 387.9) requires an interstate motor carrier of non-hazardous property to carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage. If the carrier is hauling oil or certain hazardous materials, the minimum rises to $1,000,000. For the most dangerous hazmat in bulk — explosives, poison gas, large-quantity radioactive — the floor is $5,000,000. These are statutory minimums set decades ago and not adjusted for inflation. Many national fleets carry far more — layered towers of primary, excess, and umbrella policies that can reach into the tens of millions.
The layers. A typical tower for a national carrier looks like this: a primary commercial auto policy at the federal minimum or higher, an excess policy that sits above the primary, an umbrella that sits above the excess, and possibly a self-insured retention — the carrier’s own money that pays out before any insurance kicks in. Each layer is a separate insurer with a separate adjuster and a separate set of coverage defenses. The first adjuster you talk to may be handling only the bottom layer — and may have no authority to offer the limits of the layers above.
The MCS-90 endorsement. If the carrier is an interstate motor carrier, its policy likely carries an MCS-90 endorsement — a federal mandate that requires the insurer to pay certain judgments even if the policy would otherwise exclude coverage. This endorsement exists because Congress recognized that motor carriers would find ways to deny coverage after a crash. It is a powerful tool, but it has limits and conditions. Learn more in our guide to MCS-90 endorsements.
UM/UIM. If the truck’s coverage is insufficient — or if the at-fault driver is unknown or uninsured — your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage may apply. Texas requires insurers to offer UM/UIM unless you signed a written rejection. Many people carry this coverage without knowing it, and insurers do not volunteer it. We check your policy, and we pursue every available source of recovery.
The gap. One night in a trauma center can consume the $750,000 federal minimum. A traumatic brain injury, a spinal cord injury, a death — the lifetime cost of these injuries runs into the millions. If the carrier’s coverage is thin and there is no excess tower, the gap between what the harm costs and what the policy pays can be enormous. This is why identifying every defendant and every policy is not a formality. It is the case.
The Medicine — What an 80,000-Pound Truck Does to a Human Body
A fully loaded tractor-trailer weighs up to 80,000 pounds. A passenger car weighs about 4,000 pounds. That is a 20-to-1 weight disparity. In a collision, the lighter vehicle undergoes the larger change in velocity — the larger delta-V — and delta-V is the single best predictor of occupant injury severity. The people in the car absorb the force. The people in the truck often walk away.
The physics of a truck crash. Kinetic energy scales with the square of speed — double the speed and the destructive energy quadruples. A loaded truck traveling at 65 miles per hour needs roughly 525 feet to stop under ideal conditions — about the length of two football fields. A passenger car needs about 316 feet. When a truck is following too closely, or when the driver’s reaction time is slowed by fatigue, the truck physically cannot stop in the distance available. The stopping distance is not a matter of skill. It is a matter of mass and physics.
The injuries we see in Permian Basin truck crashes. Traumatic brain injury — from the brain slamming against the inside of the skull, with damage that does not always show up on a standard CT scan. Spinal cord injury — from the spine compressing, fracturing, or dislocating under impact forces that the body was never built to absorb. Amputation — from crush injuries, degloving, or compartment syndrome where the limb is alive on the outside but dying on the inside. Severe burns — if the truck’s fuel tank ruptures and the crash becomes a fire. Internal organ rupture — from blunt force that leaves no visible mark but bleeds internally. Death.
The trauma-center reality in Ector County. Medical Center Hospital in Odessa and Midland Memorial Hospital are the local hospitals, and they are capable facilities — but neither is a Level I trauma center. For the most severe injuries — multi-system trauma, severe traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury requiring specialized neurosurgical intervention — the nearest Level I trauma centers are in Lubbock (approximately 150 miles from Odessa) and El Paso (approximately 280 miles). That means a helicopter flight, weather permitting, that can take 45 minutes to an hour — or a ground ambulance run of two to three hours if the weather grounds the aircraft. Those hours between the crash and the trauma surgeon are hours that matter to the outcome, and they matter to the case: delayed access to specialized care worsens the injury, and the defendant is responsible for the worsened outcome, not just the initial harm.
The long arc. A catastrophic injury does not end when the patient leaves the hospital. A spinal cord injury can mean a lifetime of care — attendant care, wheelchair replacement, ongoing medical management, home and vehicle modifications, treatment of secondary complications like pressure injuries and urinary tract infections. The National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center puts the lifetime cost of a high cervical spinal cord injury for a young adult in the millions of dollars — and that figure deliberately excludes lost wages. A traumatic brain injury can mean a lifetime of cognitive therapy, lost earning capacity, personality changes the family lives with every day, and a person who looks the same on the outside but is not the same on the inside. An amputation means a prosthetic device that costs as much as a car and has to be replaced every three to five years for the rest of the person’s life.
How the defense minimizes the harm. The insurance company’s lawyers will argue the injury was pre-existing, or that the plaintiff was “already declining,” or that a clean CT scan means no brain injury. These arguments have medical answers. A traumatic brain injury can come with a perfectly normal CT — the damage is diffuse axonal injury, microscopic tearing of nerve fibers that a standard scan was never built to see. A “mild” brain injury is a triage word, not a prognosis — more than a third of patients with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of 13, the top of the “mild” range, have potentially life-threatening intracranial lesions. The medicine is on your side. But only if it is documented, tested with the right imaging, and presented by the right experts.
The Adjuster’s Playbook — What They’re Doing Right Now
The insurance adjuster assigned to your case was probably activated within hours of the crash. Their job is to minimize the payout. Here are the plays they run — and the counter to each.
Play 1: The “Just Checking On You” Recorded Statement
Within days, someone will call. They will sound warm. They will say they just want to hear your side of the story, that it will help process the claim faster, that it is just a formality. The call is recorded. Every word you say is being built into a defense exhibit. If you say “I’m feeling okay” — because you are trying to be polite, or because the adrenaline has not worn off yet, or because your neck does not hurt yet and you do not know that soft-tissue pain peaks at 48 to 72 hours — that sentence will appear in a motion to limit your damages six months from now.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement without legal representation. You are not required to. The adjuster is not your friend. The polite thing to say is: “I am not ready to give a statement. I will call you back.” Then call us.
Play 2: The Fast Settlement Check
A check may arrive quickly — within weeks — with a release printed on the back or enclosed with it. The amount will seem like a lot of money in the moment, especially if you are missing work and the bills are piling up. It is almost always a fraction of what the case is worth. The release is a legal document that, once signed, extinguishes your right to pursue the claim forever — even if your injuries turn out to be far worse than anyone expected.
The counter: Never sign a release from an insurance company without having a lawyer review it. The offer that arrives before your medical results are in is designed to close the file before the real cost of your injury is known. The MRI that shows the herniated disc has not been ordered yet. The neuropsychological testing that documents the brain injury has not been scheduled. The life-care plan that prices out thirty years of future care has not been built. The fast check is the cheapest check.
Play 3: The “You Were Partly At Fault” Assignment
The adjuster will look for anything — anything — that can be framed as your fault. You were in the truck’s blind spot. You changed lanes. You were following too closely. You were speeding. Each of these is a percentage point, and each percentage point is money off the payout under Texas’s 51% comparative-fault bar. The adjuster is not investigating. The adjuster is allocating fault — to you.
The counter: The crash reconstruction tells the truth, not the adjuster’s interpretation. The truck’s ECM data, the skid-mark analysis, the dashcam footage, the scene photographs, the police report — these are the facts. And the truck’s own logs may show the driver was over his hours, or had been cited before for the same violation, or had a medical condition the carrier ignored. The adjuster’s fault allocation is a negotiation position, not a finding. We push back with physics.
Play 4: The Independent Medical Examination With Their Doctor
The insurance company may demand that you be examined by a doctor of their choosing — an “independent” medical examiner who is neither independent nor neutral. This doctor is paid by the insurer, examined you once, and will write a report that minimizes your injuries. The report will say you are healed, or that your pain is pre-existing, or that you do not need further treatment.
The counter: You have the right to your own treating physicians. Your doctor, who has seen you from day one and ordered the tests and read the imaging, carries more weight than a doctor who examined you for twenty minutes on the insurer’s dime. We also know — because Lupe Peña sat on the other side of these cases — which IME doctors the insurers use and how their reports are typically structured.
Play 5: The Delay Aim At The Deadline
The adjuster may string the claim out — requesting more documents, asking for another extension, “needing more time to review” — until the two-year statute of limitations is bearing down on you. The goal is to force a panic settlement at a fraction of the value, or to let the deadline pass and kill the case entirely.
The counter: We file before the deadline, not against it. And we send the preservation letter that freezes the evidence before the carrier can destroy it. Time is the adjuster’s weapon and our enemy — unless we act first.
How a Truck-Crash Case Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk — week one through resolution — of how a real truck-crash case is constructed.
Week one. The preservation letter goes out — to the carrier, to the driver, to any broker or shipper involved. The letter demands that they freeze the truck, the logs, the ECM data, the dashcam footage, the driver qualification file, the daily vehicle inspection reports, the accident register, the post-crash drug and alcohol test results, and all communications related to the crash. If the truck has not already been moved or repaired, we arrange for it to be inspected and photographed before any evidence is lost. The ECM is downloaded before the truck goes back on the road.
Weeks two through four. The FMCSA SAFER Company Snapshot is pulled — the carrier’s USDOT number, operating authority status, power-unit count, driver count, crash totals, and out-of-service rates. This is public data, and it tells us whether this carrier has a pattern. The carrier’s insurance filings are pulled from the FMCSA Licensing and Insurance database. The police crash report is obtained and reviewed. Witness statements are taken while memories are fresh. The scene is photographed and measured — skid marks, gouge marks, fluid trails, sight lines, signage, the grade of the road.
Months one through three. The medical records are collected and organized. The treating physicians are identified. If the injury is catastrophic — brain injury, spinal cord, amputation — a life-care planner is retained to build the future-care cost projection, year by year, for the rest of the injured person’s expected life. A forensic economist is retained to reduce that cost stream to present value. The wage-loss calculation begins — past wages, future lost earning capacity, the value of household services the injured person can no longer perform.
Months three through six. Discovery begins if a lawsuit has been filed. The carrier is compelled to produce the logs, the qualification file, the inspection reports, the accident register, the internal communications. The driver is deposed — under oath, with a court reporter, every word transcribed. The safety director is deposed. The corporate representative is deposed. The dispatch records are examined against the hours-of-service logs. The maintenance records are examined against the post-crash mechanical inspection. Every gap, every inconsistency, every falsified entry is a piece of the case.
Months six through twelve. Expert witnesses are retained — a crash reconstructionist to analyze the physics, a trucking-safety expert to testify about industry standards and the carrier’s violations, a forensic accountant to present the economic loss, a life-care planner to present the future-care cost, a treating physician or retained medical expert to explain the injury mechanism and prognosis. The defense experts are deposed. The case is built toward mediation or trial.
Resolution. Most cases settle — but they settle on the strength of the preparation, not on the weakness of it. A case that is prepared for trial settles for more than a case that is not. And if the carrier will not offer what the case is worth, we try the case. In an Ector County courtroom, the jury is twelve people from your community — people who drive I-20, who know the oilfield truck traffic, who understand what it means when an 80,000-pound rig shuts down the highway. They are your neighbors.
The First 72 Hours — What to Do, What to Refuse
Do get medical treatment, even if you feel “fine.” Adrenaline masks pain. Soft-tissue injuries peak at 48 to 72 hours. A traumatic brain injury can present as nothing more than a headache and irritability in the first hours — and as a life-altering cognitive deficit by the third month. Go to the emergency room. Follow up with your doctor. Document everything. The gap between the crash and the first medical visit is the gap the defense uses to argue the injury was not caused by the crash.
Do not give a recorded statement to the trucking company’s insurance adjuster. You are not required to. Anything you say will be transcribed and used against you. Say: “I am not ready to give a statement.” Then call a lawyer.
Do not sign anything from the insurance company. No release. No authorization. No settlement offer. No “just to help us process the claim” form. These documents are designed to limit or extinguish your rights. Do not sign without legal review.
Do not post about the crash on social media. The insurance company will look. A photo of you at a family barbecue three days after the crash will be presented as proof you were not injured — even if you were in agonizing pain and left after twenty minutes. Set your accounts to private. Do not post about the crash, your injuries, or your activities.
Do preserve everything you can. Photograph your vehicle before it is repaired or scrapped. Photograph your injuries. Keep every medical bill, every pharmacy receipt, every tow-yard invoice. Write down everything you remember about the crash — the time, the weather, what you saw, what you heard, what the truck was doing — because memory fades and a contemporaneous note is evidence. If anyone witnessed the crash, get their name and phone number.
Do call us. The preservation letter — the single most time-sensitive action in a truck-crash case — goes out the day you call. Every day you wait is a day the evidence clock runs. The logs are counting down from six months. The inspection reports are counting down from three months. The ECM data may already be gone. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win. Call 1-888-ATTY-911.
What Your Case Is Worth
We will not give you a number without seeing the records — and you should be suspicious of anyone who does. But we will tell you how the number is built, because understanding the architecture is itself a form of protection.
Economic damages — the calculable money losses. Past medical bills: every hospital stay, every surgery, every imaging study, every physical therapy session, every prescription. Future medical costs: the life-care plan, built by a certified planner, that prices out every surgery, every medication, every piece of equipment, and every hour of attendant care the injured person will need for the rest of their expected life — reduced to present value by a forensic economist. Past lost wages: the paychecks that stopped. Future lost earning capacity: the career that ended or was diminished, calculated from work-life expectancy tables and the person’s pre-injury earning trajectory. Household services: the value of the cooking, cleaning, childcare, repairs, and management the injured person can no longer perform — valued at the market replacement rate using federal time-use data.
Non-economic damages — the human losses that no receipt can measure. Pain and suffering. Mental anguish. Disfigurement. Physical impairment. The loss of the life the person was going to live — the activities they can no longer do, the relationships that changed, the daily experience of living in a body that does not work the way it did before the truck hit them. In Texas, there is no statutory cap on non-economic damages in trucking cases. A jury can award what the harm is actually worth.
Punitive damages — when the carrier’s conduct was worse than negligent. A driver pushed past the 11-hour federal driving limit because the dispatcher demanded the delivery on time. Brakes written up as defective on a daily inspection report that was never repaired. A driver hired with a known history of violations because the carrier was desperate for warm bodies in a labor-short Permian Basin. Gross negligence — conscious indifference to the safety of others — opens the door to exemplary damages that punish the company and send a message.
The firm’s verified results. We have recovered $2.5 million-plus in truck-crash cases. We have recovered $5 million-plus in brain-injury cases. We have recovered $3.8 million-plus in amputation cases. The firm’s aggregate recoveries exceed $50 million. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But those numbers tell you the level a serious case can reach when the evidence is frozen early, the medicine is documented right, the corporate structure is pierced, and the case is built for trial from day one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to sue after an 18-wheeler crash in Texas?
Texas’s statute of limitations for personal injury and wrongful death is two years from the date of the crash. This is a hard deadline — miss it and the case is over regardless of how strong it is. But the evidence deadline is far shorter: the truck’s logs can be legally destroyed in six months, and the daily inspection reports in three months. The two-year clock is the law. The evidence clock is the emergency.
The trucking company’s adjuster already called me. Should I talk to them?
No. The adjuster is not calling to help you. They are calling to gather statements that can be used to reduce or deny your claim. You are not legally required to give a recorded statement to the other party’s insurance company. Say: “I am not ready to give a statement.” Then call a lawyer. Everything you say to the adjuster can and will be used against you.
What if the truck driver was an independent contractor, not an employee?
The “independent contractor” label is the defense’s favorite shield — but federal leasing rules (49 CFR § 376.12) make the authorized carrier take “exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment” and “complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment” during the lease. The carrier whose name is on the trailer door and whose USDOT number is on the cab generally stands behind the driver’s conduct on the road regardless of the contractor label. We also pursue direct claims against the carrier — negligent hiring, negligent training, negligent supervision — that do not depend on an employment relationship at all.
I did not go to the hospital right after the crash. Can I still claim injuries?
Yes, but the delay will be used against you. The defense will argue that if you were really hurt, you would have gone to the hospital immediately. The medical answer is that adrenaline masks pain, that soft-tissue injuries peak at 48 to 72 hours, and that some of the most serious injuries — traumatic brain injury, internal organ damage — may not produce obvious symptoms in the first hours. But the longer you wait, the harder it is to prove the connection. Get medical treatment as soon as you can. Document everything.
Can I sue if my loved one was killed in the crash?
Yes. Texas law provides two distinct claims after a fatal crash. A wrongful death action belongs to the surviving spouse, children, and parents — and compensates them for the financial support, services, and companionship they lost. A survival action belongs to the estate — and covers the pain, suffering, and medical costs the person experienced between the crash and their death. These are separate claims with separate damage models. A family that pursues only one leaves value on the table.
Does Texas cap damages in truck-crash cases?
No. Unlike medical-malpractice cases in Texas — where non-economic damages are capped — there is no statutory cap on non-economic or punitive damages in ordinary negligence or trucking cases. A jury can award what the harm is actually worth. Punitive damages are available when the carrier acted with gross negligence or conscious indifference to safety.
What if the truck that hit me was an oilfield truck — a water hauler or a sand truck?
Oilfield trucking in the Permian Basin is a different animal. Federal hours-of-service rules include special provisions for oilfield operations that can allow drivers to accumulate more road time than standard truckers. The pressure to keep moving is intense — every well that is waiting for water or sand is costing the operator money. We handle Permian Basin oilfield truck crash cases specifically because the oilfield context changes the evidence, the defendant structure, and the federal rules that apply.
I cannot afford a lawyer. How do I pay for this?
You do not pay us anything unless we win. We work on a contingency fee — 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. We advance the costs of building the case — the record fees, the expert fees, the filing fees — and those costs are repaid from the recovery. If there is no recovery, you owe us nothing for our time. We have been doing this since 2001. Call 1-888-ATTY-911.
What should I do right now, today?
Three things. First, get medical treatment if you have not already — your health comes first, and the medical record is the foundation of the case. Second, do not talk to the insurance adjuster and do not sign anything. Third, call us. The preservation letter that freezes the truck’s evidence goes out the day you call. Every day you wait is a day the evidence clock runs.
Why Attorney911 — Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — he knows how to find the story the evidence tells. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He is the lead counsel in the active $10 million hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi and the University of Houston. He does not like losing.
Lupe Peña is the advantage. He spent years as an insurance-defense attorney at a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. He knows how claims are valued from the inside — the reserve-setting process, the IME-doctor selection, the surveillance tactics, the recorded-statement scripts. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. He is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch. He chose to leave the defense side and put that knowledge to work for injured families. When he sits across from an insurance adjuster, the adjuster knows he has been on their side of the table — and that he knows every play in their book.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. Legal Emergency Lawyers. We have been in business since July 18, 2001. We have recovered more than $50 million for our clients. We have a 4.9-star rating with 251-plus Google reviews. We have a 24/7 live staff — not an answering service, but people who can take your call at 2 a.m. on a Saturday and start the process. Hablamos Español.
The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. If we are not the right fit for your situation, we will tell you. But if you were hurt by an 18-wheeler on I-20 in Ector County — or anywhere in the Permian Basin — we want to talk to you. The evidence is dying on a clock. The adjuster is already working. The day you call is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Or call our direct line at (713) 528-9070. The call is free. The advice is real. The fight starts the moment you hang up the phone.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Contacting the firm is free and confidential. The firm is based in Houston, Texas, and takes cases across the state working with local counsel where required.