Midland, Midland County, TX Fatal Car Crash: What Your Family Needs to Know After a Drunk Driver Killed Your Passenger on Andrews Highway
Nobody should have to learn about their loved one’s death from a news headline. But here you are — reading that a passenger was killed in a car that was ripped in two on Andrews Highway before three in the morning, that the driver walked away from the wreckage telling witnesses he had to leave because he “could not get another DWI,” and that the person your family lost hasn’t even been named in the story yet. We know what you are going through right now, because we sit across kitchen tables from families in exactly this position. And the first thing we need you to know is this: the clock on your family’s rights has already started ticking, even as the criminal case is just beginning — and the evidence that proves what really happened is already disappearing.
The driver has been charged with manslaughter and accident involving death. Bond was set at $500,000 and $100,000. Those are criminal charges, and they are serious. But they are not your family’s case. Your family’s case is separate. It is a civil wrongful death claim, it runs on its own deadline, and it is the only path that puts compensation in your hands for what was taken from you. The criminal prosecution can send the driver to prison. It cannot pay your family’s funeral costs, replace the income your loved one would have earned, or compensate you for the human loss that no verdict can truly measure. Only the civil case does that.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases across Texas, and we are writing this for one person: the family member of the passenger who died in that Mustang, reading this at two in the morning, trying to understand what comes next. Everything that follows is what we would tell you if we were sitting at your kitchen table right now.
The First Thing You Need to Know
Your family has two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death claim in Texas. That is not a suggestion — it is a hard statutory deadline, and missing it means the case is over before it begins, no matter how strong the evidence is. The criminal case does not pause this clock. The insurance company does not pause this clock. Nothing pauses it except filing suit or reaching a settlement, and even those have their own rules.
Two years sounds like a long time when you are in the first days of grief. It is not. The first six months of a case like this are where the evidence is either preserved or lost forever. The surveillance video that showed the Mustang traveling fast southbound on Andrews Highway is on a 30-day overwrite loop — or shorter. The vehicle itself, split in half, sitting in a tow yard or police impound with its black-box recorder inside, can be released, salvaged, or crushed. The witnesses who heard the driver say he could not get another DWI are losing the exact words from memory every day that passes. The blood alcohol evidence, if it exists from the driver’s hospital treatment, is sitting in a lab file that can be purged on a retention schedule.
The day you call a lawyer is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you. The preservation letter goes out immediately — to the police department, to the tow yard, to every business near the intersection of Wall Street and Andrews Highway that might have a camera, to the driver’s insurance company, and to any establishment that may have served him alcohol before the crash. That letter is what freezes the evidence before it disappears.
What Texas Law Says About Your Wrongful Death Claim
Texas law gives surviving family members the right to bring a wrongful death claim when someone’s wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default causes another person’s death. The claim belongs to specific family members — the surviving spouse, the surviving children, and the surviving parents. If those family members do not file within three months of the death, the executor or administrator of the deceased person’s estate can file the claim on their behalf. But the two-year deadline governs everyone.
Texas also recognizes a separate claim called a survival action, which belongs to the estate of the person who died. The survival action covers what the deceased person would have been able to claim if they had survived — the pain and suffering they experienced between the injury and death, the medical expenses incurred before death, and the funeral costs. In a crash this violent, where the car was split in half and the engine and transmission were found feet away from the wreckage, the question of conscious pain and suffering before death is one that a forensic pathologist and the accident reconstruction evidence will address together. The survival action and the wrongful death action are two separate claims, and both should be filed.
Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule with a 51 percent bar. What this means: if the person suing is found to be 51 percent or more at fault for their own harm, they cannot recover anything. If they are 50 percent or less at fault, they can recover — but their recovery is reduced by their assigned percentage of fault. For a passenger in a car driven by someone else, this rule almost never bars recovery. A passenger does not control the speed, does not control the steering, and does not control whether the driver is intoxicated. The defense may try to argue that the passenger knowingly got into a car with an intoxicated driver, but even if a jury assigned some percentage of fault on that theory, it would be extremely difficult to push it past 50 percent — and the driver’s conduct, including speeds that split a car in half on a 30-mile-per-hour road, would carry the overwhelming share.
“Witnesses say they spoke to the man before he took off on foot. The witnesses recall the man saying he had to leave because he could not get another DWI.”
That statement, reported from witnesses at the scene, is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence in this case. It is an admission — made minutes after a fatal crash, to strangers, while the driver was walking away from a destroyed car and a dying passenger. It establishes consciousness of guilt. It establishes that the driver knew he was intoxicated. And combined with his prior DWI convictions, it establishes a pattern that a Midland County jury would be entitled to hear about.
Texas permits exemplary damages — the legal term for punitive damages — when a defendant acts with gross negligence, meaning a conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others. A driver with multiple prior DWI convictions who gets behind the wheel intoxicated, accelerates to speeds capable of splitting a car in half on a 30-mile-per-hour road, and then flees the scene on foot leaving a dying passenger behind has met that standard many times over. Texas does cap exemplary damages, but those caps generally do not limit the economic losses — the funeral costs, the lost income, the lost earning capacity — that form the measurable spine of a wrongful death claim.
Texas also has a dram shop law that allows claims against licensed alcohol providers — bars, restaurants, clubs, and other establishments holding a TABC permit — who serve alcohol to a person who is obviously intoxicated to the point of being a danger to themselves or others, when that intoxication causes the injury or death. The driver’s statement that he could not get “another DWI” tells you he had been drinking. The question a dram shop investigation answers is: where, how much, and who kept serving him after he was already obviously drunk? This is a critical avenue because, as we will explain in the money section, the driver’s own auto insurance may be insufficient or may not cover the loss at all.
Who Can Be Held Responsible: The Driver, the Bar, and the Insurance Companies
A fatal crash caused by an intoxicated driver can expose multiple defendants, and finding every one of them is the difference between a partial recovery and one that actually accounts for what your family lost.
The driver. The person behind the wheel faces criminal charges of manslaughter and accident involving death. In the civil case, the driver is liable for negligent operation of the vehicle, gross negligence, and potentially for the decision to flee the scene. The driver’s prior DWI convictions are admissible to show knowledge, gross negligence, and to support a punitive damages claim. The fact that the driver left his ID and phone at the scene and was tracked by a K-9 unit just west of the crash site with serious injuries means he was physically present and identifiable — the flight does not absolve him of liability; it deepens it.
The alcohol provider. If the driver was served alcohol at a licensed establishment — a bar, a restaurant, a club — while obviously intoxicated, Texas dram shop law allows a claim against that establishment. This investigation starts with the driver’s phone, which was found at the scene and may contain communications, location data, and payment records that show where he was drinking. It extends to credit and debit card records, bar receipts, and surveillance footage from the establishment. The establishment’s TABC license and its liquor liability insurance coverage are separate from the driver’s auto insurance and can represent a substantially larger source of recovery. This is not a theory we pursue on a hope — it is an investigation we open because the driver’s own words at the scene told us he had been drinking.
The vehicle. The 2017 Mustang was split in half on a light pole at an intersection with a posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour. Modern cars are engineered to crumple, absorb energy, and protect the occupant compartment — not to separate into two pieces. The fact that this car was torn apart tells you the speed was extraordinary. But it also raises a question a product liability attorney would examine: did the vehicle’s structure perform as it should have at the forces involved, or did a design or manufacturing defect contribute to the catastrophic failure of the occupant compartment? This is a secondary theory, examined only after the primary causes — the driver’s intoxication and extreme speed — are established, but it is a question worth asking.
The driver’s auto insurer. Texas requires minimum liability coverage of $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage. A driver with multiple prior DWI convictions may carry only the minimum — or may have no insurance at all. Some auto policies contain exclusions for crashes involving intoxication or criminal acts, though Texas courts have challenged the enforceability of certain of these exclusions. The driver’s insurer is the first layer of potential recovery, but it may be the thinnest.
The passenger’s own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. Texas requires insurers to offer UM/UIM coverage, and unless the policyholder signed a written rejection, it is part of the policy. If the driver who caused the crash was uninsured or underinsured, the passenger’s own auto policy — or a policy held by a family member in the same household — may provide coverage. This is a source of recovery that many families do not know exists, and it can be substantial. Our insurance claim attorneys pursue this coverage alongside the liability claim.
The Evidence Clock: What Still Exists and How Fast It’s Disappearing
Every piece of evidence in this case is on a timer. Some of it is already gone — the article says the debris has been cleaned up and the only sign anything happened is a bent fence along a construction site perimeter. But the most important evidence still exists, right now, in other locations. Here is what it is, who holds it, and how fast it can legally disappear.
The vehicle’s event data recorder — the black box. A 2017 Ford Mustang is required under federal regulation to carry an event data recorder that captures the seconds before and during a crash. It records vehicle speed, brake application, throttle position, seatbelt status, steering input, and the change in velocity at impact. If the airbags deployed — and in a crash violent enough to split a car in half, they almost certainly did — federal regulation requires that the recording be locked so it cannot be overwritten. This data is the single most objective piece of evidence in the case. It will tell us exactly how fast the driver was going in the seconds before impact, whether he ever touched the brakes, and the magnitude of the forces involved. The vehicle is currently in police impound or a tow yard. It can be released, salvaged, or destroyed. A preservation letter to the police department, the tow yard, and the driver’s insurance company demanding that the vehicle and its EDR be preserved must go out immediately.
Surveillance video from the area. The affidavit says surveillance video already showed the Mustang traveling fast southbound on Andrews Highway, and that headlights were seen pointing at buildings — which the officer described as abnormal and likely the moment of collision. That video exists somewhere — a business security system, a traffic camera, or the construction site’s own cameras. Most surveillance systems overwrite on a rolling loop of 30 days or less. If that footage is not formally demanded and preserved, it records over itself and is gone. The construction site at the corner of Wall Street and Andrews Highway may have its own cameras that captured the crash or its aftermath, including the driver walking away. Those cameras are on the same short overwrite cycle.
The driver’s phone. It was found at the scene. It is now in police custody as evidence in the criminal case. It may contain text messages, call logs, location data, social media posts, and payment app records that show where the driver was drinking, who he was with, and what his state of mind was before the crash. A forensic extraction of this phone — in coordination with or parallel to the criminal investigation — can establish the timeline of the evening and identify any dram shop defendant.
Blood alcohol evidence. The driver was found with serious injuries and taken into custody. If he was transported to a hospital for treatment, blood was almost certainly drawn. That blood can be tested for alcohol content, and the results can be obtained through subpoena. The police may also have obtained a blood search warrant. Hospital blood alcohol results are typically retained for years, but the police evidence — including any blood kit — is subject to evidence-room protocols that vary. The driver’s statement that he could not get “another DWI,” combined with his prior convictions, makes blood alcohol evidence central to both the criminal and civil cases.
Witness statements. The witnesses who spoke to the driver after the crash and heard him say he could not get another DWI are critical. Their memories of the exact words, the driver’s demeanor, and the sequence of events are degrading every day. Formal recorded statements or depositions should be taken as soon as possible — not months from now, when the defense can argue the witnesses’ memories have been influenced by news coverage or attorney contact.
The police investigation file. The probable cause affidavit is just the first page of a growing file. The full investigation will include officer reports, scene photographs, the accident reconstruction (if one is ordered), the 911 calls, EMS run sheets, and the chain of custody for all physical evidence. This file is obtainable through discovery in the civil case, but it is also subject to the criminal case’s protective orders and timing. We work with local counsel to obtain it.
The light pole. The pole the Mustang struck may still show impact evidence — the height of the strike, the angle, the damage pattern. A reconstruction engineer can examine it to confirm the angle of approach and the speed range. But the city or utility company may repair or replace the pole within weeks of the crash. It should be photographed and measured before that happens.
The driver’s prior DWI records. These are public court records. They show a pattern of drunk driving that is admissible in the civil case to support gross negligence and punitive damages. They also inform the dram shop investigation — if the driver had a known history of alcohol-related offenses, an establishment that served him to the point of obvious intoxication faces a stronger claim.
The Physics of a Car Split in Half
To understand what happened at the corner of Wall Street and Andrews Highway, you need to understand the physics — because the physics tell you the speed, and the speed tells you the negligence.
The kinetic energy of a moving vehicle is proportional to its mass once but to the square of its velocity. This means that doubling the speed does not double the energy — it quadruples it. A 2017 Ford Mustang weighs roughly 3,500 pounds. At the posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour, that car carries approximately 94,000 foot-pounds of kinetic energy — energy that must be dissipated in the fraction of a second of a collision. At 60 miles per hour, the same car carries approximately 375,000 foot-pounds — four times as much. At 100 miles per hour, it carries more than 1,000,000 foot-pounds. At 120 miles per hour — a speed that a Mustang is capable of reaching on a straight, empty road — the energy exceeds 1,500,000 foot-pounds, more than sixteen times what the car carries at the speed limit.
A light pole is a narrow, rigid, fixed object. When a vehicle strikes it at moderate speed, the vehicle’s crumple zones absorb the energy and the car wraps around the pole. The occupant compartment is designed to maintain its structural integrity even as the front and rear of the car deform. That is what a car is supposed to do. For a car to be split in half — for the structure to fail catastrophically enough that the front and rear sections separate, and for the engine and transmission to be torn from their mounts and found feet away — the energy involved must be extreme. This is not a 30-mile-per-hour impact. This is not a 50-mile-per-hour impact. This is a speed that exceeds what most people who have never studied crash reconstruction would believe a car could reach on a city street.
The surveillance video showed the headlights pointing at buildings after impact — something the officer called abnormal. What this means physically is that the car rotated violently after striking the pole. The energy was so extreme that the vehicle’s momentum carried the separated sections in different directions, and the front of the car — where the headlights are — ended up facing buildings rather than the road. This rotational evidence, combined with the rest position of the vehicle sections and the location of the ejected engine and transmission, allows a reconstruction engineer to calculate the speed at impact with a high degree of confidence.
The EDR will confirm it. But even without the EDR, the physical evidence — a car torn in half on a light pole in a 30-mile-per-hour zone — tells the story of a driver who treated a commercial corridor in Midland like a race track. That is gross negligence. That is conscious indifference to the life of the person sitting in the passenger seat.
What Happens to a Human Body in This Kind of Crash
We need to talk about what happened to your loved one, because the defense will try to minimize it, and the jury needs to understand it.
A crash that splits a car in half produces forces that the human body was not designed to survive. The mechanism is not a single impact — it is a cascade. The first collision is the car striking the pole. The second collision is the occupant’s body striking the inside of the car — the dashboard, the windshield, the door frame, the seatbelt anchor points. In a crash violent enough to tear a car apart, the seatbelt and airbag systems may be overwhelmed or may fail entirely because the structure they are anchored to has failed.
The article says a large amount of blood was found inside and on the driver’s door, and that the passenger was found on the ground behind the car. The passenger was ejected or partially ejected — which means the seatbelt, the door, or the window failed to contain them. In a crash of this magnitude, the forces on the human body include blunt force trauma to the head, chest, and abdomen; deceleration injuries that tear internal organs from their attachments; and possible crush injuries if the occupant compartment collapsed around them.
The medical evidence in a case like this comes from the autopsy report, the EMS run sheets, and the scene photographs. The autopsy will document the specific injuries that caused death — and the presence or absence of injuries that would indicate whether death was instantaneous or whether there was a period of conscious pain and suffering. That distinction matters because it determines the scope of the survival action, which compensates the estate for what the deceased person experienced between injury and death.
The defense may try to argue that the death was instantaneous and that there was no pain and suffering. A forensic pathologist can often refute this — the pattern of injuries, the blood evidence at the scene, and the body’s position can all tell a story about what happened in the seconds after impact. If there is evidence of conscious pain and suffering — even for seconds or minutes — that is compensable, and it belongs to the estate in the survival action.
The cost of this harm is not only medical. It is the funeral, the burial, the loss of the person’s future earnings, the loss of their guidance and companionship, and the loss of the life they would have lived. In Texas, wrongful death damages include mental anguish, loss of the decedent’s care and counsel, loss of the decedent’s earning capacity, and loss of inheritance. These are not abstract concepts — they are specific, provable losses that a forensic economist calculates based on the decedent’s age, occupation, education, and life expectancy.
The Money: Where Recovery Comes From and What the Case Is Worth
This is the conversation that every family needs to have and that most articles skip. A wrongful death verdict is only worth what can be collected. And what can be collected depends on where the money is — which insurance policies apply, in what order they pay, and whether there are assets behind the defendant that a judgment can reach.
Layer 1: The driver’s auto liability insurance. Texas’s legal minimum is $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident. A driver with multiple prior DWI convictions may carry only this minimum, or may carry higher limits — the declarations page will tell us. But there is a real possibility the policy contains an exclusion for intoxication-related crashes or criminal acts. Some Texas courts have found certain of these exclusions unenforceable; others have upheld them. This is a coverage fight, not a given. If the policy pays, $30,000 is a floor that one night in an ICU would exceed — let alone a funeral and a lifetime of lost income.
Layer 2: The passenger’s uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. If the driver was uninsured or underinsured — and with prior DWIs, there is a meaningful chance he was — the passenger’s own auto policy or a household family member’s policy may step in. Texas requires insurers to offer UM/UIM coverage unless the policyholder signed a written rejection. This coverage can stack on top of the at-fault driver’s liability limits and can represent a significant source of recovery. Many families do not know this coverage exists or that it applies when the at-fault driver’s insurance is insufficient.
Layer 3: Dram shop liability insurance. If the investigation identifies a bar, restaurant, or other licensed establishment that served the driver to the point of obvious intoxication, that establishment’s liquor liability coverage — often part of a commercial general liability policy — becomes available. Liquor liability limits for bars and restaurants can be $500,000, $1 million, or more, depending on the establishment. This is frequently the largest available source of recovery in a drunk-driving wrongful death case, and it is the one most families never know to pursue.
Layer 4: Excess and umbrella policies. If any defendant — the driver or the dram shop establishment — carries an excess or umbrella policy above their primary coverage, that layer can be reached after the primary limits are exhausted.
Layer 5: Personal assets. A judgment can reach the personal assets of an individual defendant. In practice, individual defendants in drunk-driving cases rarely have assets sufficient to satisfy a large judgment — which is why the insurance layers above are so important.
What is the case worth? Every case depends on its own facts — the age, occupation, and earning capacity of the person who died; the available insurance coverage; the strength of the gross negligence and punitive damages evidence; and the county where the case is filed. The firm has recovered more than $50 million in aggregate across its cases, including a $5 million-plus brain injury settlement, a $3.8 million-plus amputation settlement, a $2.5 million-plus truck crash recovery, and millions in trucking wrongful death cases. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can tell you is that a case involving a drunk driver with prior DWI convictions, speeds sufficient to split a car in half, a flight from the scene, and a deceased passenger carries the kind of aggravating factors that drive value — but only if every layer of coverage is identified and pursued, and only if the evidence is preserved before it disappears.
What the Insurance Adjuster Will Try — and How to Counter Each Play
Within days of the crash, an insurance adjuster will contact the family. The call will sound sympathetic. It is not a courtesy — it is the first move in a playbook designed to minimize what the insurer pays. Here are the plays you should expect, and the counter to each.
Play 1: The recorded statement. The adjuster will call and ask the family to “just tell us what happened” on a recorded line. This sounds reasonable. It is not. The recording is built to be quoted against the family later — to lock in statements before the full investigation is complete, to catch a grieving family member saying something that can be taken out of context, and to establish a timeline that benefits the insurer. The counter: do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company — yours, the driver’s, or anyone else’s — without a lawyer present. Say nothing beyond confirming the date of the crash and that you are represented.
Play 2: The fast settlement check. The adjuster may offer a quick payment — sometimes within weeks of the crash — attached to a release that, once signed, extinguishes all claims against the driver and the insurer. This offer will arrive before the family knows the full extent of available coverage, before the dram shop investigation is complete, and before the EDR data has been downloaded. It is designed to close the case cheaply. The counter: never sign a release without knowing every source of coverage, the full scope of damages, and the strength of the gross negligence evidence. A quick check from an insurer is not generosity — it is strategy.
Play 3: The “your family member chose to ride” argument. The adjuster may suggest that the passenger bore some responsibility for getting into the car with a driver who had been drinking. This is a comparative fault argument, and it is the defense’s primary tool for reducing the value of the claim. The counter: Texas’s 51 percent bar makes it extremely difficult to bar a passenger’s recovery, and the driver’s extreme speed — far beyond anything a passenger could anticipate — makes any fault assignment to the passenger minimal. But this argument must be anticipated and rebutted with evidence, not ignored.
Play 4: The coverage denial. The driver’s insurer may send a letter denying coverage based on an intoxication exclusion or a criminal-acts exclusion in the policy. The counter: some Texas courts have found these exclusions unenforceable or have narrowed their reach. Even if the denial holds, UM/UIM coverage and dram shop coverage may still be available. A coverage denial is not the end of the case — it is the beginning of a coverage fight, and it is one we know how to wage because Lupe Peña spent years inside the insurance-defense industry before joining this firm.
Play 5: Social media surveillance. The adjuster or a hired investigator will monitor the family’s social media accounts for posts that can be taken out of context — a photo at a family gathering presented as “they seem to be doing fine,” a comment about the case presented as a contradiction of the grief claim. The counter: set every account to private, post nothing about the case, the crash, or the driver, and warn extended family to do the same.
Play 6: The “wait for the criminal case” stall. The adjuster may tell the family that the civil case should wait until the criminal case is resolved. This is a delay tactic. The criminal case could take a year or more, and the two-year civil deadline does not pause. The counter: the civil case proceeds on its own timeline, and evidence from the criminal investigation can be obtained through civil discovery in parallel.
How a Wrongful Death Case Is Actually Built
Here is what happens, week by week, when a family calls us after a crash like this.
Week one: The preservation letter goes out. The same day the family calls, a written demand goes to the police department, the tow yard, the driver’s insurer, every business near Wall Street and Andrews Highway with a camera, and any establishment identified as a potential dram shop defendant. The letter orders them to freeze all evidence — the vehicle, the EDR, the surveillance footage, the bar receipts, the key-card logs, the phone records. This is what stops the evidence from disappearing. If a recipient destroys evidence after receiving this letter, the court can impose sanctions — including telling the jury to assume the lost evidence was as damaging as the plaintiff says it was.
Weeks two through four: The evidence download begins. The vehicle is located and its EDR is imaged by a trained technician using forensic-grade crash data retrieval equipment. The surveillance video is pulled from every business and traffic camera in the area. The police report is obtained. The 911 calls are requested. The EMS run sheets are subpoenaed. The driver’s prior DWI records are pulled from the court clerks in every county where he was convicted. The autopsy report is ordered. The death certificate is obtained. The passenger’s auto insurance policy is reviewed for UM/UIM coverage.
Months two through six: The dram shop investigation. If the phone records, credit card records, or witness statements identify where the driver was drinking, a formal investigation of that establishment begins. TABC records are pulled. The establishment’s surveillance footage is demanded. Employees are identified for potential depositions. The establishment’s insurance coverage is identified through its TABC filings and corporate records. A DUI/DWI attorney on our team coordinates the criminal-case evidence with the civil-case discovery.
Months three through twelve: Discovery and depositions. Once suit is filed, the formal discovery process begins. Written interrogatories go to every defendant. Document demands are served. Depositions are scheduled — the driver, the bar employees, the police officers, the witnesses who heard the driver say he could not get another DWI, the accident reconstructionist, the forensic pathologist, the life-care planner, the forensic economist. Each deposition is where the case is won or lost — because it is where the defendant’s story meets the evidence, under oath, on the record.
The number at the end. The value of the case is not pulled from a formula. It is built from every piece of preserved evidence, every deposition, every expert report, and every layer of identified coverage. A life-care planner prices the future care the deceased person would have needed. A forensic economist projects the lost earning capacity to present value. The medical evidence documents what the person experienced before death. The gross negligence evidence — the prior DWIs, the extreme speed, the flight from the scene — drives the punitive damages claim. All of it is presented to a jury of Midland County residents who will decide what this life was worth and what this conduct deserves.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do Right Now
If you are reading this in the first days after the crash, here is what matters most — in order.
First: Do not sign anything from any insurance company. Not a release, not a medical authorization, not a recorded statement authorization. If an adjuster has already called, tell them you are consulting a lawyer and end the call. If a check has arrived, do not cash it — it may have a release printed on the back.
Second: Do not post about the crash on social media. Not the news article, not a memorial post, not a comment about the driver, not a photo from the funeral. Set your accounts to private. Tell your family to do the same. Everything you post is being watched.
Third: Preserve everything you have. If your loved one’s phone survived, do not let anyone take it or wipe it. If you have text messages between your loved one and the driver from that night, screenshot them. If you know who the witnesses are, write down their names while you remember them. If you have the passenger’s auto insurance information, locate the declarations page.
Fourth: Call a lawyer. Not next week. Not after the funeral. Now. The preservation letter that freezes the surveillance video and the vehicle and the bar footage is the single most time-sensitive step in the entire case. Every day that passes is a day the evidence degrades. Contact us or call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. If we take the case, we do not get paid unless we win.
Fifth: If the criminal case is proceeding, attend the hearings. The criminal case is separate, but it produces evidence your civil case will use. The bond hearings, the arraignment, the plea negotiations — all of these generate a public record. Your lawyer can track the criminal case and coordinate evidence sharing without waiting for it to resolve.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the family sue if the driver is already facing criminal charges?
Yes. The criminal case and the civil case are entirely separate. The criminal prosecution can result in prison time for the driver, but it cannot compensate your family. The civil wrongful death claim is the only path to financial recovery — for funeral costs, lost income, lost companionship, mental anguish, and punitive damages. The two cases can proceed simultaneously, and evidence from the criminal investigation can be obtained for use in the civil case.
How long does the family have to file a wrongful death claim in Texas?
Two years from the date of death. This is Texas’s statute of limitations for wrongful death claims, and it is a hard deadline. The criminal case does not pause it. The insurance company does not pause it. Missing it means the case is permanently barred. This is why the first call to a lawyer should happen in days, not months — not because the deadline is tomorrow, but because the evidence that wins the case is on its own shorter clock.
Can we sue the bar or restaurant that served the driver before the crash?
Potentially, yes. Texas has a dram shop law that allows claims against licensed alcohol providers who serve an obviously intoxicated person when that intoxication causes injury or death. The driver’s statement at the scene — that he had to leave because he could not get another DWI — tells us he had been drinking. The investigation determines where, how much, and whether the establishment continued serving him after he was obviously intoxicated. If a dram shop defendant is identified, their liquor liability insurance can be a substantial source of recovery — often larger than the driver’s personal auto policy.
What if the driver doesn’t have insurance or doesn’t have enough?
Texas requires insurers to offer uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage. Unless the policyholder signed a written rejection, this coverage is part of the policy. If the at-fault driver was uninsured or had insufficient coverage, the passenger’s own auto policy — or a policy held by a family member in the same household — may provide coverage. This is a source of recovery that many families do not know exists. Additionally, if a dram shop defendant is identified, their insurance is an entirely separate source of recovery from the driver’s auto insurance.
Does it matter that the passenger was in the car willingly?
It may be raised by the defense, but it almost never bars recovery. Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule with a 51 percent bar — meaning the passenger would have to be assigned more than half the fault to be barred from recovery. A passenger who gets into a car is not responsible for the driver’s decision to accelerate to speeds that split the car in half on a 30-mile-per-hour road. Even if a jury assigned some small percentage of fault to the passenger for choosing to ride, the recovery would be reduced — not eliminated — and the driver’s conduct would carry the overwhelming share.
How fast was the driver going to split a car in half?
The EDR will tell us the exact speed. But the physical evidence — a 2017 Mustang torn into two pieces, with the engine and transmission found feet away from the wreckage, on a light pole in a 30-mile-per-hour zone — points to speeds well above 100 miles per hour. Modern cars are engineered to crumple and protect the occupant compartment, not to separate into two sections. For a car to split in half on a narrow fixed object, the kinetic energy at impact must be extreme — many times what the car carries at the posted speed limit. The stopping distance at such speeds is hundreds of feet, meaning the driver had no realistic chance to avoid the collision once the pole was in view.
The driver fled the scene — how does that affect our case?
Flight from the scene is powerful evidence. It establishes consciousness of guilt — the driver knew he had done something wrong and chose to leave rather than help the dying passenger or face the consequences. In the civil case, this supports the gross negligence finding that opens the door to punitive damages, and it undermines any defense argument that the driver did not understand the danger of his conduct. The fact that he told witnesses he could not get “another DWI” — combined with his prior convictions — creates a pattern that a jury will hear.
The news said the debris is already cleaned up — is the evidence gone?
The scene is cleaned, but the evidence is not gone — it has moved to other locations. The vehicle, with its black-box recorder, is in a tow yard or police impound. The surveillance video is on a server somewhere in Midland. The witness statements are in the police report and in the witnesses’ memories. The driver’s phone is in police custody. The blood alcohol evidence is in a hospital or police lab file. All of this evidence still exists — but it is on timers, and those timers are running. The preservation letter is what stops the timers. That is why speed matters.
How much is a wrongful death case like this worth?
Every case depends on its own facts — the age and earning capacity of the person who died, the available insurance coverage, the strength of the gross negligence evidence, and the venue. The firm has recovered more than $50 million in aggregate, including multi-million-dollar settlements in brain injury, amputation, and truck crash cases, and millions in trucking wrongful death cases. A case involving a drunk driver with prior DWI convictions, speeds that split a car in half, a flight from the scene, and a passenger victim carries powerful aggravating factors. But value is driven by provable damages and identified coverage — not by outrage alone. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. An honest evaluation requires reviewing the specific facts, the insurance policies, and the evidence — which is why the first call is free.
What should we do right now, today?
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free and confidential. We will listen to what you know, explain your family’s rights under Texas law, and if we take the case, we will send the preservation letters the same day. We do not get paid unless we win your case. If we are not the right fit for your family, we will tell you — and we will point you to someone who is. But do not wait. The evidence that proves what happened to your loved one is disappearing on a schedule, and the only thing that stops that schedule is a lawyer’s letter on a desk.
Why Families in Crisis Call Attorney911
Ralph Manginello has spent more than 27 years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — which means he learned early that the truth is not something you assert, it is something you prove, fact by fact, source by source, until the story is airtight. He is the managing partner of this firm, and his name goes on every case we handle. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association, and he leads the active $10 million hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi and the University of Houston — a case that, like this one, is about accountability for conduct that should never have been tolerated.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, before the real injuries are diagnosed. He knows how the recorded-statement call is engineered. He knows which doctors the insurers send claimants to and why. He sat at the defense table and watched families get lowballed by the playbook. Now he sits on your side of the table — and he uses everything he learned inside the insurance industry to fight for the people the industry was built to pay as little as possible. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
We are based in Houston, and we handle wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases across Texas — including Midland and the Permian Basin. We work with local counsel where required, and we have the resources to take on insurance companies and corporate defendants that outsize most firms. Our fee is contingency — 33.33 percent before trial, 40 percent if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The first call is free, and it is confidential.
Hablamos Español.
If your family lost someone in the crash on Andrews Highway in Midland, the two-year clock is running and the evidence is fading. Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.