The US 285 Semi Truck Crash That Changed Everything — What Happened in Reeves County on October 15, 2025
If you are reading this because you or someone you love was on US Highway 285 in Reeves County on October 15, 2025, when two semi trucks collided and one caught fire — we are talking directly to you. Not to a general audience. To the person sitting in a hospital room, or at a kitchen table covered in medical bills and tow-yard notices, trying to understand what just happened to their life.
Here is what we know from the public record. On October 15, a semi truck operated by a driver employed by Truway Xpress LLC of Odessa, Texas, failed to yield the right-of-way at a stop sign-controlled intersection on US 285 near the Highway 302 interchange in Reeves County. The driver attempted a turn into the path of a second semi truck. The second truck collided with the first. At least one of the trucks caught fire. The driver of the second semi has filed suit against the at-fault driver and Truway Xpress, alleging negligent operation and negligent training. The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages.
That is the news. What follows is everything the news did not tell you — the law that governs this crash, the evidence that is already dying on a federal clock, the insurance machine that has already started moving against you, and what we do about every one of those things. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We take Texas trucking cases. And we are going to tell you the truth about what you are in.
Why US 285 Through Reeves County Is One of the Most Dangerous Oilfield Trucking Corridors in Texas
You already know this road. You have driven it. You have watched the loaded sand haulers, the water tankers, the frac-sand boxes, and the crude-oil tankers rolling through Reeves County at all hours, carrying the Permian Basin’s lifeblood between Pecos and the Delaware Basin production zones. US 285 is not a highway that was built for this traffic. It was built for a fraction of it. And the Highway 302 interchange — where this crash happened — sits in a rural stretch where high-speed approaches meet stop-controlled crossroads. That combination is a known severe-collision risk zone, especially for loaded tractor-trailers whose stopping distance at highway speeds is roughly the length of two football fields.
A fully loaded tractor-trailer traveling at 65 miles per hour needs approximately 525 feet to come to a complete stop under ideal conditions — and that is with a driver who is alert, brakes that are maintained, and a road surface that is dry and clean. A passenger car needs about 316 feet in the same conditions. When a loaded semi pulls out of a stop-sign-controlled intersection into the path of another semi that is already moving at highway speed, the closing driver has a fraction of that stopping distance to work with. Physics takes the decision away before the driver ever touches the brake.
This is not an accident in the sense of “something nobody could have seen coming.” This corridor has been the subject of multiple TxDOT safety studies and regional concerns about increased truck traffic from oil and gas operations overwhelming rural road infrastructure. The people who drive US 285 for a living know exactly where the dangerous intersections are. The companies that send their drivers down US 285 know too — or they are supposed to. If you or your family drives these roads, you know the particular danger of the Permian Basin’s oilfield trucking corridors because you have lived alongside that traffic. The law knows it too. The question is whether the carrier who put an inadequately trained driver at that intersection knew it — and whether they cared.
Reeves County juries are generally blue-collar and oilfield-familiar. That can cut both ways. People who live here understand commercial trucking dangers because they share the road with these rigs every day. But they also hold commercial drivers to a professional standard of care — a CDL holder who blows through a stop sign in an 80,000-pound vehicle is not going to get the same benefit of the doubt that a commuter might get in a fender-bender. When your case is filed in the Reeves County courthouse, the jury that decides what your life is worth will be twelve people from this community. That is your home field. Use it.
Who Is Responsible — The Defendant Structure and Why the Carrier Matters More Than the Driver
The lawsuit names two defendants: the individual driver who failed to yield, and Truway Xpress LLC, the Odessa-based motor carrier that employed him. Here is why that second name matters more than the first.
The driver is personally liable for failing to yield the right-of-way at a stop sign-controlled intersection. That is clear negligence, and it may support a negligence-per-se argument based on violation of Texas traffic law governing stop-sign intersections. But the driver’s individual insurance and personal assets are almost certainly insufficient to cover the full measure of harm from a semi-truck collision followed by fire. One night in a burn ICU can consume a personal auto policy.
The carrier — Truway Xpress LLC — is where the real recovery lives. Texas law applies the doctrine of respondeat superior: when an employee is acting within the course and scope of employment, the employer is legally responsible for the employee’s negligence. The employer stands behind all of the employee’s share of fault. It cannot carve itself away from its own driver. But the lawsuit goes further than vicarious liability. It alleges that Truway Xpress failed to provide proper driver training — a direct-negligence claim against the carrier itself, independent of whether the driver was a perfect employee or a terrible one.
This is the claim that opens the carrier’s corporate pockets. An interstate motor carrier like Truway Xpress is subject to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations under 49 CFR Parts 390 through 399. Those regulations include driver qualification requirements, commercial driver’s license standards, Entry-Level Driver Training requirements, and operational rules governing obedience to traffic control devices. When a carrier fails to train its drivers to safely handle a stop-sign-controlled intersection on a high-risk oilfield corridor, that failure is the carrier’s own wrong — not just something the driver did wrong.
If discovery reveals that the driver had prior preventable accidents, moving violations, or failed skills evaluations, the carrier’s continued deployment of him on US 285 supports additional theories: negligent retention, negligent supervision, and negligent entrustment. Each of these is a separate basis of corporate liability that can reach the carrier’s insurance tower independent of the driver’s individual coverage.
And here is something the carrier is counting on you not knowing. Under federal leasing regulations, when a carrier leases on a driver and equipment, the law puts that carrier in exclusive possession and control of that truck for the duration of the lease — and makes the carrier take complete responsibility for its operation. The carrier cannot simply wave the driver off as “just a contractor.” The company whose authority is on that truck is the company the law put in control of it on the road.
As an interstate motor carrier, Truway Xpress is subject to a federal minimum financial responsibility requirement of $750,000 for general freight operations. Many Permian Basin carriers carry higher primary and umbrella limits given the severity exposure of oilfield-haul routes. The $750,000 floor is the minimum — not the ceiling — and knowing which policies exist, in what order they pay, and how much is actually available is half the value of the case. A carrier that hauls hazardous materials or certain dangerous cargo in bulk may trigger higher thresholds — up to $5,000,000.
The FMCSA Evidence Clock — What Is Already Dying While You Read This
This is the section that separates a lawyer who handles trucking cases from a lawyer who knows trucking cases. The evidence that proves what happened on US 285 on October 15 is not sitting in a file cabinet waiting for you. It is on a series of federal and corporate clocks, and some of those clocks have already started running out.
Electronic Logging Device (ELD) and hours-of-service data. Federal law requires motor carriers to retain records of duty status and supporting documents for each driver for a period of not less than six months from the date of receipt. After that, the company can legally destroy them. The ELD data that would show the driver’s hours of service, speed at approach, braking events, and GPS location — the proof of whether fatigue or speed contributed to this crash — has a legal expiration date. Six months. And the clock started on October 15.
“A motor carrier shall retain records of duty status and supporting documents required under this part for each of its drivers for a period of not less than 6 months from the date of receipt.”
— 49 CFR § 395.8(k)(1)
Engine Control Module (ECM) / black box data. Both trucks carry engine computers that record pre-collision speed, brake application, throttle position, and other critical parameters. This is the data a certified accident reconstructionist uses to model exactly what happened in the seconds before impact. But here is the fire problem: the post-collision fire may have damaged or destroyed the ECM in the burning vehicle. The surviving ECM data — from whichever truck’s computer was not destroyed — must be imaged immediately, before the vehicle is salvaged, scrapped, or disposed of by the insurance company. Fire-damaged vehicles are typically totaled and sent to salvage within weeks. Once that truck is crushed, the data is gone forever.
Post-accident drug and alcohol test results. Federal law requires post-accident drug and alcohol testing when a crash involves a fatality, or when a vehicle is towed due to disabling damage and the driver receives a citation. Given the fire and the likely vehicle loss in this crash, towing was almost certainly required. For alcohol, the testing window closes at 8 hours — after that, the employer must stop trying and document why. For controlled substances, the window closes at 32 hours. If the test was never done, the law required the carrier to put in writing why not. That missing piece of paper tells its own story. A positive result, or a test refusal, dramatically strengthens both liability and punitive-damages exposure.
Driver qualification file and training records. The carrier must maintain a driver qualification file containing the employment application, motor vehicle record, road test certificate, annual reviews, medical examiner’s certificate, and any medical variance or exemption. This file must be retained as long as the driver is employed and for three years thereafter. It is the central document in the negligent-training claim. If this file is thin, incomplete, or missing the Entry-Level Driver Training certification, the carrier’s own records prove the training failure.
Dashcam or forward-facing camera footage. Many commercial vehicles now carry forward-facing cameras that record the road ahead. Some systems overwrite in as few as 72 hours. Others hold 14 to 30 days. If either truck had a camera, the footage is the single most powerful piece of evidence in the case — visual proof of the failure to yield, the impact dynamics, and the fire origin. It is also the most fragile. The preservation letter that freezes that footage has to go out in days, not months.
Texas Peace Officer’s Crash Report (CR-3) and field diagram. The officer’s on-scene assessment, witness statements, crash diagram, and contributing factors have already been obtained per the news report. But supplemental reports, follow-up investigation records, and any reconstruction work by investigating agencies may still be developing. These need to be requested.
Vehicle maintenance and inspection records. The carrier must retain Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports for three months from the date the report was prepared — the shortest retention clock in the entire FMCSA regime. If a prior driver had already written up bad brakes, a steering defect, or a fire-suppression system problem on that truck, the carrier had the warning in its own files. The law made it certify the repair before that truck rolled again. Three months. The clock is already running.
Montanez’s vehicle — fire cause-and-origin analysis. The truck that caught fire is evidence. It must not be released to salvage or scrap until a fire cause-and-origin expert has inspected it. The fire could have been collision-caused — fuel tank rupture, electrical short, hydraulic fluid ignition — or it could have involved a pre-existing defect that opens a product-liability or maintenance-negligence theory against additional defendants. A fire-damaged vehicle will be totaled and disposed of within weeks. The expert inspection must happen before disposal.
This is why the preservation letter goes out the day you call. Not the week. Not the month. The day. Every one of these records has a legal expiration date, and the carrier’s insurance company is counting on the clock running out before anyone asks for them. When a defendant lets required evidence die after receiving a preservation notice, the law answers — a court can instruct the jury to assume the lost evidence was as damaging as the plaintiff says it was. The leverage begins the moment the letter is on file.
Texas Law That Protects You — The Statute of Limitations, Comparative Fault, and Damages
Texas law gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit. That is the statute of limitations for personal injury actions in Texas, and it is unforgiving. Miss it and the case is over — no matter how strong the evidence, no matter how clear the liability. But the two-year window is a ceiling, not a strategy. The evidence that wins the case is on a much shorter clock — measured in days, weeks, and months. The two years gives you time to file. The six months gives you time to prove.
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence standard with a 51% bar. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but it is only barred entirely if you are found 51% or more at fault. In this case, the at-fault driver failed to yield at a stop sign — one of the strongest liability fact patterns in commercial trucking litigation. The defense will try to pin percentage points on the victim: speed, inattention, failure to avoid. Every point they can pin is money. Every point we take back is money. This is why the ECM data, the dashcam footage, and the accident reconstruction matter — they are what keep the fault percentage where it belongs, on the carrier and its driver.
Texas does not impose damage caps on personal injury claims outside of medical malpractice and government-defendant actions. There is no statutory ceiling on what a jury can award for your medical expenses, lost earnings, pain, suffering, mental anguish, physical impairment, and disfigurement. The full measure of your harm is recoverable.
Punitive damages are governed by Texas’s Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 41, which requires a clear and convincing showing of gross negligence and imposes statutory caps tied to economic and non-economic damages. If discovery reveals that Truway Xpress had prior similar incidents, or knowingly deployed an inadequately trained driver on a notoriously dangerous corridor, punitive damages become viable. The negligent-training claim is not just a path to compensatory recovery — it is the foundation for the argument that the carrier’s conduct was worse than careless.
Texas also has the Stowers doctrine, which creates a duty on the liability insurer to accept reasonable settlement demands within policy limits. If the insurer refuses a demand that a reasonably prudent insurer would accept, and the case later resolves for more than the policy limits, the carrier can be exposed to bad-faith liability above its coverage. A properly calibrated Stowers demand — built on sufficient medical documentation and a strong liability presentation — creates pressure that can push the insurer toward a policy-limits or above-limits settlement before trial. Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm where claims like yours are priced and valued. He knows how adjusters set reserves, how they select IME doctors, and how they engineer delay — because he used to do it. Now he uses that knowledge for injured people.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook — What They Will Do and How We Counter It
Within days of the crash, the carrier’s insurance company opened a file. An adjuster was assigned. A reserve was set — a dollar figure the insurer internally allocates for what it expects the claim to cost. That reserve is often set in the first 48 hours, before the full extent of injuries is diagnosed, before the medical records are complete, and before anyone has imaged the black box. The adjuster’s job is to close that file for as little money as possible. Here is how they do it.
Play 1: The friendly “just checking in” call. Someone will call you — or your family — sounding warm and concerned. They will ask you to “just tell us what happened” or “confirm a few details.” The call is recorded. Every word you say is being built into a defense exhibit. The adjuster is hoping you will say “I’m feeling okay” or “I think I’m alright” before the MRI results come back, before the burn wounds have declared their full depth, before the traumatic brain injury that does not show up on a CT scan has revealed itself in the weeks ahead. The counter: do not give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurance company. Not once. Not ever. You have no obligation to, and nothing you say will help you. If they call, you say: “I am represented by counsel. Please contact my attorney.” Then you call us.
Play 2: The fast settlement check. A check may arrive quickly — sometimes within weeks — with a release attached to it, often printed on the back or included in the envelope. The check is designed to arrive before you know the full extent of your injuries, before the medical records are complete, and before you have talked to a lawyer. If you cash it, you may have released the carrier from all further claims — including the ones you have not discovered yet. The counter: do not sign anything, do not cash any check, and do not agree to anything in writing. A release signed in the first weeks of a truck-fire case is the cheapest settlement the insurance company will ever buy.
Play 3: The symptom-gap argument. The defense will look for gaps in your medical treatment — days or weeks between the emergency room and your first follow-up, missed physical therapy appointments, delayed imaging. They will argue that the gap proves your injuries were not serious, or that something else caused them in the interim. The counter: get treated early, treat consistently, and document everything. The medical record is not just your path to healing — it is the evidence that proves the harm. A gap in treatment is a gap in proof.
Play 4: The independent medical examination (IME). The insurer will send you to a doctor of their choosing — a doctor who earns a significant portion of their income from examining people for insurance companies and testifying that they are not really hurt. The IME report will minimize your injuries, attribute them to pre-existing conditions, or declare you at maximum medical improvement before your treating physicians agree. The counter: your treating doctors’ records, taken contemporaneously, carry far more weight than a defense-hired examiner’s snapshot. But only if the treating records are thorough, consistent, and built from day one.
Play 5: Social media surveillance. The adjuster’s investigator will look at your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter, anything public. They are looking for a photo of you smiling, walking, lifting something, attending a family event — anything they can use to argue you are not as injured as you claim. The counter: set everything to private, do not post about the crash, do not post about your injuries, and assume that everything you put online is being read by someone whose job is to pay you less.
The Medicine — What a Semi-vs-Semi Collision Followed by Fire Does to the Human Body
A semi truck T-boning or broadsiding another semi at a stop-sign intersection produces a completely different injury profile than a car-vs-truck crash. When two 80,000-pound vehicles collide, the energy exchange is massive. The cab of the struck truck absorbs forces that no passenger vehicle could generate. The driver of the oncoming truck — the one who could not stop in time — experiences deceleration forces that can cause blunt-force trauma even without a direct impact to the body.
Blunt-force trauma. The collision itself can produce rib fractures, sternal fractures, pulmonary contusions, cardiac contusions, and intra-abdominal injuries — splenic laceration, liver laceration, bowel rupture. The steering wheel, the dashboard, the seatbelt, and the cab structure itself all transmit force into the body. A driver who appears “fine” at the scene can have internal bleeding that declares itself hours later.
Spinal and orthopedic injury. The impact forces in a semi-vs-semi collision can compress the spine, fracture vertebrae, herniate discs, and tear ligamentous structures. A burst fracture at the thoracolumbar junction is a signature injury of high-energy axial loading. Cervical fractures and spinal cord injuries are possible even when the cab is not crushed — the deceleration alone can produce them.
Thermal burn injuries. The post-collision fire is the factor that transforms this from a serious crash case into a potentially catastrophic one. Burn severity is measured by two things: depth and body surface area. Doctors use the Rule of Nines — a body chart that assigns percentages to each region — to calculate the total body surface area burned. The front of one leg is 9%. The entire front of the torso is 18%. That number drives every clinical decision that follows: fluid resuscitation, burn-center transfer, surgical planning, and survival probability.
The Parkland formula calculates the IV fluid volume a burn patient needs in the first 24 hours — and critically, the clock starts at the moment of the burn, not when the ambulance arrives. Half of the entire first day’s fluid volume is supposed to be in the patient’s veins within eight hours of the fire. Every minute the burn patient sits un-transferred and under-resuscitated is a minute measured against a clock that started the instant the flames touched them.
A full-thickness burn — third degree — is painless at the burn site because the nerve endings are destroyed. Witnesses who say “he wasn’t even screaming” are not describing a minor injury. They are describing the worst kind. And a deep burn does not heal on its own. It requires grafting — surgeons harvest healthy skin from one part of the body to cover the wound, leaving two wounds instead of one. In a child or a young adult, scars tighten as the body grows, pulling joints out of position and sending the patient back to the operating room for serial release surgeries, sometimes for years.
Inhalation injury. In a vehicle fire, the deadliest injury is often the one you cannot see. Superheated smoke and toxic combustion gases — carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide from burning plastics and upholstery — burn and poison the airway and blood. Singed facial hair, soot in the mouth, a hoarse voice, and carbonaceous sputum are warning signs of an airway that is swelling shut. Inhalation injury independently raises mortality and is an automatic indication for burn-center referral under the American Burn Association’s published criteria. A person who walked away from the burning truck and “looked lucky” to bystanders can be in respiratory failure hours later.
Traumatic brain injury. The deceleration forces in a semi-vs-semi collision can produce a traumatic brain injury even without a direct blow to the head. The brain is suspended in fluid inside the skull. When the head whips forward and stops, the brain twists inside it, stretching and tearing the white-matter tracts — the wiring that connects regions. This is called diffuse axonal injury, and it is not visible on a standard CT scan. In a so-called “mild” brain injury, the CT comes back clean about 90% of the time — not because nothing is wrong, but because the damage is microscopic tearing that the scan was never designed to see. A person with a normal CT and a perfect GCS score can still have a life-altering brain injury that manifests as headaches, memory loss, personality change, and inability to work.
The proof problem is real: the defense will point to the clean scan and say “no objective evidence of injury.” The counter is neuropsychological testing, advanced imaging, and the testimony of people who knew the person before the crash and can describe the difference. If you or your loved one is forgetting words, losing their temper, or struggling to follow a conversation after this crash, that is not a personality problem. It is a brain injury. And it is provable.
What Your Case Is Worth — An Honest Valuation
The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million. That number is a jurisdictional floor in the petition — the minimum amount that must be pleaded to establish the court’s jurisdiction. It is not a valuation ceiling, and it is not a prediction of what the case will resolve for. The real value of this case depends on one thing above all others: the documented injuries.
If the injuries are limited to soft-tissue damage and minor orthopedic trauma — whiplash, contusions, sprains that resolve with conservative treatment — the case likely resolves in the $750,000 to $1.5 million range, driven by the clear liability (failure to yield at a stop sign), the commercial defendant’s coverage, and the fire-enhanced injury mechanism.
If the injuries include burns requiring grafting, spinal injury requiring surgery, traumatic brain injury with cognitive deficits, or surgical intervention for internal injuries, the value escalates to $2 million to $5 million or more. The life-care plan — a formal medical-economic document built to a published professional standard that prices out every surgery, therapy, medication, and caregiver hour a person will need for the rest of their life — is what turns “lifetime care” from a phrase into a figure a jury can trust. A certified life-care planner builds the cost stream. A forensic economist reduces it to present value. Together, they produce the number that the adjuster’s first offer is a fraction of.
If discovery reveals that Truway Xpress had prior similar incidents or knowingly deployed an inadequately trained driver on a notoriously dangerous corridor, punitive damages under Texas law become viable. Gross negligence findings on the negligent-training claim could push exposure above the statutory caps. The foreseeability argument is built rung by rung: the industry’s own safety standards, the regulator’s data, the defendant’s own training manual, prior-incident notice, and the internal communications that show the carrier knew and chose to send the truck out anyway.
The firm has recovered $50,000,000+ in aggregate across its practice, including a $2.5 million+ truck-crash recovery. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But the framework is real: clear liability, a commercial defendant with federally-mandated coverage, a fire-enhanced injury mechanism, and a negligent-training claim that opens the corporate pocket — these are the ingredients that move a case from the settlement column into the range where a properly prepared Stowers demand creates real pressure.
How We Build the Proof — The Case From Day One to Resolution
Here is how a case like this is actually built. Not in summaries. In the steps a trial team takes.
Week one: preservation. The day you call, a spoliation and litigation-hold letter goes out to Truway Xpress and its insurer. That letter names every category of evidence: ELD data, ECM/black box data, dashcam footage, the driver qualification file, post-accident drug test results, vehicle maintenance and inspection records, the accident register, and the physical vehicles themselves — especially the fire-damaged truck. The letter creates a legal duty to preserve. If the carrier lets evidence die after that letter, the consequences range from an adverse-inference instruction (the jury may assume the lost evidence was as bad as we say it was) to sanctions.
Weeks two through four: the records come in. We pull the FMCSA SAFER Company Snapshot for Truway Xpress — its DOT number, MCS-150 biennial registration, operating authority status, power-unit count, and crash/inspection summary. We pull the Safety Measurement System scores in the Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories — particularly the Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator BASICs. These are public records, but they are live data that changes. We pull them fresh and stamp the date.
We request the Texas Peace Officer’s Crash Report and any supplemental investigation records. We request the driver’s complete qualification file. We request the carrier’s training program documentation and the driver’s individual training records, including any Entry-Level Driver Training certification. We request the post-accident drug and alcohol test results — or the written explanation of why no test was performed.
Months two through six: experts and reconstruction. We retain a certified accident reconstructionist to model the collision dynamics from the CR-3 field diagram, skid marks, vehicle damage, and ECM data. The reconstructionist calculates pre-collision speed, braking distance, and the physics of the failure-to-yield maneuver. We retain an FMCSA-compliant trucking safety expert to analyze the carrier’s training program against regulatory standards and industry custom — this is the expert who testifies that the carrier’s training was inadequate and that the inadequacy caused the crash. We retain a fire cause-and-origin expert to inspect the burned vehicle before salvage — to determine whether the fire was collision-caused or involved a pre-existing defect, and to rule in or out product-liability or maintenance-negligence theories against additional defendants.
Months six through twelve: discovery and depositions. The records come out in formal discovery. The safety director sits for a deposition and explains the carrier’s training choices under oath. The driver sits for a deposition and explains what he did and why. The corporate representative testifies about the carrier’s safety culture, its prior incidents, and what it knew about the danger of US 285. Every admission is locked in.
The Stowers demand. After sufficient medical documentation is assembled — the complete treatment record, the life-care plan, the economic loss projection — we calibrate a Stowers demand to the carrier’s policy limits. That demand creates a duty on the insurer to accept it if a reasonably prudent insurer would. If the insurer refuses and the case later resolves for more than the policy limits, the carrier can be exposed to bad-faith liability above its coverage. That pressure is what moves cases toward resolution without a trial — and it only works if the demand is built on bulletproof medical and liability proof.
Trial. If the case does not resolve, it goes to a jury in Reeves County. Twelve people from this community — people who know US 285, who share the road with these trucks, who understand what a stop sign means — decide what the harm is worth. Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, and he knows how to tell a story to a jury in language they can feel. These cases are won on the company’s choices — which is exactly what we go find.
The First 72 Hours — What to Do Right Now
Get medical treatment first. If you have not been seen by a doctor, go now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now. Symptoms lie. Adrenaline masks pain. A concussion does not always announce itself at the scene. Internal bleeding can be silent for hours. Burn depth declares over days. The medical record is not just your path to healing — it is the evidence that proves the harm. A gap between the crash and the first treatment is a gap the defense will exploit.
Do not give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurance company. You have no obligation to. Nothing you say will help you. If they call, say: “I am represented by counsel. Please contact my attorney.”
Do not sign anything. No release. No authorization. No settlement agreement. No check endorsement. Not until a lawyer has reviewed every word.
Do not post about the crash on social media. Not the truck. Not the fire. Not your injuries. Not your recovery. Nothing. Assume everything you post is being read by an investigator whose job is to pay you less.
Preserve everything you can. Photographs of the vehicles, the scene, the injuries. The names and contact information of any witnesses. Your own recollection, written down while it is fresh — what you saw, what you heard, what you felt, what happened in the seconds before and after impact. If you have the truck’s DOT number or any identifying information, save it.
Call us. 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. We do not get paid unless we win your case. And the preservation letter that freezes the evidence goes out the day you call.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a lawsuit for a truck accident in Reeves County, Texas?
Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. That means you have two years from the date of the crash — October 15, 2025 — to file a lawsuit. But the evidence that wins the case is on a much shorter clock. The truck’s electronic logs can be legally destroyed after six months. Dashcam footage can overwrite in days. The burned vehicle can be salvaged within weeks. The two-year deadline is the legal ceiling. The evidence deadline is measured in days and weeks. That is why we move immediately.
Can I sue the trucking company if the driver was the one who caused the crash?
Yes. Under the legal doctrine of respondeat superior, an employer is responsible for the negligence of its employee acting within the course and scope of employment. The lawsuit in this case also alleges negligent training directly against the carrier — Truway Xpress LLC — which is a separate basis of corporate liability independent of the driver’s individual negligence. The carrier’s insurance coverage is typically far larger than the driver’s personal policy. Our 18-wheeler accident practice handles exactly this kind of corporate-liability claim.
What if I was partly at fault for the crash?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but it is only barred entirely if you are found 51% or more at fault. In this case, the at-fault driver failed to yield at a stop sign — a strong liability fact pattern. The defense will try to shift percentage points onto you. Every point they pin is money. Every point we take back is money. The ECM data, the dashcam footage, and the accident reconstruction are what keep the fault where it belongs.
How much is my Reeves County truck accident case worth?
The honest answer is: it depends on the documented injuries. The $1 million in the petition is a jurisdictional floor, not a ceiling. If injuries are limited to soft-tissue and minor orthopedic trauma, the case may resolve in the $750,000 to $1.5 million range. If the injuries include burns, spinal injury, traumatic brain injury, or surgical intervention, the value escalates to $2 million to $5 million or more. A life-care planner and a forensic economist build the real number from the medical records and the lifetime cost of care. We do not undersell the case to you early — the $1 million figure is a starting point, not an ending point.
What is the FMCSA evidence clock and why does it matter?
Federal regulations require trucking companies to retain certain records for limited periods. Hours-of-service logs must be kept for six months. Vehicle inspection reports must be kept for three months. Dashcam footage can overwrite in as few as 72 hours. The burned vehicle can be scrapped within weeks. If a preservation letter is not sent quickly, the evidence that proves your case can be legally destroyed before anyone asks for it. That is why the first thing we do when you call is send a letter that freezes every category of evidence. You can learn more about how these cases work in our guide to commercial truck accidents.
What does a fire after a truck crash mean for my case?
The post-collision fire creates both a heightened damages opportunity and an evidence-urgency problem. On the damages side, burn injuries and inhalation injuries are among the most catastrophic and expensive harms in medicine — a serious burn can mean months in a burn unit, multiple grafting surgeries, and years of follow-up. On the evidence side, the fire may have destroyed the ECM data in the burned vehicle, which means the surviving truck’s data must be imaged before it too is lost. A fire cause-and-origin expert must inspect the burned vehicle before it is salvaged — the fire could have been caused by a collision-induced fuel system failure, or it could involve a pre-existing defect that opens a product-liability claim against additional defendants.
Will I have to go to trial?
Most personal injury cases settle before trial. But a case that is prepared for trial from day one — with frozen evidence, retained experts, complete medical records, and a calibrated Stowers demand — is the case that settles for the most money. The insurance company knows which lawyers will try the case and which ones will fold. We prepare every case as if it is going to a jury in Reeves County, and that preparation is what creates the pressure to resolve it fairly without a trial.
How much does a truck accident lawyer cost?
We work on contingency. That means we do not charge an hourly fee. We receive a percentage of the recovery — 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. If we do not recover anything, you do not owe us a fee. The consultation is free. The first phone call costs you nothing. And the preservation letter that freezes the evidence goes out the day you call — at no cost to you. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
What makes Attorney911 different from other truck accident lawyers?
Two things. First, Ralph Manginello has 27+ years of experience in Texas courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — he knows how to find the story the evidence tells and present it to a jury in language they can feel. Second, Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney. He spent years inside a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. He knows how claims are valued, how reserves are set, how IME doctors are selected, and how delay tactics work — because he used to do it. Now he uses that knowledge for injured people. He also conducts full consultations in Spanish, without an interpreter. We serve your family fully in both English and Spanish. Hablamos Español.
I was injured in a truck crash in the Permian Basin but not on US 285. Can you still help?
Yes. We take commercial trucking cases throughout Texas, including the entire Permian Basin region — our Texas oilfield and commercial truck accident practice covers every commercial vehicle type and every corridor in the state. The FMCSA regulations, the evidence clocks, and the insurance playbook are the same whether your crash happened on US 285 in Reeves County, on US 285 in Eddy County, or on any other oilfield corridor in Texas. The law is federal. The firm takes Texas cases.
Why This Firm — Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We have been in practice since 2001. We have recovered more than $50 million for our clients across our practice, including a $2.5 million+ recovery in a truck-crash case. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes — but the framework is real, and the work is the same.
Ralph P. Manginello is our Managing Partner. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27+ years. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, including the bankruptcy court. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston and his B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in Journalism and Public Relations. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, and that training shows in every deposition, every brief, and every courtroom appearance. He speaks Spanish. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the Houston Bar Association, and the Trial Lawyers Achievement Association — Million Dollar Member. He is lead counsel in the active $10M+ Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston hazing lawsuit in Harris County. He handles cases personally — they do not get handed to an associate and forgotten.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney. He has been licensed in Texas since 2012 — 13+ years. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston and his B.B.A. in International Business from Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio. He is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. And before he joined this firm, he was an insurance-defense attorney at a national defense firm. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows how the Colossus valuation system works, how reserves are set in the first 48 hours, how IME doctors are selected, and how surveillance is deployed. Now he uses that knowledge for injured people.
We are a contingency firm. We do not charge an hourly fee. We receive a percentage of the recovery — 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. If we do not recover anything, you do not owe us a fee. The consultation is free. The first phone call costs you nothing. And the preservation letter that freezes the evidence goes out the day you call.
If you were on US 285 on October 15, 2025, if you were in one of those trucks, if you are the family of someone who was — call us. 1-888-ATTY-911. That is 1-888-288-9911. We answer 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Not an answering service — live staff. Hablamos Español. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. And we do not get paid unless we win your case.
The evidence window is measured in days. The litigation window is measured in months. The resolution timeline is one to two years. The day you call is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
Call. 1-888-ATTY-911.