Midland Pedestrian Killed in Hit-and-Run on Midland Drive: Your Family’s Legal Rights After a Fatal Crash
If your family is reading this, a 67-year-old man you love is gone. He was crossing Midland Drive on a Tuesday evening — an ordinary act in the town where he lived — and a vehicle struck him and kept going. By the time officers arrived at the intersection of Midland Drive and Dengar Avenue, he was deceased in the northbound lanes. The driver and a passenger fled on foot. Hours later, a 23-year-old man was found at a nearby apartment and admitted to police that he was behind the wheel and that he left the scene without stopping to help.
We are not going to pretend that words on a screen can fix what happened. What we can do — and what this page does — is tell you exactly what your family’s legal rights are, what evidence is disappearing while you grieve, what the insurance company is already doing, and what a civil wrongful death case looks like in Midland County, Texas. The criminal arrest gives you accountability. It does not give you compensation. Those are two separate fights, and the civil one has a clock on it that most families never hear about until it is too late.
This is legal information, not legal advice. Every case depends on its own facts. But everything below is written for you — the spouse, the child, the parent of a man who deserved someone to stop.
What Happened on Midland Drive
On a Tuesday evening at approximately 6:58 p.m., 67-year-old Liborio Garcia of Midland was crossing Midland Drive from east to west at or near the intersection of Dengar Avenue. A white 2021 Ford Escape traveling northbound in the inside lane struck him. The impact was severe enough to cause significant front-end damage to the vehicle and a broken windshield — damage that tells a reconstruction expert a great deal about the speed and angle of the collision. Garcia was pronounced deceased in the northbound lanes.
The vehicle was found in the parking lot of the Summer Hill Apartments — a short distance from the collision scene. Witnesses reported that two individuals exited the vehicle and fled on foot. Midland Police investigators later located a 23-year-old man at a nearby apartment. According to the department’s own statement:
“During the investigation, McLaughlin admitted to being the driver of the vehicle and leaving the scene without rendering aid.”
He was arrested and booked into the Midland County Detention Center for Collision Involving Death.
That admission is the single most important fact in your civil case. A driver who admits he struck a pedestrian and fled is a driver who has handed your family the liability argument on a plate. The criminal charge — Collision Involving Death — reflects an alleged violation of Texas’s stop-and-render-aid laws, which require any driver involved in an accident resulting in injury or death to immediately stop, remain at the scene, and render reasonable assistance. The same conduct that makes this a crime makes it textbook gross negligence in a civil courtroom — and gross negligence opens the door to exemplary damages in Texas.
But an arrest is not a verdict, and a criminal charge does not pay your family’s losses. The civil case is a separate fight, and it is the only fight that can put money in your hands.
The Criminal Case and Your Civil Case: Two Separate Tracks
This is the first thing every grieving family needs to understand, and it is the thing the system never explains: the criminal prosecution and the civil wrongful death lawsuit are completely separate legal proceedings with different purposes, different standards of proof, and different outcomes.
The criminal case is the State of Texas v. Jordan McLaughlin. The Midland County District Attorney’s Office decides whether to charge, what to charge, and whether to plea or try the case. Your family does not control that process. You may be witnesses, but you are not parties. The possible outcomes are prison, probation, or acquittal — none of which puts a dollar into your family’s hands.
The civil case is your family v. the driver, the vehicle owner, and their insurance companies. You control it. Your lawyer controls it. The standard of proof is lower — a preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. And the outcome is money: compensation for the financial and human losses your family has suffered.
Here is the part that matters to you right now: the civil case does not wait for the criminal case to finish. In fact, it cannot afford to. While the criminal investigation grinds on for months or years, the evidence your civil case depends on is dying on a clock. Surveillance footage overwrites itself. Witness memories fade. The vehicle’s event data recorder sits in a police impound lot that could release it. Every day you wait is a day the proof gets thinner.
The civil case also has something the criminal case does not: a hard two-year statute of limitations. In Texas, wrongful death and survival actions must generally be filed within two years of the date of death. Miss that window and the case is gone forever, no matter how strong it is. The criminal case has no such deadline — but your family’s right to compensation does.
There is one critical interaction between the two: if the driver is convicted or pleads guilty to Collision Involving Death, that conviction can have a preclusive effect on the civil negligence analysis. A criminal conviction for violating a safety statute can establish negligence per se in the civil case — meaning the defendant’s liability for the statutory violation is conclusively presumed, and your family does not have to re-prove it to a civil jury. This is why civil discovery should proceed in parallel with the criminal matter, not after it.
Who Can Be Held Responsible in a Fatal Pedestrian Hit-and-Run
When a driver kills a pedestrian and flees, the first instinct is to think there is only one person to sue. There are almost always more. Identifying every potentially liable party — and every source of insurance money behind them — is the first real work of a civil case, and it is the work that determines whether your family actually recovers or walks away with a judgment against a 23-year-old who has nothing.
The Driver
The driver who admitted operating the vehicle and fleeing the scene faces direct negligence claims: failure to keep a proper lookout, failure to yield, failure to control speed, and failure to take evasive action in a mixed-use corridor where pedestrian presence is foreseeable. The hit-and-run itself is a separate, independent act of negligence — and worse, it is evidence of gross negligence. A driver who strikes a 67-year-old man and runs without calling 911 has demonstrated conscious indifference to human life, and that is the legal standard for exemplary damages in Texas.
The Vehicle Owner — If Different From the Driver
This is a discovery target that can change the entire financial picture of the case. The 2021 Ford Escape found in the Summer Hill Apartments parking lot may be titled to the driver — or it may belong to a parent, a friend, a roommate, or an employer. If someone other than the driver owns that vehicle, a negligent entrustment claim may apply. Under Texas law, a vehicle owner who entrusts their vehicle to a driver they knew or should have known was unfit to drive can be held liable for the resulting harm. A separate owner also means a separate insurance policy — a second source of coverage that could be worth far more than the driver’s own policy.
Vehicle title and registration records are public information. They should be pulled immediately — not after the criminal case resolves, not after the insurance company calls, but now.
The Driver’s Auto Liability Insurer
The driver’s auto insurance carrier has a contractual obligation to indemnify covered losses up to the policy limits. But here is the reality: a 23-year-old individual defendant may carry only Texas’s legal minimum liability coverage, and a single wrongful death can exhaust those limits in the first hour of the first day of the case. The insurer will also be evaluating the case through the lens of the driver’s own criminal conduct — and whether the policy covers damages arising from a hit-and-run is a coverage question that can become its own fight.
This is where the Stowers doctrine enters. In Texas, when a claimant makes a reasonable settlement offer within the defendant’s policy limits, the insurer has a duty to accept it. If the insurer refuses and a later judgment exceeds those limits, the insurer can be held responsible for the full judgment amount — not just the policy limits. Given the admitted liability and criminal conduct in this case, a well-crafted Stowers demand puts the insurer on notice that refusing a policy-limits offer could expose it to far more than the face value of the policy. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where claims like yours are priced, reserved, and evaluated — before coming to this side of the table. He knows how adjusters set reserves in the first 48 hours, how valuation software discounts pain it cannot see, and exactly where an insurer’s refusal crosses into bad-faith territory.
A Potential Dram-Shop Defendant
This is conditional, and it is a discovery target, not a certainty. If the criminal investigation’s toxicology results or cell-phone records establish that the driver was intoxicated at the time of the collision, and if he was over-served at a licensed Texas establishment before getting behind the wheel, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code’s dram-shop provisions may impose civil liability on that vendor. A dram-shop claim can open a entirely separate insurance policy — a liquor liability policy — that has nothing to do with the driver’s auto coverage. This is why toxicology results from the criminal investigation are critical evidence and why the biological sample must be preserved.
The Unknown Passenger
Witnesses reported two individuals fleeing the vehicle. One was the driver. The other is unidentified. This passenger is both a potential witness and a potential defendant. As a witness, the passenger may have seen the driver’s pre-impact conduct — was he looking at his phone? Was he visibly intoxicated? Was he speeding? As a potential defendant, someone who aids a driver in fleeing a fatal accident scene may face liability for aiding and abetting the flight. The passenger’s identity is a priority discovery target, and the apartment surveillance footage is the most likely way to find them.
Texas Wrongful Death Law: What Your Family Can Recover
Texas law gives your family two separate causes of action after a fatal collision — and understanding the difference between them can double the value of the case if both are pleaded correctly.
The Wrongful Death Action
The Texas Wrongful Death Act permits surviving spouses, children, and parents of the deceased to recover for the death of a family member caused by another’s wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default. This is the family’s claim — it compensates the survivors for what they lost when their loved one was taken.
The damages available in a wrongful death action include:
- Mental anguish and emotional distress — the grief, sorrow, and psychological pain of losing a spouse, parent, or child
- Loss of companionship and society — the love, comfort, and companionship the deceased would have provided
- Loss of counsel and advice — the guidance a parent or spouse would have offered
- Loss of inheritance — the wealth the deceased would have accumulated and passed to the family
- Loss of financial support — the income and economic contributions the deceased would have made to the household
- Funeral and burial expenses
If you need a deeper walkthrough of how wrongful death claims work in Texas, our wrongful death claim practice page covers the full process — who can file, what damages are available, and how the case moves through the courts.
The Survival Action
The survival action is different. It belongs to the estate of the deceased, not to the family members directly. It carries forward the claim the deceased himself would have had if he had survived — the pain, suffering, and mental anguish he experienced between the moment of impact and the moment of death.
In this case, the survival action’s value depends on a forensic question that a pathologist and a reconstruction expert will answer together: did Liborio Garcia survive the initial impact, and for how long? If the collision caused near-instantaneous death — a catastrophic aortic transection, for instance — the survival damages may be limited. But if he was alive after the impact, even briefly, the damages include his conscious pain and suffering during that interval. And here is where the hit-and-run becomes something more than gross negligence: if forensic reconstruction shows Garcia was alive and potentially salvageable after impact, the driver’s failure to call 911 or render aid becomes an independent causation element. The flight from the scene did not just show indifference — it may have caused or contributed to the death itself. That amplifies survival damages dramatically.
Who Can File
Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, the surviving spouse, children, and parents are the statutory beneficiaries. If none of these exist or none files within three months of the death, the executor or administrator of the estate may file on behalf of the beneficiaries. The survival action is brought by the estate’s personal representative — the person Texas law authorizes to act on behalf of the deceased. The appointment of a personal representative is one of the first practical steps in a death case, and it is something we handle as part of the process.
The Comparative Fault Question
This is the honest part that no family wants to hear but needs to understand. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence system with a 51% bar. What that means in plain language: if the jury finds that the deceased was 50% or less at fault, the family can recover — but the recovery is reduced by the deceased’s percentage of fault. If the jury finds the deceased was 51% or more at fault, the family recovers nothing.
The defense in this case will almost certainly argue that Garcia was crossing outside a marked crosswalk and therefore bears comparative fault. They may be right that the intersection lacked a marked crosswalk — that is a factual question for discovery. But here is what the defense will not tell the jury, and what your lawyer must:
First, Texas law does not give drivers a free pass to hit pedestrians who are crossing outside a crosswalk. Every driver on every road has a continuing duty to keep a proper lookout, to see what there is to be seen, and to take reasonable evasive action. Midland Drive near Dengar Avenue is a developed residential-commercial corridor with apartment complexes nearby. Pedestrian presence in that environment is foreseeable. A driver who does not see a 67-year-old man crossing a multi-lane road in the evening has failed in the most basic duty the law imposes on anyone behind a wheel.
Second — and this is the point that overwhelms everything else — the driver fled. A jury in Midland County is going to hear that a young man struck a 67-year-old member of their community and ran away without calling for help. The comparative fault argument collapses under the weight of that fact. A juror who hears “he crossed outside the crosswalk” and “the driver killed him and ran” is not going to assign 51% of the blame to a dead man who was doing nothing more dangerous than crossing a street near his home.
This is not a guarantee. It is an honest assessment of how Midland County juries think about personal responsibility — and leaving a neighbor dying in the road is the kind of personal failure that transcends any crossing-location technicality.
For more on how Texas protects vulnerable road users — pedestrians, cyclists, and the specific rights and duties that apply when a vehicle and a person on foot collide — our Texas vulnerable road user resource covers the full framework.
Hit-and-Run as Gross Negligence: Exemplary Damages
Texas permits exemplary damages — what many people call punitive damages — upon a showing of fraud, malice, or gross negligence. Gross negligence, under Texas law, means an act or omission that involves an extreme degree of risk, considering the probability and magnitude of the potential harm, of which the actor has actual, subjective awareness, and nevertheless proceeds with conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others.
Striking a pedestrian with a vehicle and then fleeing the scene without calling 911, without rendering aid, without even stopping to see whether the person you hit is alive — that is the textbook definition. The driver was actually aware of the collision — his windshield was broken, his front end was damaged, and he admitted to police that he was behind the wheel. He was actually aware that a person lay in the road behind him. He chose to leave. The probability and magnitude of harm from abandoning a critically injured person without summoning emergency services is extreme — the difference between life and death. And he proceeded anyway.
This is the foundation of an exemplary damages claim, and it is the foundation that can push this case beyond the ordinary coverage limits.
Texas does impose statutory limitations on exemplary damages, generally capping them in relation to economic damages. But the availability of exemplary damages also changes the leverage in the case. An insurer facing a claim where gross negligence is well-supported knows that a jury could return a verdict that exceeds the policy limits by a wide margin — which is exactly why a Stowers demand becomes so powerful in a case like this. The insurer is not just deciding whether to pay the policy limits. It is deciding whether to risk its own money by refusing.
The Evidence Clock: What Is Disappearing Right Now
This is the section that matters most to your family’s practical ability to recover — and it is the section most families never read in time. Every piece of evidence below exists right now. Each one is on a clock. Some of those clocks are measured in days, not months. Here is what exists, who holds it, how fast it can legally disappear, and what must be done to freeze it.
The Vehicle’s Event Data Recorder (EDR)
The 2021 Ford Escape is equipped with an event data recorder — what most people call the black box. Federal regulations standardize what these devices capture: vehicle speed in the seconds before impact, brake application, throttle position, steering input, seatbelt status, airbag deployment timing, and the change in velocity at the moment of collision. In a pedestrian fatality, the EDR data is the single most important piece of objective evidence about what the vehicle was doing in the seconds before and during the collision.
The data is preserved in the module, but the vehicle itself is at risk. It sits in police impound now, but it can be released, repaired, sold, or scrapped. If the vehicle is released and destroyed, the EDR data goes with it. A preservation letter or seizure warrant is needed to ensure the vehicle is not released before the data is downloaded. The download must be performed with the right forensic tools — the Bosch CDR system for passenger vehicles — and by someone trained in crash-data retrieval, because powering the module or handling it incorrectly can corrupt the data.
Who holds it: Midland Police Department impound, or the vehicle’s owner if released.
How fast it dies: The data survives in the module, but the vehicle can be released from impound within weeks. Once released, it can be repaired or scrapped at any time.
What to do: A preservation demand to the police department and the vehicle owner, and an EDR imaging by a qualified reconstruction specialist, before the vehicle is released.
Summer Hill Apartments Surveillance Footage
The vehicle was found in the parking lot of the Summer Hill Apartments. Two individuals exited the vehicle and fled on foot. An apartment complex with a parking lot almost certainly has surveillance cameras — and those cameras may have captured the vehicle pulling in, the two individuals exiting, the direction they fled, and timestamps for all of it. If any camera faces Midland Drive, it may have captured the collision itself.
Who holds it: The apartment complex management or its security vendor.
How fast it dies: Typical apartment-complex CCTV systems overwrite on a rolling cycle of 7 to 30 days. Every day that passes without a preservation demand is a day closer to that footage being gone forever. If the incident date was weeks ago, the footage may already be overwritten.
What to do: A preservation letter to the apartment management company immediately, demanding that all surveillance footage from the date and time of the incident be preserved and not overwritten.
Traffic Cameras at or Near Midland Drive and Dengar Avenue
The City of Midland may operate traffic monitoring cameras at or near the intersection. These cameras could capture the collision, Garcia’s crossing location relative to any crosswalk, the vehicle’s speed and approach, and the vehicle’s post-impact travel to the apartment parking lot. Municipal camera retention varies — some cities keep footage for only a few weeks before it cycles.
Who holds it: The City of Midland (traffic engineering or police department).
How fast it dies: Varies by municipal policy — potentially as short as 14 to 30 days.
What to do: A preservation request to the City of Midland immediately, specifically identifying the cameras at or near Midland Drive and Dengar Avenue for the date and time of the incident.
The Driver’s Cell Phone Records
Cell phone records can prove distracted driving — texting, calling, or app usage at the time of impact. They can also establish the driver’s location data and his communications with the unknown passenger in the hours before and after the collision. Provider retention policies vary: some call-detail records purge after 90 to 180 days, and content data (text messages, app data) may be lost even sooner.
Who holds it: The driver’s cellular service provider.
How fast it dies: Call-detail records may survive 90 to 180 days. Content data may be gone sooner. Some providers purge data on shorter cycles.
What to do: A preservation letter to the provider and a subpoena for the records, served as early in the case as possible.
Police Body-Worn Camera Footage
Responding officers’ body cameras may have captured the driver’s statements when he was located at the apartment, his physical demeanor, signs of intoxication, witness interviews at the scene, and the vehicle’s condition when it was found. This footage is retained per Midland Police Department policy but is subject to administrative purging on a standard retention schedule.
Who holds it: Midland Police Department.
How fast it dies: Per department policy — typically 90 days to several years, but administrative purging can occur on shorter timelines for certain categories of footage.
What to do: A records request to the Midland Police Department for all body-worn camera footage from responding officers, served before administrative purging occurs.
Toxicology and Blood-Draw Results
If the criminal investigation included a blood draw from the driver — which it should have, given the fatality — the toxicology results will establish whether he was intoxicated. This opens dram-shop liability and dramatically strengthens the punitive damages case. The biological sample itself must be preserved for independent testing.
Who holds it: The Midland Police Department crime lab or a contracted laboratory, and the Midland County District Attorney’s Office through criminal discovery.
How fast it dies: Results may not be available for weeks, but the biological sample must be preserved. If the sample is consumed or destroyed, independent re-testing becomes impossible.
What to do: A preservation demand for the biological sample and a request for toxicology results through civil discovery or a subpoena.
Witness Statements and Identities
Multiple witnesses observed the collision and the flight of two individuals from the vehicle. Their accounts establish crossing location, vehicle speed, and post-impact conduct. Memories fade rapidly, and witnesses in transient apartment-complex populations relocate. Sworn statements should be taken within 30 to 60 days of the incident.
Who holds them: The witnesses themselves, and the Midland Police Department crash report.
How fast they die: Memories degrade within weeks. Witnesses move. A crash report preserves names but not the full account.
What to do: Locate and interview witnesses immediately. Sworn statements lock in their accounts before memories fade or stories shift.
Crash Scene Measurements and Photographs
The crash scene was cleared by police. Skid marks, debris fields, point of impact, blood evidence, and vehicle rest position establish the physics of the collision and Garcia’s crossing path. The crash report and officer photographs are the primary remaining record.
Who holds them: Midland Police Department crash report and officer photographs.
How fast they die: The scene is already cleared. The physical evidence on the roadway is gone. The report and photographs are the surviving record and should be obtained immediately.
Vehicle Title and Registration Records
These identify the legal owner of the 2021 Ford Escape. If the owner is different from the driver, a negligent entrustment defendant with separate insurance coverage emerges.
Who holds them: Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.
How fast they die: Public records — available immediately. Should be pulled at the outset.
Garcia’s Automobile Insurance Policy and Any Household Policies
If Liborio Garcia carried automobile insurance with uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, his own policy may provide compensation beyond the at-fault driver’s limits. UM/UIM claims must be noticed promptly per policy terms, and delay may create coverage defenses.
Who holds them: Garcia’s insurance carrier.
How fast they die: Policy deadlines for noticing UM/UIM claims can be short. Delay may give the carrier a basis to deny coverage.
What to do: Locate all of Garcia’s insurance policies immediately and notify the carrier of a potential UM/UIM claim.
This evidence-preservation work is the single most time-sensitive part of a fatal hit-and-run case. The preservation letters that freeze these records go out the day a family calls us — not after the criminal case resolves, not after the insurance company reaches out, not after the family has had time to think about it. The footage that proves what happened is being overwritten while you read this.
The Medicine: What Happens to a 67-Year-Old Body Struck at Roadway Speed
You may not want to read this section. But if your family is going to pursue a survival action — and if the forensic evidence is going to establish whether your loved one suffered — this is the science that decides what your case is worth.
A 2021 Ford Escape weighs roughly 3,500 to 4,000 pounds. At the speed limits typical on Midland Drive — 40 to 50 miles per hour on a major arterial — the kinetic energy involved is enormous. When a vehicle of that mass strikes a human body at those speeds, the physics are devastating, and they are made worse by the age of the victim.
The Pedestrian Collision Mechanism
When a sedan or SUV strikes a standing or walking adult, the classic mechanism is the “wrap-and-throw” sequence. The front bumper and grille make first contact with the pedestrian’s lower body — the legs and pelvis. The force fractures the tibia, fibula, or femur, and may fracture the pelvis. The pedestrian’s body then rotates forward — “wrapping” over the hood — and the head, chest, or upper body strikes the windshield or hood. The windshield damage on the Ford Escape in this case is consistent with that second-stage impact, meaning Garcia’s head or upper torso hit the windshield with enough force to break it.
After the wrap, the pedestrian is typically thrown forward or to the side, striking the ground — a third impact. For a 67-year-old, each stage is worse than it would be for a younger person. Bone density is lower, making fractures more likely and more severe. Blood vessels are less elastic, making aortic and great-vessel injuries more probable under deceleration forces. The rib cage is more brittle, meaning chest impact can produce flail-segment rib fractures and underlying lung or heart damage.
The Likely Fatal Mechanisms
The fact that Garcia was pronounced deceased at the scene — rather than surviving to reach a hospital — points to one of several catastrophic mechanisms:
Traumatic brain injury from windshield impact. The broken windshield indicates significant head or upper-body contact. A severe TBI — massive intracranial hemorrhage, diffuse axonal injury, or skull fracture with brain destruction — can cause death within minutes. If the brainstem was directly compressed or sheared, loss of consciousness could have been near-instantaneous.
Aortic or great-vessel transection from deceleration forces. When the body is accelerated by the vehicle impact and then decelerated against the windshield or the ground, the aorta — the largest blood vessel in the body — can tear at the point where it arches, because the aortic arch is relatively fixed while the heart and descending aorta move. A transected aorta causes massive internal bleeding into the chest cavity, and death can follow within seconds to minutes. This mechanism is particularly common in older adults because the aortic wall is less elastic with age.
Polytrauma with rapid internal hemorrhaging. Multiple severe injuries — pelvic fractures, liver or splenic laceration, rib fractures with lung damage — can combine to produce hemorrhagic shock faster than emergency services can respond. The internal bleeding from a crushed pelvis alone can be fatal within 15 to 30 minutes.
The Survival Question
This is the question a forensic pathologist and a reconstruction expert will answer together: was Liborio Garcia alive after the impact, and for how long?
If the fatal mechanism was aortic transection, death may have been near-instantaneous — and the survival damages would be limited to the seconds of terror and pain between the moment he saw the vehicle and the moment he lost consciousness.
But if the mechanism was slower — internal bleeding from pelvic fractures, an epidural hematoma, or a tension pneumothorax — Garcia may have been alive and conscious on the pavement for minutes. In that interval, he would have experienced pain, fear, and the awareness that no one was coming to help him. And that is where the hit-and-run becomes something more than gross negligence. If prompt medical attention could have altered the outcome — if calling 911 could have gotten paramedics to him in time — then the driver’s flight from the scene did not just demonstrate indifference. It contributed to the death. The failure to render aid becomes an independent causation element that amplifies survival damages and strengthens the gross negligence finding simultaneously.
The forensic pathologist will examine the autopsy findings — the pattern of injuries, the blood evidence at the scene, the time interval between the 911 call and the pronouncement of death. The reconstruction expert will analyze the vehicle damage, the EDR data, and the scene evidence to establish the forces involved. Together, their testimony builds the survival picture.
This is not a comfortable topic. But it is the medicine that determines what your family’s case is worth, and it is the science that a defense attorney will challenge at every turn. The proof of conscious pain and suffering is built from the autopsy, the scene photographs, the timing records, and the expert analysis — and it must be preserved and developed from the first day of the case.
The Insurance Reality: Following the Money
Liability in this case is exceptionally strong. The driver admitted he was behind the wheel and that he fled. Criminal charges are pending. The civil negligence argument is close to air-tight. But liability and collectibility are two different things, and a judgment against a 23-year-old who carries minimum liability limits and has no assets is a piece of paper, not a check.
Here is the honest financial terrain of this case, layer by layer.
Layer 1: The Driver’s Liability Coverage
Texas requires minimum liability coverage of $30,000 per injured person and $60,000 per accident for bodily injury. A 23-year-old individual defendant may carry only that minimum — and a fatal pedestrian collision exhausts it before the first ambulance bill is counted. Some drivers carry higher limits — $50,000, $100,000, or more — but the only way to know is to confirm the policy limits through a Texas insurance claim process. Texas law allows a claimant to demand policy limits information, and an insurer that refuses to provide it can face statutory penalties.
Layer 2: The Vehicle Owner’s Separate Coverage
If the 2021 Ford Escape is titled to someone other than the driver — a parent, a friend — that owner’s insurance policy may provide separate coverage. A vehicle owner’s policy typically covers permissive drivers, meaning the owner’s limits may stack on top of or alongside the driver’s. And if the owner knew or should have known the driver was unfit — had a history of reckless driving, DUI, or license suspension — a negligent entrustment claim opens the owner’s policy to the full liability, not just the permissive-use coverage. This is why the vehicle title records are a day-one priority.
Layer 3: Garcia’s Own Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage
This is the layer most families do not know about. If Liborio Garcia carried auto insurance with UM/UIM coverage — and in Texas, insurers are required to offer it unless the policyholder rejects it in writing — his own policy may compensate the family for damages the at-fault driver’s insurance cannot cover. UM coverage applies when the at-fault driver is uninsured. UIM applies when the at-fault driver is underinsured — when their limits are too low to fully compensate the loss, which is the likely scenario here.
UM/UIM claims must be noticed promptly under the policy’s terms. Some policies require notice within a specific number of days. Delay can give the carrier a coverage defense — a reason to deny the claim based on the family’s failure to comply with policy conditions. If Garcia lived in a household with other family members who carried auto insurance, those policies may also provide UM/UIM coverage that applies, depending on the policy terms and the household relationship.
For a plain-language explanation of how UM/UIM coverage works and why it matters after a crash with an underinsured driver, our video on uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage walks through the basics.
Layer 4: Excess and Umbrella Policies
If either the driver or the vehicle owner carries an excess or umbrella policy, that coverage sits above the primary auto liability limits and can add hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to the available recovery. Excess policies are not always disclosed voluntarily — they must be demanded in discovery. But they are the layer that can turn a minimum-limits case into a meaningful recovery.
Layer 5: Dram-Shop Coverage
If discovery establishes that the driver was intoxicated and was over-served at a licensed establishment, the vendor’s liquor liability insurance becomes a separate source of recovery entirely. Liquor liability policies can carry limits far above typical auto coverage, and a dram-shop claim is independent of the auto insurance — it does not compete with or exhaust the auto limits.
The Stowers Leverage
All of these layers converge on one strategic point: the Stowers doctrine. When your lawyer makes a reasonable settlement demand within the driver’s policy limits — backed by the admitted liability, the criminal charges, the gross negligence evidence, and the threat of a Midland County jury hearing about a hit-and-run — the insurer faces a choice. Accept the demand and pay the limits. Or refuse, try the case, and risk a verdict that exceeds the limits by a wide margin. If the insurer refuses a reasonable limits demand and the jury returns a higher verdict, the insurer can be liable for the entire judgment, not just the policy limits.
This is not a threat. It is a legal duty the insurer owes its own policyholder — and in a case with admitted liability and criminal conduct, it is leverage that a former insurance-defense attorney like Lupe Peña knows how to apply from the inside.
Case Value Range
We are not going to tell you a specific dollar figure your case is worth, because that depends on facts that have not been fully developed — the driver’s policy limits, the vehicle ownership, Garcia’s insurance coverage, the toxicology results, the survival evidence, and the composition of the surviving family. What we can tell you is the honest range based on what is known and what is typical for fatal pedestrian hit-and-run cases in Texas:
At the low end — if the driver carries only minimum limits, the vehicle is owned by the driver, Garcia carried no UM/UIM coverage, there is no intoxication, and the survival evidence is thin — the collectible recovery may be in the range of $100,000, limited by the available insurance. A judgment for more may be obtainable, but collecting it from a judgment-proof 23-year-old is a different question.
At the high end — if the vehicle is titled to a different owner with separate coverage and negligent entrustment exposure, if Garcia carried meaningful UM/UIM limits, if the driver was intoxicated (opening dram-shop liability), if the insurer faces Stowers exposure for refusing a limits demand, and if the survival evidence shows conscious pain and suffering — the case can reach into the range of $3,500,000 or more across all sources of recovery.
The gap between those numbers is enormous, and it is the work of the case — title records, policy discovery, toxicology, forensic reconstruction, and Stowers negotiation — that determines where on that range your family’s recovery lands. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Adjuster Playbook: What the Insurance Company Will Try
The insurance company is not your friend. It is not a neutral party. It is a business with a financial incentive to pay you as little as possible, and it has a playbook that it runs on every fatal accident case — including yours. Here are the plays you should expect, and the counter to each.
Play 1: The “Just Checking In” Recorded Statement Call
Within days of the collision — sometimes within hours — someone friendly will call a family member. They will sound sympathetic. They will say they just want to “get your side of the story” or “make sure we have the facts right.” They will ask to record the conversation. Everything you say is being built into a defense exhibit. If you say “he was probably jaywalking” or “he sometimes crossed in the middle of the block” or “I’m not really sure what happened,” those words will be quoted back to a jury as your family’s own admission of comparative fault.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster — yours or theirs — without your lawyer present. You are not required to. The adjuster’s sympathy is a tool, not a feeling. Every question is designed to produce a answer that reduces the value of your case.
Play 2: The Fast Settlement Check
A check may arrive quickly — sometimes before the funeral, sometimes before the medical examiner’s report is complete. It will come with a release document that, once signed, extinguishes all of your family’s claims against the driver and his insurance company forever. The amount will seem like a lot of money in the moment, because grief and financial pressure make any amount feel like relief. But it will be a fraction of what the case is worth, and the release is irrevocable.
The counter: Do not sign anything from any insurance company without having a lawyer read it first. A release signed under financial duress, before the full extent of the family’s losses is known, is exactly what the insurer is counting on. Once signed, there is no undoing it.
Play 3: The “He Was Crossing Outside the Crosswalk” Comparative Fault Argument
The adjuster will frame Garcia as partially or primarily at fault for crossing outside a marked crosswalk. They will point to the police report. They will suggest that a jury will see it the same way. The goal is to convince your family that the case is weak and a low settlement is the best you can get.
The counter: The driver’s duty to keep a proper lookout does not disappear because a pedestrian is crossing outside a crosswalk. The driver’s duty to take evasive action does not vanish on a road near apartment complexes where pedestrians are foreseeable. And the driver’s decision to flee the scene — to leave a 67-year-old man dying in the road without calling for help — is the fact that overwhelms any crossing-location argument in front of a Midland County jury. The adjuster knows this. The adjuster is hoping your family does not.
Play 4: The “We Need More Time” Delay
The insurer will request additional documentation, ask for more time to investigate, promise a decision soon, and then repeat the cycle. The goal is to run the clock — toward the two-year statute of limitations, and toward the death of evidence that would have strengthened your case. Every month of delay is a month of overwritten footage, faded memories, and lost witnesses.
The counter: The preservation letters and the civil lawsuit do not wait for the insurer’s timeline. The day a family retains us is the day the clock starts working for them, not against them. A filed lawsuit comes with discovery deadlines that the insurer cannot ignore, and a Stowers demand comes with a deadline that puts the insurer’s own money at risk if it refuses.
Play 5: The Social Media and Surveillance Watch
The insurer’s investigators will monitor the family’s social media accounts. They will look for photos, posts, or check-ins that can be taken out of context to undermine the family’s grief or suggest the loss was not as devastating as claimed. A photograph of a family gathering six months after the death will be presented as evidence that the family has “moved on” and does not deserve significant compensation for mental anguish.
The counter: Assume everything you post online is being watched by someone whose job is to reduce the value of your loved one’s death. Set your accounts to private. Do not post about the collision, the case, the driver, or the insurance company. Do not discuss the case with anyone outside your family and your lawyer.
How a Case Like This Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk — from the day a family calls us to the day a check is cut — of how a fatal pedestrian hit-and-run case is built.
Week one. The preservation letters go out. Every entity that holds evidence — the Midland Police Department, the Summer Hill Apartments, the City of Midland traffic engineering office, the driver’s cellular provider, Garcia’s auto insurer — receives a written demand to preserve all records, footage, data, and physical evidence related to the incident. These letters create a legal obligation: if the recipient destroys the evidence after receiving the letter, the destruction is spoliation, and a court can impose sanctions ranging from an adverse-inference instruction (the jury may assume the destroyed evidence was as bad as the plaintiff says) to monetary penalties.
Week two. Vehicle title and registration records are pulled from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. This identifies the legal owner of the 2021 Ford Escape and determines whether a negligent entrustment defendant with separate insurance coverage exists. Garcia’s insurance policies are located and reviewed for UM/UIM and medical payments coverage. Claims are noticed per policy terms.
Weeks three through six. The crash report is obtained from the Midland Police Department. Witness statements are taken — sworn, locked in, before memories fade. The EDR data is downloaded from the vehicle, if it has not been released or destroyed. Body-worn camera footage is requested. Toxicology results are tracked through the criminal investigation.
Months two through four. Experts are retained. An accident reconstructionist analyzes the EDR data, the vehicle damage, the scene evidence, and the crash report to establish the vehicle’s speed, braking, and the physics of the collision. A forensic pathologist reviews the autopsy findings to determine the cause of death and whether Garcia was conscious after impact. A human factors expert addresses pedestrian visibility and driver reaction time — how far away Garcia should have been visible, and how much time the driver had to react.
Months four through eight. Civil discovery proceeds in parallel with the criminal case. Interrogatories and document requests go to the driver and any additional defendants. Depositions are taken — the driver under oath, the witnesses under oath, the investigating officers under oath. The driver’s cell phone records are subpoenaed. Insurance policies and coverage declarations are produced. If a dram-shop defendant is identified, the establishment’s employee schedules, training records, and surveillance footage are demanded.
Months eight through twelve. The Stowers demand is evaluated and, if appropriate, served. The demand package lays out the full case — the liability, the gross negligence, the damages, the survival evidence, the expert opinions — and offers to settle within the policy limits. The insurer has a deadline. If it accepts, the case resolves. If it refuses, the case proceeds toward trial with the insurer’s own money at risk above the limits.
Trial. If the case does not settle, it is tried in Midland County. The jury that decides what a 67-year-old man’s life was worth is twelve people from the reader’s own community — people who drive Midland Drive, who know the apartment complexes, who understand what it means to lose a neighbor. The proof story — the EDR data, the windshield damage, the admission, the flight, the failure to call 911 — is presented through expert testimony, physical evidence, and the driver’s own words.
The number at the end is built from all of it — the economic losses, the human losses, the survival damages, and the exemplary damages that a Midland County jury decides a hit-and-run deserves.
The First 72 Hours: What Your Family Should Do Right Now
If you are reading this in the days after the collision, here is the practical roadmap — hour by hour, day by day — of what to do and what to refuse to do.
Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company. Not the driver’s insurer. Not your own insurer. Not anyone. You are not required to, and everything you say will be used to reduce the value of your case. “I’m not ready to give a statement yet” is a complete sentence.
Do not sign anything from any insurance company. No release, no authorization, no acceptance of payment. A document that looks routine can extinguish your family’s rights permanently. Have a lawyer read it first.
Do not post about the collision on social media. Not the crash. Not the driver. Not the arrest. Not your grief. Not your family’s plans. The insurance company’s investigators are watching, and a single post taken out of context can damage your case.
Do locate all of Garcia’s insurance policies. Auto insurance, any umbrella or excess policies, and any policies held by household family members. Look for UM/UIM coverage and medical payments coverage. These are sources of recovery that most families never find.
Do contact the Texas Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund. Administered by the Texas Office of the Attorney General, this fund can provide immediate financial assistance for funeral expenses, counseling, and other costs while the civil case is pending. Hit-and-run resulting in death qualifies. This is not a substitute for a civil claim — it is a bridge to help your family survive the months between the death and the recovery.
Do call us. The preservation letters that freeze the evidence go out the day you call. The vehicle title records are pulled the day you call. The insurance policies are noticed the day you call. Every day before that call is a day the evidence gets thinner and the insurance company gets further ahead. The call is free. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
Why This Firm
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — he knows how to tell a story a jury can feel. He has tried cases against corporations, insurance companies, and defendants who thought they could walk away. He does not take cases he cannot win, and he tells families the truth about what their case is worth before he tells them what it could be.
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 exactly like yours. He was trained by the other side. He knows how reserves are set in the first 48 hours, how valuation software discounts pain it cannot see, how IME doctors are selected, and how the delay tactics are engineered to run out the clock. Now he uses that knowledge for injured families. And he conducts full consultations in Spanish — without an interpreter.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. The call is free. And our staff is live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service, real people who can take your call right now.
Hablamos Español. If your family prays in Spanish, we speak your language. Lupe conducts the entire consultation in Spanish, and our staff is bilingual. You do not need an interpreter to tell us what happened to your father, your husband, your grandfather.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. That is 1-888-288-9911. Or call our direct line at (713) 528-9070. The call costs nothing. Not calling can cost everything.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we sue if the driver was already arrested and charged criminally?
Yes. The criminal case and the civil case are completely separate. The criminal prosecution can result in prison time, but it cannot compensate your family for the loss of your loved one’s life, his financial support, his companionship, or his pain and suffering before death. Only a civil wrongful death action can do that. And a criminal conviction or guilty plea can actually strengthen your civil case by establishing negligence per se — meaning the statutory violation is conclusively presumed, and you do not have to re-prove it to a civil jury.
How long do we have to file a wrongful death claim in Texas?
Texas generally imposes a two-year statute of limitations on both wrongful death and survival actions, running from the date of death. In this case, the two-year clock runs from the date of the collision. If the claim is not filed within that window, it is barred forever — no matter how strong the evidence is. There are limited exceptions, but none you should rely on without consulting an attorney. The safe assumption is that the clock is running and every day matters.
What if the driver doesn’t have enough insurance to cover our loss?
This is the most common problem in fatal pedestrian cases involving young individual defendants, and it is why identifying every source of coverage matters. Three sources may exist beyond the driver’s auto policy: (1) if the vehicle is owned by someone else, that owner’s separate insurance policy may apply; (2) if Garcia carried uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage on his own auto policy, that coverage can compensate the family beyond the at-fault driver’s limits; and (3) if the driver was intoxicated and was over-served at a licensed establishment, a dram-shop claim opens the vendor’s liquor liability insurance. Additionally, if the at-fault driver’s insurer refuses a reasonable settlement offer within policy limits and a jury later returns a higher verdict, the Stowers doctrine can make the insurer liable for the full judgment — not just the policy limits.
Was it our father’s fault for crossing outside a crosswalk?
We will not know until discovery establishes whether a marked crosswalk existed at the intersection of Midland Drive and Dengar Avenue. But even if Garcia was crossing outside a marked crosswalk, Texas law does not give drivers permission to hit pedestrians. Every driver has a duty to keep a proper lookout, to see what there is to be seen, and to take reasonable evasive action. On a road near apartment complexes in a developed corridor, pedestrian presence is foreseeable. And in Texas’s modified comparative negligence system, your family can recover as long as Garcia is found 50% or less at fault — with the recovery reduced by his percentage. The driver’s decision to flee the scene without rendering aid is the fact that overwhelms any crossing-location argument in front of a jury.
What happens to the evidence while the criminal case is ongoing?
The criminal investigation generates critical evidence — the crash report, toxicology results, the driver’s statements, body-worn camera footage, witness interviews — but that evidence sits in the police department’s files and is subject to administrative purging on retention schedules that vary by record type. Meanwhile, surveillance footage from the apartment complex and traffic cameras may overwrite itself within weeks. Civil preservation letters can freeze this evidence before it disappears, and civil discovery can obtain copies of the criminal investigation’s records. The civil case should proceed in parallel with the criminal case, not after it, precisely because the evidence has a shorter shelf life than the criminal process.
Can we pursue punitive damages for the driver leaving the scene?
Yes. Texas permits exemplary (punitive) damages upon a showing of gross negligence — defined as conduct involving an extreme degree of risk, of which the actor has actual, subjective awareness, and nevertheless proceeds with conscious indifference. Striking a pedestrian and fleeing the scene without calling 911 or rendering aid is textbook gross negligence. The driver was aware of the collision (his windshield was broken, his front end was damaged, and he admitted being behind the wheel). He was aware a person lay in the road. He chose to leave. Exemplary damages are subject to statutory limitations in Texas, but their availability — and the threat of a jury hearing the hit-and-run facts — is a powerful lever in settlement negotiations.
How much is a wrongful death case worth?
We cannot give you a specific dollar figure without knowing the facts that have not been developed yet — the driver’s policy limits, the vehicle ownership, Garcia’s insurance coverage, the toxicology results, and the survival evidence. The honest range, based on what is known and what is typical for fatal pedestrian hit-and-run cases in Texas, runs from approximately $100,000 at the low end (limited by the collectible insurance) to $3,500,000 or more at the high end (if multiple coverage sources, intoxication, and strong survival evidence are established). Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The work of the case — title records, policy discovery, toxicology, forensic reconstruction, and Stowers negotiation — is what determines where on that range your family’s recovery lands.
What if the vehicle belonged to someone else, not the driver?
If the 2021 Ford Escape is titled to someone other than the 23-year-old driver — a parent, a friend, a roommate — that opens two important doors. First, the owner’s insurance policy may provide separate coverage that stacks on top of or alongside the driver’s. Second, if the owner knew or should have known the driver was unfit to drive (a bad driving record, prior DUI, license suspension), a negligent entrustment claim holds the owner directly liable for putting the vehicle in an unfit driver’s hands. Vehicle title and registration records are public and should be pulled immediately to identify the owner.
Do we have to wait for the criminal case to finish before filing a civil case?
No — and you should not. The civil case has a two-year statute of limitations that runs regardless of the criminal case’s timeline. The evidence the civil case depends on — surveillance footage, EDR data, witness memories — is dying on clocks measured in days and weeks, not years. Civil discovery can proceed in parallel with the criminal investigation, and a criminal conviction or guilty plea can actually strengthen the civil case by establishing negligence per se. Waiting for the criminal case to resolve can mean losing the evidence that would have won the civil case.
What should we do right now to protect our family’s rights?
Five things, in order of urgency. First, do not give a recorded statement or sign anything from any insurance company. Second, do not post about the collision on social media. Third, locate all of Garcia’s insurance policies and any policies held by household family members. Fourth, contact the Texas Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund for immediate financial assistance with funeral and counseling expenses. Fifth, call a wrongful death attorney — the preservation letters that freeze the evidence go out the day you call, and every day before that call is a day the proof gets thinner. The call is free, and the consultation is free.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case depends on its own facts. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC / Attorney911 is a Texas trial firm that handles wrongful death, catastrophic injury, and commercial-vehicle cases. Contacting the firm is free and confidential. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911). Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.