Midland, Texas Car Accident Lawyer — I-20 Wrecks, Permian Basin Truck Crashes, and What Texas Law Says When You’re Hurt
The article that brought you here describes a youth softball tournament — 56 teams converging on Midland’s Freddie Ezell Softball Complex, families driving in from across West Texas, hotels filling up, the roads around the complex packed with minivans and trucks. It is not a crash report. Nobody was hurt. The tournament is a celebration.
But if you found this page, you or someone you love was likely hurt on the way to or from an event exactly like this one — on Interstate 20, on the Farm-to-Market roads cutting through the Permian Basin, in the oilfield traffic that never thins out around Midland. You were driving to a tournament, or coming home from one, or running to the store between games, and someone else’s negligence changed everything. That is who we are writing to. Not to the tournament — to you.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are trial lawyers who take Texas personal injury and wrongful death cases. This page is the education we wish every injured person had before the insurance adjuster’s first phone call. Everything here is free to read, free to use, and free to ask us about. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 any hour, any day — the consultation is free, and we don’t get paid unless we win your case.
What Midland’s Roads Actually Look Like — and Why That Matters to Your Case
Midland sits in Midland County, dead center of the Permian Basin, halfway between Fort Worth and El Paso on Interstate 20. The oil industry built this town and it never left. The roads here carry a mix that most American cities never see: family sedans and SUVs sharing the asphalt with water-haulers, frac-sand transporters, crude-oil tankers, pump trucks, and wireline trucks running on deadlines that have nothing to do with softball tournaments.
The oilfield truck traffic on I-20 and the surrounding highways is relentless. These are commercial vehicles operating under federal motor carrier safety regulations — meaning the companies behind them are subject to hours-of-service rules, mandatory insurance minimums, and record-keeping duties that ordinary drivers never face. When one of those trucks collides with a passenger vehicle, the physics are devastating: a fully loaded tractor-trailer can outweigh a car by twenty to thirty times, and in fatal crashes involving large trucks, roughly two of every three people killed are in the passenger vehicle, not the truck.
If you were hurt in a wreck involving an oilfield truck, a commercial delivery van, or any vehicle operating for a business, the case is fundamentally different from a ordinary car-on-car collision. We handle these cases, and we have a dedicated resource on Texas oilfield commercial truck accidents that goes deeper into the Permian Basin trucking industry and the federal rules that govern it.
But even a two-car wreck on Midland’s roads can be life-altering. The force of a collision at highway speed does things to the human body that don’t always show up on the first X-ray. And the insurance company knows that. That is where the fight begins.
What Texas Law Says — The Deadline, The Fault Rule, and What You Can Recover
The Two-Year Clock
Texas gives you two years to file a personal injury lawsuit from the date of the injury. This is not a suggestion — it is a hard statutory deadline. Miss it and the court will dismiss your case no matter how strong it is, no matter how badly you were hurt, no matter how clear the other driver’s fault.
Texas law requires that a person bring suit for personal injury not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues. This deadline is absolute — once it passes, the courthouse door is locked, and the strength of your case no longer matters.
We state this as the durable doctrine of Texas’s personal injury statute of limitations. The same two-year framework generally governs wrongful death claims in Texas as well. There are narrow exceptions — the discovery rule for injuries that manifest later, claims involving minors — but the safe assumption is that the clock started the day of the wreck and you have two years from that date.
Two years sounds like a long time. It is not. Medical treatment takes months. Insurance negotiations drag on. Evidence disappears. And by the time many people realize the insurance company is not going to offer a fair number, a year has passed and the proof that would have won the case is gone.
Texas Comparative Fault — What If You Were Partly at Fault?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule. In plain English: if you were partly responsible for the wreck, your recovery is reduced by your share of the fault — and if you were 51 percent or more at fault, you recover nothing.
This is the rule the insurance adjuster is working from the moment they pick up the phone. Every question they ask you is engineered to pin percentage points on you. “Were you changing the radio?” “Were you looking at your phone?” “Were you tired from the tournament?” Every point of fault they can hang on you is money off their payout. A 10 percent shift in fault allocation on a case worth $100,000 is $10,000 out of your pocket.
This is why we tell every caller the same thing: do not give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company before you have spoken to a lawyer. The adjuster’s job is to build a record that minimizes their insured’s fault and maximizes yours. Your job is to heal. Let us handle the fight over percentages.
What You Can Recover
Texas personal injury law allows recovery for both economic and non-economic damages:
Economic damages — the things you can put a receipt to: past and future medical bills, lost wages, lost earning capacity, property damage, and the cost of future medical care projected across your lifetime by a life-care planner.
Non-economic damages — the human losses no receipt can capture: physical pain, mental anguish, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, and the loss of the companionship and support you would have provided to your family.
In cases involving gross negligence — a defendant who acted with conscious indifference to the safety of others — Texas also allows punitive damages, designed to punish and deter.
There is no statutory cap on damages in most ordinary Texas personal injury cases. The value of your case is driven by the severity of your injuries, the clarity of the other party’s fault, the strength of your evidence, and the quality of the legal team presenting it.
If you lost a family member, Texas’s wrongful death statute allows surviving spouses, children, and parents to recover for the loss of their loved one — the financial support that was taken, the care and companionship that ended, and in some cases the conscious pain and suffering the decedent experienced before death. We handle these cases with the gravity they demand, and the first conversation is always free.
When the Wreck Involves a Commercial Truck — The Federal Rules That Change Everything
Midland’s position in the Permian Basin means that a large share of the serious wrecks on I-20 and the surrounding highways involve commercial trucks — oilfield haulers, water trucks, sand transporters, and the delivery fleets that service the industry. When a commercial vehicle is involved, a second set of rules kicks in on top of Texas law, and those rules create evidence that ordinary car wrecks never produce.
Hours-of-service logs. Federal law limits how long a commercial driver can be behind the wheel — generally 11 hours of driving within a 14-hour shift, with strict rest requirements. The company is required to keep the driver’s records of duty status for six months. After that, federal law permits the company to destroy them. Those logs are the single best proof of a fatigued driver — and they are on a six-month countdown from the day they are received.
Post-crash drug and alcohol testing. Federal law requires a trucking company to test the driver for alcohol within eight hours of a serious crash and for controlled substances within thirty-two hours. If the test was not done, the company is required to document why — and that missing piece of paper tells its own story.
The driver qualification file. Before a company ever puts a driver behind the wheel, federal law requires it to build a file proving the driver is qualified — driving record, road test, medical clearance, annual reviews. What that file shows, or fails to show, is the difference between an accident and a corporate decision to put a dangerous driver on the road.
Minimum insurance. A commercial motor carrier operating in interstate commerce is federally required to carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage for non-hazardous freight — and $1 million to $5 million for hazardous materials haulers. That is the floor, not the ceiling. Major carriers carry far more. The same crash that might exhaust a personal auto policy’s $30,000 limit in a car-on-car wreck can reach coverage that is twenty-five times larger when a commercial truck is involved.
We handle commercial truck accident cases across Texas, and the first thing we do in any trucking case is send a preservation letter that freezes the logs, the telematics, the camera footage, and the driver’s file before the six-month clock runs out.
The Evidence Clock — What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Dies
Every personal injury case is a race against evidence destruction. The faster you act, the more proof survives. Here is what exists after a wreck in or around Midland, who controls it, and how fast it can legally disappear:
The vehicle’s event data recorder (black box). Nearly every car built in the last decade carries a crash data recorder. Federal law standardizes what it captures — vehicle speed in the seconds before impact, whether the brake was applied, whether the seatbelt was buckled, and the change in velocity at the moment of collision. If the airbags deployed, federal law requires the data to be locked so it cannot be overwritten. If the airbags did not deploy, the data can be erased the next time the car is driven hard. The vehicle itself can be sold for salvage and crushed within days. This is the single most time-sensitive piece of evidence in any car wreck case.
Surveillance and dashcam video. Traffic cameras, business security systems, and dashcams may have captured the wreck. Business security footage is typically overwritten on a rolling loop — often within 30 days. If no one sends a preservation letter, the video records over itself and is gone forever.
The police crash report. Midland Police or the Texas Department of Public Safety will generate a crash report. This document contains the officer’s assessment of fault, road conditions, witness information, and citations issued. It is important — but it is not conclusive, and it is not admissible in a Texas civil trial as proof of the facts it states. It is a starting point, not the finish line.
The truck’s engine control module and telematics. In a commercial truck case, the engine computer records speed, hard-braking events, and throttle position in a small buffer that overwrites itself when the truck is driven away. If the carrier puts the truck back on the road after the wreck, the evidence is gone — potentially within hours.
Medical records. The emergency department records, imaging studies, and treating physician notes are the spine of your damages case. These are created contemporaneously and are generally durable — but the quality and completeness of the first medical encounter matters enormously. If you delayed seeking treatment, the insurance company will argue the injury wasn’t serious or wasn’t caused by the wreck.
Witness statements. Memory degrades fast. The witness who saw the whole thing at the scene will have a fuzzier recollection six months later. Identifying and preserving witness accounts early is critical.
The preservation letter — a formal written demand that the at-fault party and their insurance company freeze all evidence — is the most important first step in any serious injury case. We send it the day you call. Not the week. Not the month. The day. Because the evidence that wins your case is on a clock that started before you ever picked up the phone.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook — Three Plays They Run and How to Counter Each One
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before he joined our side. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. He knows the plays because he used to run them. Here are three of the most common — and what to do about each.
Play 1: The Friendly “Just Checking In” Recorded Statement
Within days of the wreck, someone from the other driver’s insurance company will call. They will sound warm and concerned. They will say they just need to “hear your side of the story” and ask you to “tell us what happened” on a recording. That recording is not being made to help you. It is being made to build a record of your words that can be quoted against you later — taken out of context, stripped of nuance, and presented to a jury as your own account.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement without a lawyer. You have no legal obligation to speak to the other driver’s insurance company. Your own insurance company may require cooperation under your policy — but even then, you should have counsel present. If the adjuster says “this will just help us process your claim faster,” that is the tell. Speed is their interest, not yours.
Play 2: The Quick Settlement Check Before the Medical Results Are In
A check may arrive fast — sometimes within weeks of the wreck. It will come with a release document that, once signed, closes your claim forever. The check may look generous relative to your emergency room bill. It will look like a fraction of what your case is worth once the full extent of your injuries is diagnosed.
The adjuster is counting on two things: that you don’t know yet how badly you’re hurt, and that the bills are already piling up. They are buying your silence before the MRI, before the neurologist referral, before the surgeon says you need a fusion. Once you sign, there is no going back — even if they find a brain injury next month.
The counter: Never sign a release from an insurance company without having it reviewed by a lawyer. Period. The cost of a consultation is zero. The cost of signing away a case worth $200,000 for $15,000 is everything.
Play 3: The Symptom-Gap Argument
If you didn’t go to the emergency room the day of the wreck — or if you went, were discharged, and didn’t seek follow-up care for a few weeks — the insurance company will argue that the gap proves your injuries weren’t caused by the crash. They will say: if you were really hurt, you would have gone to the doctor immediately.
This is medically false. Soft tissue injuries, concussions, and spinal injuries frequently have delayed onset. The adrenaline of a crash masks pain. Symptoms that seem minor at the scene escalate over 48 to 72 hours. This is not a legal theory — it is how the human body responds to trauma.
The counter: Seek medical attention as soon as you suspect you are injured, even if you think it might “just be whiplash.” The medical record creates the timeline. The longer you wait, the wider the gap the insurance company exploits. This video on what to do after a car accident walks through the first steps in plain language.
Play 4: Social Media Surveillance
The adjuster is monitoring your social media. A photo of you at a barbecue, a check-in at a restaurant, a comment about feeling “okay” — all of these will be screenshotted and presented as proof that you are not as injured as you claim. It does not matter that you were in pain the entire time. The photo is what the jury sees.
The counter: Set every social media account to private. Do not post about the accident, your injuries, your activities, or your recovery. Do not discuss the case online. Assume everything you post will be exhibit A in the defense’s closing argument.
Play 5: The Independent Medical Examination with a Defense-Picked Doctor
The insurance company may demand that you be examined by a doctor of their choosing. This is called an independent medical examination, or IME. It is not independent. The doctor is selected and paid by the insurance company, and their business model depends on producing reports that minimize your injuries.
The counter: You may have to attend the IME if your own insurance policy requires it or if a court orders it in litigation. But your lawyer should prepare you for what to expect, what to say, and what not to say — because the IME doctor is not your friend and is not writing an objective report.
The Medicine — What Happens to Your Body in a Car Wreck
The human body was not designed for the forces a car wreck generates. When a vehicle moving at highway speed stops suddenly — whether by hitting another vehicle, a guardrail, or rolling — the energy that was propelling you forward has to go somewhere. It goes through your body.
Whiplash and Soft Tissue Injuries
The most common injury from a rear-end or frontal collision is damage to the muscles, ligaments, and tendons of the neck and back. The head snaps forward and back faster than the muscles can react, tearing fibers that don’t show up on a standard X-ray. The pain may not peak for 48 to 72 hours. The insurance company calls this “minor.” Anyone who has lived with chronic neck pain for two years calls it something else.
Soft tissue injuries are real, diagnosable, and compensable. But they are also the injuries the insurance company fights hardest to minimize — because they don’t show on a bone scan and because the defense can argue they predated the wreck. The counter is the medical record: the earlier you are examined, the harder it is for the defense to claim the injury came from somewhere else.
Traumatic Brain Injury — The Injury That Hides
A traumatic brain injury does not require a cracked skull or a loss of consciousness. The medical standard is clear: a brain injury can be diagnosed from any alteration of mental status at the time of the trauma — feeling dazed, confused, or unable to remember the moments around the crash. You never had to black out.
Here is the fact the insurance company will not volunteer: in a so-called “mild” brain injury, the CT scan comes back normal approximately 90 percent of the time. Not because nothing is wrong, but because the damage is microscopic tearing of nerve fibers — diffuse axonal injury — that a standard CT was never designed to detect. Advanced imaging, like diffusion tensor imaging, can see what the CT misses.
The symptoms are what families recognize before any scan does: the headaches that don’t stop, the words that won’t come, the short fuse, the missed appointments, the personality change that creeps in over weeks. At least one in seven people with a mild brain injury still has symptoms three months later. For those people, “mild” becomes a life sentence.
If you suspect a head injury — even if the ER said you were “fine” — we have a resource on brain injury cases that explains what to look for and how the proof is built.
Spinal Injuries
A spinal cord injury from a high-energy wreck can mean a lifetime in a wheelchair and millions of dollars in medical care. Vehicle crashes are the leading cause of spinal cord injury in the United States. But not every spinal injury is paralysis — herniated discs, compression fractures, and ligamentous injuries can cause chronic pain and disability without showing on a standard X-ray. MRI is the tool that reveals what the X-ray misses.
The lifetime cost of a severe spinal cord injury can exceed several million dollars — and that figure counts only medical care and living expenses, not the wages the injured person will never earn or the daily toll on the family.
Delayed and Occult Injuries
Internal organ damage, stable fractures, and ligament tears can all present hours or days after the wreck. The adrenaline that carries you through the first night is the same chemistry that masks a ruptured spleen or a vertebral fracture. If you develop new pain, numbness, dizziness, or any neurological symptom after the wreck, go back to the doctor. The medical record is the case.
What Your Case Is Worth — An Honest Answer
We cannot tell you what your case is worth without seeing your medical records, the police report, the insurance policies involved, and the full picture of how the injury has affected your life. Anyone who gives you a dollar figure on a first phone call is guessing — and guessing low is the insurance company’s entire strategy.
What we can tell you is how a real number is built:
The economic stream is the math: every medical bill, every lost paycheck, every mile driven to a doctor’s appointment, every copay, every piece of medical equipment, and — in a catastrophic case — every future dollar of care projected by a certified life-care planner across the injured person’s expected lifetime, then reduced to present value by a forensic economist.
The non-economic loss is the human cost: the pain, the sleeplessness, the surgeries, the scar, the fear of getting back in a car, the marriage that strained under the weight of a personality change, the child who watched a parent learn to walk again. These losses are real and compensable, and a skilled trial lawyer presents them to a jury not as abstractions but as the specific, lived experiences of a specific, real person.
The fault allocation is the variable: every percentage point of fault assigned to you reduces your recovery. This is where the insurance company invests its effort — and where a lawyer who knows how to build a liability case earns their fee.
A fender-bender with a sore neck and a quick recovery may resolve for thousands. A wreck with a herniated disc, a surgery, and six months of lost work can reach hundreds of thousands. A catastrophic injury — paralysis, severe brain damage, or a death — can reach into the millions. The range is vast because the harm is vast. The only honest answer is: the number is built from your specific facts, and the first step to knowing it is a free consultation.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We state this because it is the truth — your case is yours, not anyone else’s, and no lawyer can promise a result. What we can promise is that we will build yours as completely and as honestly as the law allows.
The First 72 Hours — A Practical Roadmap
Hour 1: Get medical attention. If you are hurt, go to the emergency room. If you think you might be hurt, go to the emergency room. Adrenaline masks pain. The medical record starts the clock on your proof. If you were examined and discharged, follow up with your primary care physician within a few days — especially if new symptoms appear.
Hours 1–24: Document everything. Take photographs of the vehicles, the scene, any visible injuries, and road conditions. Get the names and phone numbers of every witness. Save the police report number. Do not post about the accident on social media. Do not discuss the accident with the other driver’s insurance company.
Days 1–3: Call a lawyer. The preservation letter that freezes evidence goes out the day you call us. The longer you wait, the more proof disappears. The vehicle can be scrapped. The video can overwrite. The truck’s engine data can erase itself. Every day that passes is a day the insurance company uses to build its defense and you lose to build your case.
Days 1–72: Follow your doctor’s orders. Go to every appointment. Fill every prescription. Do every therapy session. The medical record is not just your path to healing — it is the evidence of your harm. Gaps in treatment become arguments for the defense.
We have a step-by-step video guide on what to do after a car accident that covers these first steps in plain language, and a direct guide on what you should never say to an insurance adjuster. Both are free. Both can protect your case before you ever pick up the phone to call us.
How a Case Is Actually Built — From the First Call to the Courthouse
Here is what happens when you call us:
Week one: We send the preservation letter — to the at-fault driver, their insurance company, and in a commercial truck case, the carrier and any third-party data vendors. That letter freezes the logs, the camera footage, the telematics, the driver qualification file, and the vehicle itself. We open the investigation: we pull the police report, identify witnesses, photograph the scene, and request the vehicle’s black box data before it can be overwritten.
Weeks two through eight: We gather your medical records as they are created. We monitor your treatment. We begin building the liability case — reconstructing the wreck, identifying every potentially responsible party, and mapping the insurance coverage. In a trucking case, we pull the carrier’s federal safety record from the FMCSA database — their inspection history, their crash involvement record, their out-of-service rates — not as proof of fault in your wreck, but as evidence of a pattern.
Months two through six: We work with your treating physicians to understand the full extent of your injuries. In a catastrophic case, we retain a life-care planner to project your lifetime medical needs and a forensic economist to translate those needs into present-value dollars. We retain reconstruction experts, medical experts, and — where the defendant’s conduct was egregious — we build the punitive damages case.
The demand: Once we know the full extent of your injuries and the full scope of your losses, we present a demand to the insurance company. That demand is backed by evidence — the medical records, the expert opinions, the reconstruction, the life-care plan. It is not a number pulled from the air. It is a number built from proof.
Litigation: If the insurance company refuses to pay what the case is worth, we file suit. In Texas, your case is heard by a jury of people from the county where the wreck occurred or where the defendant resides. For a wreck in Midland, that jury is drawn from Midland County — your neighbors, people who know these roads, people who understand what the oilfield traffic is really like.
Trial: Most personal injury cases settle before trial. But the ones that don’t settle are the ones where the insurance company learned that the lawyer on the other side will actually take a case to a jury. Our willingness to try cases is what makes our settlements strong.
Who We Are — Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Ralph P. Manginello is our Managing Partner. He has been a licensed Texas attorney for 27+ years, admitted in 1998, and is admitted to practice in federal court in the Southern District of Texas. 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. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the Houston Bar Association, and the Trial Lawyers Achievement Association — Million Dollar Member. He leads our active $10 million hazing lawsuit against a University of Houston fraternity. Ralph does not lose cases because he is lucky. He wins them because he outworks the other side. Read more about Ralph here.
Lupe Peña is our Associate Attorney. He is a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years inside a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how the insurance industry values injuries because he used to do the valuing. He knows Colossus, the claims-valuation software insurers use. He knows how IME doctors are selected. He knows the surveillance tactics. And now he uses all of that knowledge for injured clients. Lupe is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. A third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch, he was born and raised in Sugar Land and lives there still. Read more about Lupe here.
Together, Ralph and Lupe have recovered more than $50 million for injured clients. That figure includes a $5 million-plus brain injury settlement, a $3.8 million-plus amputation settlement, and a $2.5 million-plus truck crash recovery. Our fee is contingency: 33.33 percent before trial, 40 percent if the case goes to trial. We don’t get paid unless we win your case.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a car accident lawsuit in Texas?
Texas law gives you two years from the date of the injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. This is a hard statutory deadline — if you miss it, your case is barred regardless of how strong it is. There are narrow exceptions, but the safe assumption is that the clock started the day of the wreck. Do not wait to find out whether an exception applies to you — call a lawyer and find out for certain.
What if I was partly at fault for the wreck?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, and if you are 51 percent or more at fault, you recover nothing. So if your case is worth $100,000 and you are found 20 percent at fault, you recover $80,000. The insurance company will work hard to push your fault percentage up — which is why you should never give a recorded statement without a lawyer.
The insurance company already offered me a check — should I take it?
Before you sign anything, have a lawyer review the offer. Insurance companies routinely send quick settlement checks with a release attached that closes your claim permanently. The check may cover your emergency room bill but leave nothing for the surgery you discover you need three months later. Once you sign the release, there is no going back. The consultation is free. Let us look at it before you sign away your rights.
I felt fine right after the crash but now I’m hurting — is it too late?
It is not too late, and this is extremely common. The adrenaline of a car wreck masks pain. Soft tissue injuries, concussions, and spinal injuries frequently have delayed onset — symptoms that appear 48 to 72 hours later, or even weeks later. Go to the doctor as soon as you realize you are injured. The medical record creates the timeline that connects your injury to the wreck. The longer you wait, the harder that connection becomes to prove — but delayed treatment does not automatically bar your claim.
The truck that hit me was an oilfield truck — does that change things?
Yes, significantly. A commercial truck operating in the Permian Basin is subject to federal motor carrier safety regulations that ordinary drivers never face. The company must keep hours-of-service logs for six months, carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage, test the driver for drugs and alcohol after a serious crash, and maintain a driver qualification file. The evidence these rules force into existence can make a trucking case worth many times what a car-on-car case is worth — but only if a lawyer moves fast enough to preserve it before the retention clocks run out.
How much is my Midland car accident case worth?
No honest lawyer can answer that question on a first phone call. The value of your case depends on the severity of your injuries, the clarity of the other party’s fault, the amount of insurance coverage available, the quality of your medical documentation, and the impact the injury has had on your life. A minor soft tissue injury with a quick recovery may resolve for a few thousand dollars. A catastrophic injury with lifelong consequences can reach into the millions. The only way to know is to have your case evaluated — and that evaluation is free.
Do I need a lawyer for a minor fender bender?
If your wreck was truly minor — no injuries, no medical treatment, just a scratched bumper — you may be able to resolve it with the insurance company directly. But even a “minor” crash can produce a brain injury that doesn’t show up on a CT scan, or a spinal injury that worsens over months. If you were hurt in any way, or if the insurance company is disputing fault, you should at minimum have a free consultation. Our Texas fender bender resource covers the specific risks of minor crashes and delayed injuries.
What should I not say to the insurance adjuster?
Do not say “I’m fine.” Do not say “it was my fault” or “I should have.” Do not speculate about what happened. Do not agree to a recorded statement. Do not discuss your injuries before you have been fully evaluated by a doctor. Do not accept the first settlement offer. Do not post about the accident on social media. The adjuster is trained to extract information that minimizes their company’s liability — every word you say without a lawyer present is a word that can be used against you.
Can I still recover if I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt?
Texas has a seatbelt law, and not wearing one can be used as evidence of comparative fault — meaning your recovery could be reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to you for not buckling up. However, not wearing a seatbelt does not automatically bar your claim. If the other driver was clearly at fault for causing the wreck, you can still recover — your award would just be reduced by your share of the fault. An experienced lawyer can argue that the injuries would have occurred even with a seatbelt, limiting the fault allocation.
How long does a personal injury case take?
It depends on the complexity. A straightforward soft tissue case with clear liability may resolve in a few months. A catastrophic injury case with disputed liability, multiple defendants, and a life-care plan can take one to two years or more. Cases that go to trial take longer than cases that settle. We move as fast as the evidence and your medical treatment allow — but we never settle a case before we know the full extent of your injuries, because settling too early is the most expensive mistake an injured person can make.
If You Were Hurt in or Around Midland — Call Us Today
The tournament will go on. The teams will play, the families will cheer, and the roads around the Freddie Ezell Softball Complex will fill up again next weekend. But if you are reading this page at 2 a.m. with a collar around your neck and a folder of medical bills that just became unpayable — the tournament is not your concern. Your case is.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We take Texas personal injury and wrongful death cases on contingency. The consultation is free. The call is free. We don’t get paid unless we win your case. We have live staff answering 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service, real people who can start protecting your evidence the moment you hang up.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. That is 1-888-288-9911. Or contact us through our website and we will call you.
Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. If your family prays in Spanish, we can speak to you in Spanish.
The evidence is disappearing. The two-year clock is running. The adjuster is already building their file. Call us today, and let us start building yours.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Contacting the firm is free and confidential. The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC is based in Houston, Texas and takes cases across the state.