If Someone You Love Was on That Union Pacific Train — or Inside the Chamber of Commerce When It Came Through the Wall
You are reading this because something broke on December 18, 2024, in Pecos, and it took someone from you. A Union Pacific freight train hit a tractor-trailer that was sitting on the tracks at the Dot Stafford Street crossing, just off U.S. Highway 285. The train derailed. Two crew members are dead. Three more people are hurt — some of them were inside the town’s Chamber of Commerce building when the train hit it. The National Transportation Safety Board has a team on the ground. The crossing is being repaired. The trucking company that put that trailer on the tracks has not been publicly identified.
And the evidence — the proof of what actually happened, who is responsible, and what it will take to hold them accountable — is disappearing on a clock that started the moment of impact and does not wait for your grief to settle.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We are trial lawyers who take catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases in Texas. This page is not a news recap. It is the legal analysis the families of the people killed and hurt in Pecos need right now — the rights they have, the deadlines that are running, the evidence that is dying, and the defendants who are already working to control what this costs them. Everything here is legal information, not legal advice. But every word is written by a trial team that knows how these cases are built, from the inside.
What Happened at the Dot Stafford Street Crossing in Pecos
At approximately 5:00 p.m. on December 18, 2024, a Union Pacific freight train traveling through Pecos, Texas — the Reeves County seat, population about 13,000, sitting on the eastern edge of the Permian Basin about 200 miles east of El Paso — collided with a tractor-trailer that was stopped on the railroad tracks at a grade crossing near U.S. Highway 285 and Dot Stafford Street.
Video evidence confirmed what witnesses described: the tractor-trailer, which was carrying a large cylinder, was stationary on the crossing when the train struck it. The impact ripped the trailer from the tractor. The train derailed less than a block away and crashed into the Pecos Chamber of Commerce building. Two Union Pacific employees were killed. Three others suffered injuries — and the emergency services chief for Reeves County confirmed that some of those injured were inside the building when the train hit it.
Three rail cars were carrying hazardous materials — lithium-ion batteries and airbags. No chemical leak occurred. Diesel fuel from the locomotive spilled but was contained. The city manager said there was no current threat to the public. The building was damaged badly enough that officials advised no one to enter until a structural engineer could inspect it.
The NTSB dispatched an investigation team. Pecos police said cleanup was underway. And the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen — the union that represents the engineers who run those trains — issued a statement calling the derailment “a reminder that much more needs to be done to make railroading safer” and “a wake-up call to legislators to improve rail safety.”
That is what happened. What follows is what it means — legally, practically, and financially — for the families who are living it.
FELA: The Federal Law That Protects Railroad Workers — and the Reason Your Case Is Nothing Like Ordinary Workers’ Compensation
If your husband, wife, son, daughter, or parent was one of the two Union Pacific employees killed on that train, the most important thing you can learn right now is this: railroad workers are not covered by workers’ compensation. They are covered by a federal law called the Federal Employers’ Liability Act — FELA — and it is fundamentally different from the system that governs almost every other worker in America.
FELA, codified at 45 U.S.C. §§ 51 through 60, is a fault-based federal tort remedy. That means the railroad is not automatically liable just because the worker was on the job — but the standard for proving fault is the most plaintiff-friendly in American injury law, and the damages are full tort damages, not a benefit schedule.
The Liability Spine: “In Whole or in Part”
The core of FELA is a single phrase in 45 U.S.C. § 51. The railroad is liable if the worker’s injury or death resulted:
“in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment.”
Read that carefully. “In whole or in part.” Not “primarily.” Not “proximately.” Not “the sole cause.” Any part. Even the slightest.
The Supreme Court confirmed this in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500 (1957), and reaffirmed it as recently as 2011 in CSX Transportation, Inc. v. McBride, 564 U.S. 685 — a case in which the Court held that FELA does not incorporate common-law proximate cause. The proper jury instruction is that the railroad is liable if its negligence “played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury.” That is the lowest causation standard in American injury law.
For the families of the two crew members killed in Pecos, this means: you do not have to prove Union Pacific’s negligence was the cause of the deaths. You have to prove it played any part. Theories that could satisfy this standard include:
- Inadequate grade-crossing warning systems at the Dot Stafford Street crossing — whether gates, lights, and bells were present, functioning, and adequate for the crossing’s geometry and traffic volume
- Excessive train speed for the crossing conditions in a municipal core where rail lines intersect with local roads near downtown businesses
- Failure to sound audible warnings — the train’s horn and bell activation timeline, preserved in the event recorder
- Deficient crew training on crossing-hazard response and emergency braking procedures
- Failure to maintain safe track and signal infrastructure — FRA regulations under 49 CFR Part 234 govern grade-crossing signal system safety, and 49 CFR Part 213 governs track safety standards
- Failure to address known crossing-conflict exposure — the combination of oilfield truck traffic and freight rail operations through Pecos has been flagged as a recurring hazard
Contributory Negligence Reduces — But Never Bars
Under 45 U.S.C. § 53, even if the injured worker was partly at fault, the railroad still pays. The worker’s own negligence only reduces the recovery in proportion to their share of fault — it never bars it. This is pure comparative fault, not the modified system Texas uses for ordinary negligence cases.
And there is a critical accelerator: if the railroad violated any statute enacted for the safety of employees, the worker’s own contributory negligence is completely wiped off the board. Damages are not reduced at all. If Union Pacific violated an FRA safety regulation — a signal system requirement, a track maintenance standard, an hours-of-service rule — the families’ recovery is not diminished by any argument that the crew should have done something differently.
Assumption of Risk Is Abolished
45 U.S.C. § 54 flatly eliminates the defense that the worker “knew the job was dangerous.” The railroad cannot escape liability by pointing to the inherent hazards of railroading. Congress abolished that defense more than a century ago.
The Railroad Cannot Make You Sign Away These Rights
45 U.S.C. § 55 voids any contract, rule, or device designed to exempt the railroad from FELA liability. If a claim agent shows up at the hospital or at the family’s home with a release — or if the railroad’s human resources department pushes paperwork in the hours after the death — that document is legally worthless if its purpose was to shield the carrier. Preserve it. Preserve the agent’s name. Preserve the timeline. It may become evidence of its own.
The Deadline: Three Years, Not Two
FELA gives you three years from the date the cause of action accrued to file suit — longer than Texas’s two-year wrongful death statute. But do not confuse the two. The FELA deadline is a hard federal deadline. Missing it ends the case, no matter how strong the evidence is.
Full Tort Damages — No Cap
FELA recovery is not limited to a workers’ compensation benefit schedule. The families can recover everything an ordinary wrongful death case would include: past and future lost earnings and earning capacity, full medical expenses, pain and suffering, loss of care and companionship, and funeral costs — subject only to comparative-fault reduction under § 53. There is no statutory cap on FELA damages.
You Choose the Courthouse
FELA gives the worker — or the family — the choice of forum. You can file in state court or federal court, and if you choose state court, the railroad generally cannot remove the case to federal court. This is a strategic decision that experienced FELA counsel makes based on the judge, the jury pool, and the local legal culture. In a case arising in Reeves County, the question of whether to file in a rural West Texas state court or in federal court is one of the first strategic choices that shapes the entire case.
Who Can Be Held Accountable: The Defendant Structure
This is not a single-defendant case. A train-truck collision that kills two railroad employees, derails a freight train, and sends rail cars into a commercial building creates multiple layers of potential liability — and the families’ recovery depends on identifying and pursuing every responsible party.
Union Pacific Railroad
Union Pacific is the operating railroad and the employer of the two deceased crew members. As the largest Class I freight railroad in the United States by revenue, UP maintains extensive insurance coverage, deep corporate assets, and a dedicated claims and litigation department. They are the FELA defendant for the deceased workers’ families. They are also a potential common-law negligence defendant for the people injured inside the Chamber of Commerce building — because a train that derails and crashes into a building after striking an obstruction on the tracks raises questions about the railroad’s own role in the sequence.
The Unidentified Tractor-Trailer Operating Entity
The tractor-trailer that was stopped on the tracks is the origin of the entire collision. Video evidence confirms it was stationary on the crossing when the train struck it. The operating entity has not been publicly identified — and that identification is the first priority.
The vehicle was carrying a large cylinder in the Permian Basin corridor. U.S. Highway 285 is the major north-south arterial that carries heavy commercial and oilfield truck traffic through Reeves County, connecting Interstate 20 at Pecos southward toward the Delaware Basin oilfields. A large cylinder on that highway in that corridor suggests possible oilfield-services or industrial-gas carrier involvement — which means the trucking entity may be subject to FMCSA regulations governing driver qualification, hours of service, vehicle maintenance, cargo securement, and electronic logging device compliance, and may carry elevated minimum financial responsibility requirements if the cargo was hazardous.
Identifying this defendant requires pulling DOT registration databases, the cylinder’s shipper and consignee records, and any oilfield-services connection. This must happen before the evidence trail and the insurance trail dissipate.
Potentially the Shipper or Broker
If the large cylinder cargo or its transport logistics contributed to the vehicle being stopped on the tracks — if a dispatcher routed the driver through a crossing with inadequate queue storage, or if the load was configured in a way that prevented the truck from clearing the crossing — the shipper or broker may face vicarious liability through dispatch or load-planning control.
Potentially the Crossing Design or Maintenance Authority
Grade crossings in rural West Texas towns frequently lack gated barriers and may have limited sight lines. The Federal Railroad Administration has studied this hazard category through its Grade Crossing Safety Action Plan. If the Dot Stafford Street crossing lacked adequate warning devices — gates, lights, bells — or had insufficient queue storage space between the road and the tracks for a tractor-trailer to fully clear, the crossing design or maintenance authority (which could be the railroad, a public road authority, or both) may share responsibility. The question of whether the truck was on the tracks because the driver was negligent or because the crossing physically did not provide enough room to clear is central to the liability analysis.
For families searching for an 18-wheeler accident attorney who can handle the trucking side of this collision, or who need a lawyer who understands the specific hazards of Permian Basin oilfield truck traffic on U.S. 285, the trucking defendant’s identification and the crossing’s design history are the two threads that must be pulled first.
The Evidence Clock: What Is Disappearing Right Now in Pecos
Every case involving a train-truck collision lives or dies on electronic and physical evidence that has a legally limited shelf life. The railroad controls some of it. The trucking company controls some of it. The NTSB is actively remediating the scene — and in doing so, may be altering the physical evidence. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can legally die.
The Train’s Event Recorder — The Locomotive Black Box
The locomotive’s event recorder captured the train’s speed, braking application, horn activation, throttle position, and emergency brake timing in the moments before impact. This data is central to every FELA negligence theory against Union Pacific. UP controls this data. The FRA requires retention, but data-management practices vary. A preservation letter must go out immediately to lock this data down before it is overwritten or “serviced” out of existence.
The Tractor-Trailer’s ELD and Engine ECM Data
The truck’s Electronic Logging Device and Engine Control Module captured the vehicle’s speed, braking, GPS position, and driver hours-of-service compliance at the time of the incident. This data establishes why and how the truck stopped on the tracks. Federal law only requires the carrier to retain records of duty status for six months under 49 CFR § 395.8(k) — but the ECM data on the vehicle itself can be overwritten far faster, sometimes within days or weeks depending on the carrier’s configuration. The vehicle may be sitting in an impound lot or salvage yard right now, and every day it sits there without a preservation demand, the data inside it is at risk.
The Grade Crossing Signal System Logs
Whether the crossing signals activated, whether gate arms (if any) descended, whether bells and lights functioned — this is recorded in the signal system’s event logs. These logs may auto-purge on short cycles. And the crossing itself may be repaired or modified during the NTSB’s remediation work, altering the physical evidence of what was there on December 18. If the signal logs and the physical crossing configuration are not preserved, the question of whether the warning systems were adequate becomes far harder to answer.
Surveillance and Dash-Camera Video
Video already shared with a television station confirms the collision was recorded. But additional camera angles — from nearby businesses, vehicles, and the crossing itself — may show the truck’s approach, its stopping sequence, and the signal activation timing. Private CCTV systems typically overwrite on 7-to-30-day cycles. Doorbell cameras and business cameras near the crossing must be identified and preserved immediately. Every day that passes is a day closer to automatic erasure.
The Truck Driver’s Qualification File, Drug Test Results, and Cell Phone Records
Federal law under 49 CFR § 382.303 requires post-accident drug and alcohol testing when a crash involves a fatality. For alcohol, the testing window closes at 8 hours — after that, the carrier must document why no test was done. For controlled substances, the window closes at 32 hours. If the test was never done, that absence is itself evidence.
The driver’s qualification file — required under 49 CFR Part 391 — contains the employment application, motor vehicle records, road test certificate, annual reviews, and medical examiner’s certificate. This file must be retained for as long as the driver is employed plus three years. Cell phone records can reveal distracted driving — cell phone activity near 5:00 p.m. on December 18 is discoverable, but records require prompt preservation demands to carriers.
Union Pacific Dispatch Communications and Track Warrants
The train’s routing, speed restrictions for the Pecos corridor, dispatch awareness of crossing conditions, and any prior hazard reports for this specific crossing are recorded in UP’s dispatch communications. Radio recordings may be retained on short cycles. Dispatch logs must be preserved through an immediate litigation hold.
The NTSB Investigation — What It Means and What It Does Not Mean
The NTSB has dispatched a team under its independent statutory authority. Here is what families need to understand about the NTSB investigation — and this is something most people get wrong:
The NTSB’s probable cause finding will never be shown to a jury. Federal law — 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b) — prohibits any part of an NTSB report from being admitted into evidence in a civil action for damages. The agency’s conclusion about who or what caused the crash is locked out of the courtroom.
But the factual findings can come in. Under 49 CFR § 835.3, NTSB employees may testify about factual information they obtained during the investigation — the raw measurements, the recorder data, the physical evidence. The conclusion is off-limits; the facts are not.
And the NTSB investigation is not the families’ investigation. As the NTSB’s own regulations state, its investigations are “not conducted for the purpose of determining the rights, liabilities, or blame of any person or entity.” The NTSB serves the public safety mission — preventing the next crash. It does not serve the legal interests of the families who lost someone in this one.
This means the families need independent counsel conducting a parallel evidence-preservation and causation analysis from day one. The NTSB preliminary report typically issues within weeks. The full factual report may take months. Do not wait for the NTSB to tell you what happened before acting — by then, the evidence that a private lawyer needs may be legally gone.
What This Case Is Worth: An Honest Valuation
Every case is different, and the value of any specific claim depends on facts that are still being developed — the ages and earnings of the deceased workers, their dependents, whether consciousness persisted after impact, the severity of the three injuries, the identification and insurance posture of the trucking entity, and how comparative negligence is allocated across multiple defendants.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
With that said, the structure of this case creates a range that is knowable now.
The Two FELA Wrongful Death Claims
These are the core value drivers. Railroad engineers and conductors earn substantial union-scale wages with long career arcs. A FELA wrongful death and survival claim captures: lost future earnings and earning capacity, loss of consortium and parental guidance for surviving family members, pre-death pain and suffering if consciousness persisted after impact, and funeral expenses — all uncapped under FELA.
The mechanism of death — a high-energy train-to-trailer collision followed by a derailment — suggests massive blunt-force trauma. Forensic pathology will be critical to establishing the duration of any pre-death consciousness, which drives the survival damages. If the crew members survived the initial impact even briefly, the survival claim carries its own significant value on top of the wrongful death claim.
Depending on the decedents’ ages, earnings, dependents, and pre-death consciousness evidence, each FELA claim could range from $2 million to $10 million or more. FELA’s plaintiff-friendly “any part” standard and Union Pacific’s deep-pocket status support substantial recovery.
The Three Personal Injury Claims
The three injured persons were described by police as having “minor injuries.” That classification should not deter anyone from obtaining independent medical evaluation. Police classifications routinely underestimate soft-tissue injuries, cervical acceleration-deceleration trauma, closed-head injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorder — all of which can manifest after the acute phase. Occupants of the Chamber of Commerce building may present structural-collision trauma, dust and debris inhalation exposure, and PTSD from a train crashing through their workplace wall. These claims add value that police shorthand does not capture.
Third-Party Claims Against the Trucking Entity
The unidentified trucking company provides an additional layer of recovery — separate from the FELA claims against UP. If discovery reveals that the driver knowingly stopped on active tracks, or that the carrier had a pattern of dispatching loads through crossings with inadequate queue storage, punitive damages may be available under Texas gross negligence standards. Once policy limits and liability clarity are established, Texas’s Stowers framework — which creates bad-faith exposure for an insurer that refuses a reasonable settlement within policy limits — becomes a leverage tool.
The Overall Range
Based on the structure of this case — two FELA wrongful death claims against a deep-pocket Class I railroad, three personal injury claims, and third-party claims against a trucking entity with potential punitive exposure — the aggregate case value could range from $5 million on the low end to $25 million or more on the high end. The low end assumes significant comparative fault allocation and minimal survival damages. The high end assumes clear trucking-entity negligence, full FELA recovery, and punitive damages.
For families seeking a wrongful death claim lawyer who understands both the FELA framework and the third-party liability structure, the critical first step is understanding that the value of the case is not fixed — it is built, piece by piece, from the evidence that is preserved in the first days and weeks.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Are Already Doing
Within hours of the crash, Union Pacific’s claims department opened a file. If the trucking company has been identified, its insurer did the same. Here is what they are doing right now — and what the families need to be prepared to counter.
Play 1: The “Just Checking In” Call
Someone friendly will call the family. The tone will be warm, concerned, casual. They will say they just want to “check on you” and ask you to “tell us what happened” — on a recording. Everything you say will be transcribed and analyzed for any phrase that can be used to minimize or deny the claim. A sentence like “I think the truck was already stuck when the train came” becomes “the family concedes the truck was disabled and the railroad had no opportunity to avoid the collision.”
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement to any railroad representative, railroad investigator, trucking company insurer, or third-party claims administrator. You are not required to. Anything you say will be used against you. If they call, take their number and say an attorney will be in touch.
Play 2: The Fast Settlement Check
A check may arrive quickly — sometimes before the funeral. It will come with a release document. The release, once signed, extinguishes the family’s right to pursue the full claim. The amount on the check will be a fraction of what the case is worth. The adjuster’s goal is to close the file before the family has counsel and before the full extent of the damages is known.
The counter: Do not sign anything from any insurance company, railroad, or trucking entity without having it reviewed by an attorney. A release signed in grief is still a release. FELA’s anti-waiver provision (45 U.S.C. § 55) may void certain releases designed to shield the railroad — but the family should never rely on that protection when the simpler move is to not sign in the first place.
Play 3: The “Minor Injuries” Minimization
For the three injured persons, the “minor injuries” classification by police is already being used by insurers to value the claims at the lowest possible figure. The adjuster will point to the police report and say the injuries were minor, the hospital visit was brief, the person was treated and released.
The counter: Police classifications are made at the scene, often by officers who are not medical professionals and who are focused on scene management, not clinical assessment. Independent medical evaluation — by a doctor the family chooses, not one the insurer selects — is the answer. Delayed-onset injuries are common in structural-collision events. A person who walked away from a building that was hit by a train may have a closed-head injury, a cervical injury, or post-traumatic stress that does not fully declare itself for weeks.
Play 4: The Comparative Fault Blame-Shift
The railroad will argue that the truck was on the tracks, not the train — so the trucking company is at fault, not UP. The trucking company will argue that the crossing was inadequately designed, so the crossing authority is at fault. The crossing authority may argue that the truck driver should not have stopped on the tracks. Each defendant points at the others.
The counter: Under FELA, this blame-shifting does not help the railroad. The “any part” standard means UP is liable if its negligence contributed in any way — inadequate signals, excessive speed, failure to sound warnings. Under Texas’s modified comparative negligence (51% bar), each third-party defendant’s share of fault is apportioned, but the families’ recovery is reduced, not eliminated, by fault allocated to others. The key is identifying every defendant and proving each one’s specific contribution.
Play 5: The “Independent Contractor” Dodge
If the trucking entity tries to characterize the driver as an independent contractor to escape liability, federal leasing regulations under 49 CFR § 376.12 provide a counter: when a carrier leases on a driver and equipment, the law makes that carrier take exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease — it cannot simply wave the driver off as “just a contractor.”
The Medicine: What a High-Energy Train Collision Does to the Human Body
The mechanism of death in this incident — a freight train traveling at track speed colliding with a stationary tractor-trailer, followed by derailment and collision with a building — produces forces that the human body is not engineered to survive. The senior trial lawyer writing this has worked cases involving the physics of catastrophic collisions, and here is what the evidence will show, in plain language.
The Crew: Massive Blunt-Force Trauma
A freight train weighs thousands of tons. When it strikes a large obstruction on the tracks — a tractor-trailer carrying a heavy cylinder — the energy transfer is enormous. The trailer is ripped from the tractor. The locomotive absorbs the impact force. The crew, inside the cab, experiences violent deceleration. If the derailment follows — and it did, less than a block away — the locomotive and cars leave the rails, and the crew compartment may overturn, strike objects, or be penetrated by displaced equipment.
The mechanism suggests massive blunt-force trauma: head and cervical spine injury from deceleration and impact, crush injury from cab deformation, thermal injury risk if diesel fuel ignites, and internal organ rupture from blunt force. Forensic pathology will determine whether consciousness persisted after the initial impact — and for how long. That duration, even if measured in seconds or minutes, drives the survival claim’s value.
The Building Occupants: Structural-Collision Trauma
The people inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce were at their desks, in meetings, going about their workday, when a derailed freight train came through the wall. The injuries in this category include:
- Blunt trauma from flying debris, structural collapse, and being thrown by the impact
- Dust and particulate inhalation from demolished building materials — a concern for anyone with respiratory conditions
- Closed-head injury — a person whose head strikes a desk, wall, or floor may have a concussion or worse, and the symptoms may not appear immediately
- Post-traumatic stress disorder — a train crashing through your workplace wall is a qualifying traumatic event under the DSM-5 criteria for PTSD, and the symptoms can persist for months or years
- Cervical acceleration-deceleration injury — the “whiplash” mechanism from being suddenly thrown by the building impact
The police classification of “minor injuries” should not be accepted as the final medical word. Independent evaluation is the answer.
Pecos, the Permian Basin, and Why This Crossing Was Dangerous
Pecos sits on the eastern edge of the Permian Basin — the most productive oilfield in the United States. U.S. Highway 285, which runs right through Pecos past the Dot Stafford Street crossing, is the major north-south arterial carrying heavy commercial and oilfield truck traffic from Interstate 20 southward toward the Delaware Basin oilfields. Anyone who drives that corridor knows the truck traffic. Anyone who lives in Pecos knows the trains.
The crossing at Dot Stafford Street is in the municipal core of Pecos — where rail lines intersect with local roads near downtown businesses, including the Chamber of Commerce building that the train hit. Grade crossings in rural West Texas towns frequently lack gated barriers. They may have limited sight lines. The Federal Railroad Administration has studied this exact hazard category through its Grade Crossing Safety Action Plan, and the combination of oilfield truck traffic and freight rail operations through Pecos creates a recurring crossing-conflict exposure that local authorities have previously flagged in regional transportation planning documents.
That context matters for the legal case. A crossing that sits on a highway carrying oilfield trucks through a town where freight trains run — a crossing that may lack gates, may have limited queue storage for tractor-trailers, and may have been the subject of prior safety concerns — is not a crossing where a collision is an unforeseeable accident. It is a crossing where the hazard was knowable, and where the question of whether the railroad, the road authority, or both should have done more is a question a jury should answer.
The tractor-trailer was carrying a large cylinder. In the Permian Basin corridor, that cargo suggests oilfield-services or industrial-gas carrier involvement. For families who have worked in the oilfield, or who have lost someone to oilfield commercial truck accidents in the Permian Basin, the connection between the highway, the oilfield traffic, and the crossing is not theoretical. It is the daily reality of living and working in Reeves County.
The Stowers Demand: A Texas Tool the Trucking Insurer Fears
Once the trucking company is identified and its policy limits are known, Texas law gives the families a powerful tool that most states do not: the Stowers doctrine.
Under Texas’s excess-liability framework, if the family’s attorney presents a reasonable settlement demand within the trucking company’s policy limits, and the insurer refuses — and a jury later awards more than the policy limits — the insurer itself may be liable for the excess. The insurer’s own refusal to settle a case it should have settled becomes the family’s leverage to force the full policy limits, and potentially more.
This is not a theory. It is a Texas legal doctrine that changes the economics of every trucking case. The adjuster knows it. The defense lawyer knows it. And the family’s lawyer uses it — by structuring a Stowers demand that is reasonable enough to trigger the duty, and clear enough that a refusal creates bad-faith exposure.
Your First 72 Hours: A Roadmap for the Families
If you are reading this in the days after December 18, 2024, here is what should happen — in order — to protect your family’s rights.
Hour 1 to Hour 24: Medical First
If you were injured — whether you were on the train or in the building — get a full medical evaluation. Not a “I’m fine” walk-through. A real examination, by a doctor who documents everything. Symptoms lie in the first 24 hours. Concussions, cervical injuries, internal bleeding, and post-traumatic stress can all declare themselves after the adrenaline fades. The medical record created in the first 24 hours is also the strongest evidence that the injury was caused by the crash — not by something that happened weeks later.
Hour 24 to Hour 48: Freeze the Evidence
A preservation letter — a formal demand that the railroad, the trucking company, and any other potential defendant lock down all relevant evidence — should go out within the first 48 hours. This letter names every record, every device, every video feed, every log, every dispatch recording, and every physical piece of equipment that captured or was involved in the collision. Once the letter is on file, any subsequent destruction of evidence creates a spoliation argument — the jury can be told that the lost evidence would have been unfavorable to the party who destroyed it.
The fastest-dying evidence — surveillance video, the truck’s ECM data, the crossing signal logs — drives the urgency. The preservation letter is the only thing that stops the clock.
Hour 48 to Hour 72: Identify the Defendants
The trucking entity must be identified. DOT registration databases, the large cylinder’s shipper and consignee, and any oilfield-services connection are the leads. The trucking company’s insurance filings — available through FMCSA’s Licensing and Insurance database — will show whether the carrier carries the federal minimum ($750,000 for general freight, $1 million for certain hazardous materials, $5 million for the most dangerous bulk hazmat) or higher voluntary limits.
Do not talk to the trucking company’s insurer. Do not talk to Union Pacific’s claims representative. Do not post about the crash on social media. Do not sign anything. Let a lawyer do the talking, the demanding, and the identifying — while you take care of your family.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the families of the Union Pacific workers sue the railroad?
Yes — under FELA, the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, the families of railroad employees killed on the job can sue the railroad directly. The railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in the death. This is a federal claim with a three-year statute of limitations and no cap on damages.
What if the trucking company says the driver was an independent contractor?
Federal leasing regulations under 49 CFR § 376.12 make the carrier that leases on a driver and equipment take exclusive possession, control, and use of that equipment — the carrier cannot simply disclaim responsibility by labeling the driver a contractor. The law put the carrier in control of the truck, and the carrier is responsible for what happened with it.
How long do the families have to file a claim?
For the FELA claims (the deceased Union Pacific employees), the deadline is three years from the date of death under 45 U.S.C. § 56. For third-party claims against the trucking company (including claims by the building occupants), Texas’s wrongful death and personal injury statute of limitations is generally two years. But the evidence that wins the case — the video, the recorder data, the signal logs — dies far faster than the legal deadline. The deadline to sue is years; the deadline to save the proof is days to weeks.
The police said the injuries were “minor” — does that mean the injury claims are small?
No. Police classifications are made at the scene by officers focused on traffic control and scene management, not by medical professionals performing clinical assessments. Soft-tissue injuries, closed-head injuries, cervical injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorder frequently do not appear in the first hours. Independent medical evaluation by a doctor the family chooses — not one the insurer selects — is the way to document the true extent of the harm.
Can the people who were inside the Chamber of Commerce building sue?
Yes. The people injured inside the building are third-party victims of the derailment. Their claims run against the trucking company for creating the track obstruction and against Union Pacific for the derailment sequence. The proximate cause argument is grounded in the foreseeability of derailment when a train strikes a large obstruction at a crossing. A train that derails and crashes into a building is not an unforeseeable consequence of a train hitting a tractor-trailer stopped on the tracks.
Will the NTSB investigation determine who is at fault?
No — and this is one of the most important things to understand. The NTSB’s probable cause finding is inadmissible in civil litigation under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b). The NTSB investigation serves the public safety mission, not the legal interests of the families. The NTSB’s factual findings (measurements, recorder data, physical evidence) can be used, but its conclusions cannot. The families need independent counsel conducting a parallel investigation.
What if the crossing didn’t have gates?
If the Dot Stafford Street crossing lacked gated barriers — or if the signal system was inadequate for the crossing’s geometry, traffic volume, and the presence of heavy oilfield truck traffic on U.S. 285 — that is a negligence theory against Union Pacific (under FELA for the workers, and under common law for the building occupants) and potentially against the crossing design or maintenance authority. The FRA has studied this hazard category through its Grade Crossing Safety Action Plan, and the combination of oilfield truck traffic and freight rail through Pecos has been flagged as a recurring crossing-conflict exposure.
How much is this case worth?
The aggregate value of all claims arising from this collision — two FELA wrongful death claims, three personal injury claims, and third-party claims against the trucking entity — could range from $5 million to $25 million or more, depending on the decedents’ ages and earnings, the severity of the injuries, the trucking entity’s identification and insurance, and whether punitive damages are available. Every case is different. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Do we have to pay a lawyer upfront?
No. We work on contingency. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. We front the costs of the investigation — the preservation letters, the expert witnesses, the accident reconstruction, the life-care planning — and those costs are repaid from the recovery.
The railroad already called us. What should we do?
Take their name and number. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not sign anything. Do not discuss the crash, the worker’s routine, the crew’s schedule, or anything else. Everything you say will be recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for phrases that can be used to minimize or deny the claim. Tell them an attorney will be in touch. Then call one.
Why Attorney911
Ralph P. Manginello is the Managing Partner of our firm. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27+ years of trial practice, including admission to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he asks questions for a living and writes to be understood. 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. Ralph’s full background is here.
Lupe Peña is our Associate Attorney. He was licensed in Texas in 2012 — 13+ years of practice, including federal court admission. Before he joined this firm, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like the families reading this page. He knows how claims are valued from the inside — the reserve-setting, the IME-doctor selection, the surveillance, the delay tactics. Now he uses that knowledge for injured clients. And Lupe is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Lupe’s full background is here.
We are a contingency firm. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. We have live staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service. When you call, you reach people who can help you right now.
If You Are Reading This at 2 a.m.
You are probably sitting at a kitchen table, or in a hospital waiting room, or in a house that is quieter than it was two days ago. The folder of papers the railroad gave you is in front of you. The phone keeps buzzing with calls from people who say they are “just checking in.” And somewhere in Pecos, the crossing is being repaired, the truck is in a lot, the recorder data is sitting on a server, and the clock on all of it is running.
None of this is going to slow down for you. The grief will take the time it takes. The evidence will not.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. We will tell you, honestly, whether we are the right firm for you — and if we are not, we will tell you who is.
Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña conducts full consultations in Spanish, without an interpreter, and our bilingual staff is here for your family.
The page you just read is legal information, not legal advice. But the decision to call — that is yours, and the sooner you make it, the more evidence there is to save.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.