When a Highway Takes Someone You Love in West Texas
You are reading this because someone you love did not come home. Maybe your husband did not survive the wreck. Maybe your wife is in a hospital bed in Lubbock with broken ribs and a head injury, and the doctors say she will recover, but the word “recovery” feels like it belongs to a different universe from the one you are living in right now. Maybe you are sitting in a hospital waiting room, or at a kitchen table at 2 a.m., and you are starting to realize that the legal clock is already running even though the funeral has not happened yet and your loved one cannot have visitors.
We know this moment. Not because we have read about it, but because we have sat across the table from families in it, here in Texas, for decades. The first thing we want you to know is this: the fact that you are looking for information right now, while everything is still raw, means you are already doing the right thing. The second thing is harder: the evidence that will determine what happened to your family is already disappearing. Not in two years, when the statute of limitations runs. In days. In weeks. The skid marks are already fading. The dashcam footage is already overwriting itself. The vehicle that carried your loved ones is sitting in a tow yard, and if it gets salvaged, the most important witness to the crash — the car’s own black box — dies with it.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle wrongful death claims and catastrophic car accident cases across Texas. This page is not a sales pitch. It is the information we would want our own family to have if they were sitting where you are sitting right now — the law, the medicine, the evidence clocks, the insurance playbook, and the honest truth about what a case like this is worth and what you need to do in the next 72 hours to protect it.
What Happened on That West Texas Highway
Here is what we know from public reporting: A retired Smith County judge and her husband were driving back from New Mexico toward East Texas when their vehicle was involved in a collision somewhere in West Texas. The crash occurred during the week of approximately January 22, 2026. Her husband did not survive. She was transported to a Lubbock hospital with broken ribs and a head injury. Family representatives have said she is expected to make a full recovery, though she will require a lengthy rehabilitation, and she cannot receive visitors at this point in her healing process. Funeral arrangements for her husband are pending.
Here is what we do not yet know: the specific highway where the crash occurred, the county, the weather conditions at the time, whether other vehicles were involved, whether a commercial truck played a role, and what caused the collision. That information lives in the Texas DPS crash report — the CR-3 — which is typically available 5 to 14 days after the wreck. Until that report is obtained and the scene is investigated, the family does not have the answer to the most important question: who is responsible, and can they be held accountable?
That gap — between what happened and what can be proven — is where a case is won or lost. And the evidence that fills that gap is perishable in ways most families never imagine.
Texas Wrongful Death Law: Who Can File and What Can Be Recovered
Texas law gives surviving family members a legal claim when someone’s wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, or default causes the death of a loved one. This is the Texas Wrongful Death Act, and it is the foundation of every fatal-crash case in this state.
The Texas Wrongful Death Act permits surviving spouses, children, and parents to recover for the death of a family member caused by another’s wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default.
Who can bring the claim: a surviving spouse, children (including adult children), and parents. If none of these statutory beneficiaries file a claim within three months of the death, the executor or administrator of the estate may file the claim on behalf of the family — unless the family directs the executor not to. This means the right to sue belongs to the family first, and the estate only steps in if they do not act.
What can be recovered: the loss of the deceased’s earning capacity (what they would have earned and contributed over their remaining working life, including retirement benefits and pension acceleration), the loss of care, maintenance, support, and services the deceased would have provided, the loss of companionship and society — the love, guidance, and presence that no receipt can price — mental anguish suffered by the survivors, and the loss of inheritance (what the deceased would have left to their family had they lived a normal lifespan). Funeral and burial expenses are also recoverable.
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence system with a 51% bar. This means your family can recover even if your loved one was partly at fault for the crash — as long as they were not 51% or more at fault. If they were, say, 20% at fault, the recovery is reduced by 20% but is not eliminated. Every percentage point the other side tries to pin on your loved one is money, which is exactly why the insurance company works so hard to shift blame — and why the evidence that proves what really happened matters so much.
The statute of limitations for both wrongful death and personal injury in Texas is generally two years from the date of the incident. Two years sounds like a long time when you are standing in a hospital corridor. It is not. The evidence that decides the case will be mostly gone within six months, and some of it will be gone within days. The two-year deadline is the back wall. The front wall — the one that actually matters — is measured in weeks.
The Two Cases Inside One Death: Wrongful Death and Survival Actions
When someone is killed in a crash, Texas law opens two separate doors, not one. Most families only know about one. The insurance company is perfectly happy to keep it that way.
The first door is the wrongful death action. This belongs to the surviving family members — the spouse, the children, the parents. It compensates the family for what they lost: the companionship, the financial support, the guidance, the presence. The mental anguish of a spouse who lost their partner of decades is compensable here. The lost inheritance is compensable here. The funeral costs are compensable here.
The second door is the survival action. This belongs to the estate of the person who died. It preserves the claims the deceased person would have had if they had survived — the pain and suffering they experienced between the moment of injury and the moment of death, the medical expenses incurred before death, and funeral expenses. If your loved one survived for hours or days after the crash before dying, the survival action captures what they endured. If death was immediate, the survival action may be smaller, but it still exists, and it still matters.
A defense lawyer is happy to let a grieving family walk through only one door. We make sure both are open. The survival action and the wrongful death action are separate claims with separate damages, and both must be pleaded and preserved. Failing to bring the survival action means leaving money on the table — money that represents the suffering your loved one experienced before they died.
The Evidence Clock: What Disappears in Days, Not Years
This is the section that matters most, and it is the section most families never read in time. The statute of limitations gives you two years. The evidence gives you days. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it legally dies.
The DPS CR-3 crash report. Texas DPS is the primary investigating agency for fatal highway crashes. The CR-3 identifies all involved parties, vehicles, road conditions, witness identities, a preliminary causation assessment, and any citations issued. It is the foundational document for the entire case. It is typically available 5 to 14 days after the crash. The family can request it through DPS as soon as it is available. Without it, you do not know who was involved, what the officer concluded, or where to begin the investigation.
The Event Data Recorder — the vehicle’s black box. Nearly every car built in the last decade carries a recorder that, by federal definition, activates the instant a crash changes the vehicle’s speed by even five miles per hour. It captures what happened in the seconds before impact: how fast the car was traveling, whether the driver was on the gas or the brake, whether the seatbelt was buckled, and the exact force of the collision. If the airbags deployed, federal law requires that recording to be locked — it cannot be overwritten. If the airbags did not deploy, the recording can be erased the next time the car is driven hard. And if the vehicle is salvaged, crushed, or sold for parts, the recording dies with it. The physical module must be located and imaged by a trained expert with the right forensic tools before the car is released from the tow yard.
Scene evidence. Skid marks, gouge marks in the pavement, the debris field, the final resting positions of the vehicles — these tell the story of the crash dynamics, the point of impact, the angles of collision, and whether anyone took evasive action. The scene is already remediated. The only record of it lives in the investigating officer’s photographs and measurements. Those must be obtained from DPS immediately.
Dashcam and surveillance footage. West Texas highways increasingly carry dashcam density because of the oilfield traffic — commercial vehicles, service trucks, and company fleets often run cameras. Footage from a passing vehicle or a nearby business may have captured the collision itself or the conditions that contributed to it. Vehicle dashcams typically overwrite on a 24-to-72-hour cycle. Commercial surveillance systems may hold footage for 7 to 30 days. Preservation letters must go out within days, not months.
Cell phone records. If another driver’s distraction contributed to the crash — texting, calling, scrolling — the phone records prove it. But carrier retention policies vary, and preservation letters must go out promptly. A subpoena for production follows. The records that show a text was being composed at the exact moment of impact are the records the at-fault driver’s insurance company prays you never obtain.
Medical records. For the surviving spouse: the Lubbock hospital records document the injury mechanism, severity, treatment course, complications, and prognosis. They establish the causal link between the collision and the injuries. They also create the baseline for head-injury monitoring — even with an expected full recovery, traumatic brain injuries can produce delayed symptom onset, and the medical record must document cognitive function now for comparison against any future decline. These records are being created now, and they must be collected continuously as treatment continues.
Medical examiner or justice of the peace records. For the deceased: the autopsy and toxicology reports establish the cause and mechanism of death, whether death was immediate or delayed, and the injury pattern that informs both the crashworthiness analysis and the accident reconstruction. In West Texas, these records come from the applicable county justice of the peace or medical examiner’s office. Autopsy and toxicology reports are typically available within 30 to 90 days. They should be requested immediately.
Weather and road-condition data. West Texas dust storms, crosswinds, and ice are known hazards. Historical weather data from NOAA and the National Weather Service is archived indefinitely, but TxDOT maintenance logs for road conditions have limited retention. If weather or road maintenance played a role, those records must be requested early.
If a commercial vehicle was involved — and on West Texas return routes from New Mexico, that is a real possibility — an entirely separate set of evidence clocks start running. Federal law only requires a trucking company to keep its driver’s hours-of-service logs for six months. After that, the company can legally destroy them. The driver’s daily vehicle inspection reports — the documents that would show whether bad brakes or bald tires were already written up before the crash — only have to be kept for three months. The post-crash drug and alcohol testing that federal law requires after a fatal wreck must be attempted within 8 hours for alcohol and 32 hours for drugs — and if the company “couldn’t” get it done, they have to put in writing why. All of these records can be demanded, but only if someone demands them before the clock runs.
This is why the preservation letter goes out the day you call us, not the month you decide to file a lawsuit. The evidence that decides the case is on a timer, and the timer started the moment the vehicles stopped moving.
Head Injuries After Highway Collisions: Why “Full Recovery” Is Not the End of the Story
The family has been told to expect a full recovery. That is the hope, and we hold it with them. But the medical reality of a head injury after a highway collision is more complicated than the phrase “full recovery” suggests, and the legal case must account for that complexity from the very beginning.
Here is what the medical literature tells us about traumatic brain injury after a crash. The word “mild” in a brain injury diagnosis is a hospital triage word, not a promise. Doctors use the Glasgow Coma Scale — a 15-point scale — to grade severity. A patient who scores 13, 14, or 15 is classified as “mild.” But more than one-third of patients who score a 13 on that scale turn out to have life-threatening bleeding inside the skull. The word “mild” describes how the patient looked when they arrived, not what will happen to them over the next six months.
You do not have to lose consciousness to have a real brain injury. The medical standard the doctors themselves use is clear: feeling dazed, confused, or unable to remember the moments around the crash is, by definition, enough for the diagnosis. A line in the ER record that says “no loss of consciousness” does not mean no brain injury. It means the patient did not black out — and the absence of blacking out has never been the test.
A normal CT scan does not mean the brain is fine. 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 of nerve fibers that a standard scan was never designed to see. The brain does not have to strike the skull for this to happen. In a highway collision, the head undergoes rapid rotational and deceleration forces. The skull stops. The brain keeps moving inside it, twisting and stretching the white-matter tracts — the wiring that connects one region of the brain to another. Those fibers stretch, swell, and disconnect over hours to days. The damage is real. It is just invisible to the wrong camera.
Most concussions do heal in two weeks. But at least one in seven people with a mild brain injury never fully recovers. The headaches, the dizziness, the memory gaps, the personality changes, the short fuse, the inability to concentrate in a meeting or follow a conversation in a restaurant — for those people, “mild” becomes a life sentence. Some studies put the number of people with persisting symptoms at three months closer to 37%. The family may see it across the dinner table before any scan sees it — the word that is lost, the name that will not come, the appointment that was forgotten.
This is why a brain injury case requires neuropsychological testing early. A neuropsychologist establishes a baseline of cognitive function — memory, processing speed, executive function, attention — measured against age-matched norms. That baseline becomes the yardstick against which any future decline is measured. If the patient truly recovers fully, the baseline documents it. If they do not, the baseline proves the deficit is new, caused by the crash, and permanent.
The broken ribs add their own layer. Rib fractures are not just painful — they can cause pneumothorax (a collapsed lung), hemothorax (blood in the chest cavity), and pneumonia, especially in patients who cannot breathe deeply because of pain. The combination of rib fractures and a head injury is particularly dangerous: the rib pain limits mobility and deep breathing, which slows recovery from the head injury, while the cognitive effects of the head injury can make it harder for the patient to comply with respiratory treatment. The medical record must track both injury streams and their interaction.
A life-care planner may be needed if rehabilitation extends beyond the expected recovery period. A life-care plan is a formal medical-economic document, built to a published professional standard, that lays out every treatment, therapy, medication, and caregiver hour a person will need for the rest of their life, priced at real market rates. If the head injury produces lasting cognitive deficits, the life-care plan accounts for them. If the rib fractures produce chronic pain or respiratory compromise, the plan accounts for that too. A forensic economist then takes the life-care plan and reduces it to present value — the lump sum that, invested conservatively, would pay for all of it over the person’s remaining lifetime.
“Expected to make a full recovery” is the best possible news. But the legal case must be built for the possibility that the expectation is wrong, because by the time the family knows whether it is wrong, the evidence window will have closed.
West Texas Highways: The Corridors That Carry the Danger
The crash happened somewhere in West Texas, on a return route from New Mexico to Tyler. That geography is not a blank space on the map — it is a character in the story, and it shapes every part of the case.
The common return routes from New Mexico to East Texas traverse US 62/82, US 84, I-27, or I-20 through the South Plains and Permian Basin regions. These are highways built for distance, not for safety. They carry heavy oilfield-service truck traffic, agricultural freight, and long-haul freight at highway speeds. They have limited lighting. The EMS response times are long — in some counties, the nearest Level I trauma center is hours away by ground, which is why Lubbock’s trauma center serves as the regional referral destination for a catchment area spanning the South Plains and eastern New Mexico.
The isolation of these highways means that when a crash happens, the evidence is thinner. There may be fewer witnesses. The scene may be cleaned up before anyone photographs it thoroughly. The nearest hospital may be an hour away, which means the medical records start later and the golden hour for treatment is partially consumed by transport time. The nearest law enforcement may be a county sheriff’s deputy covering hundreds of square miles, not a city police officer who arrives in minutes.
West Texas rural highways are statistically overrepresented in fatal run-off-road and cross-centerline collisions. The reasons are well known to anyone who drives them: monotonous driving conditions that induce fatigue, long stretches without visual stimulation, the mixing of passenger vehicles with heavy commercial trucks at 75-mile-per-hour speed limits, and weather hazards that are unique to the region — dust storms that reduce visibility to zero in seconds, crosswinds that push high-profile vehicles across lanes, and ice that forms on bridges before it forms anywhere else.
If a commercial vehicle was involved, the case changes fundamentally. A fully loaded tractor-trailer can outweigh a passenger car by twenty to thirty times. In fatal crashes involving large trucks, about two of every three people killed are not in the truck — they are in the other vehicle. A loaded big rig at highway speed needs roughly the length of two football fields to come to a complete stop. When a trucker is fatigued, distracted, or following too closely, the laws of physics have already taken the choice away before the driver ever touches the brake.
The 18-wheeler accident practice exists because commercial vehicle crashes open a different defendant stack, a different evidence-preservation track, and a different coverage tower. If the DPS report shows a DOT-numbered carrier, the preservation letters must go out to the carrier, its insurer, and any telematics provider immediately — for the electronic logging device data, the GPS records, the driver qualification file, and the maintenance records. Each of those records has its own clock, and the shortest of them — the daily vehicle inspection report — can legally be destroyed in three months.
Who Could Be Responsible: The Defendant Map
Until the DPS crash report is obtained, the question of who is responsible is open. But the possible defendants fall into categories, and each category opens a different investigation track.
Another driver. If another vehicle caused or contributed to the collision — through speeding, lane departure, distracted driving, fatigue, failure to yield, or following too closely — that driver and their insurer are liable for the death and the injuries. Identification requires the DPS report and witness investigation. If the at-fault driver violated a specific Texas traffic law — failure to maintain a single lane, following too closely, driving on the wrong side of the roadway — the violation can establish duty and breach as a matter of law, leaving only causation and damages contested.
A commercial carrier. If a DOT-registered truck was involved, the carrier is vicariously liable for its driver’s negligence under respondeat superior. The carrier may also be directly liable for negligent hiring, retention, training, or supervision — especially if the driver’s qualification file shows a record the company should have caught. Federal minimum insurance for a general-freight interstate carrier is $750,000, rising to $1 million for oil and certain hazardous materials and $5 million for the most dangerous hazmat in bulk. Those are floors, not ceilings — many fleets carry far more.
A vehicle manufacturer. If a tire de-tread, brake failure, steering malfunction, or rollover roof-crush contributed to the collision or worsened the injury severity, strict liability claims against the vehicle or component manufacturer may apply. Every tire sold in the United States carries a DOT Tire Identification Number stamped on the sidewall — the last four digits are the manufacture date (week and year). Many manufacturers recommend tire replacement at six years regardless of tread depth, because the rubber and steel belts inside age and can come apart even when the tire looks fine. The physical tire and any separated tread must be preserved immediately — once a carrier or salvage yard scraps it, the single best piece of evidence is gone.
A governmental entity. If road design or maintenance contributed — missing signage, obscured markings, a shoulder drop-off, inadequate maintenance — the governmental entity responsible for the roadway may be liable under the Texas Tort Claims Act. This has its own notice requirements and damage caps, and the deadlines can be shorter than the general two-year statute of limitations. This is a clock that must be checked immediately.
The Clarks’ own auto insurer. Regardless of who was at fault, the family’s own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, personal injury protection, and medical payments coverage are critical recovery sources. If the at-fault party is uninsured, underinsured, or unidentified (as in a hit-and-run), UM/UIM coverage steps in. PIP covers medical expenses and lost wages regardless of fault. MedPay covers medical expenses. These are contractual benefits the family has already paid for, and they should be claimed promptly.
The Insurance Reality: Following the Money
Texas requires every driver to carry minimum liability coverage of $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $25,000 for property damage. One night in a Level I trauma center can consume that entire per-person limit. A multi-day hospitalization with surgery, imaging, and intensive care can exceed it many times over. When the at-fault driver carries only the legal minimum, the recovery from that policy is a fraction of what the family has lost.
This is why uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage matters so much. UM/UIM coverage is a contractual benefit the family has already paid for through their own auto insurance premiums. If the at-fault driver has no insurance, or not enough insurance, the family’s own UM/UIM coverage steps in and pays what the at-fault driver’s policy should have paid — up to the UM/UIM policy limits. In Texas, UM/UIM coverage is presumed to be included in every auto policy unless the insured rejected it in writing. Many families do not even know they have it.
Personal Injury Protection — PIP — is another first-party benefit that pays medical expenses and a portion of lost wages regardless of who was at fault. In Texas, PIP is also presumed to be included unless the insured rejected it in writing. The minimum PIP coverage in Texas is $2,500, but many policies carry more. Medical Payments coverage — MedPay — is similar but covers only medical expenses, not lost wages.
If a commercial vehicle was involved, the coverage picture changes dramatically. A general-freight interstate carrier must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage. A carrier hauling oil or certain hazardous materials must carry at least $1 million. A carrier hauling the most dangerous hazmat in bulk must carry at least $5 million. Many national fleets carry far more through layered excess and umbrella policies. The same crash, with a commercial vehicle involved, can open a coverage tower that is forty times what a passenger vehicle policy offers.
Texas also has a hospital lien statute. A hospital that provides emergency treatment to an injured person can file a lien on any personal injury or wrongful death claim arising from the injury. The lien must be filed in the county where the treatment was provided, and it attaches to any settlement or judgment. The family needs to understand how the lien works and how it can be negotiated — because the hospital’s lien can consume a significant portion of the recovery if it is not addressed strategically.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Do Before the Funeral
The insurance company is not your friend. The adjuster who calls you with a warm voice and asks how you are doing is not checking on your welfare. They are building a file designed to pay you as little as possible. Here are the plays they run, and here is how each one is countered.
Play 1: The “just checking in” recorded statement. Within days of the crash, someone friendly will call to “check on you” and ask you to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording that is built to be quoted against you. If you say “I’m feeling okay” or “I think she’ll be fine,” those words will be played at mediation to minimize your injuries. If you describe the crash from memory and get a detail wrong, the inconsistency will be used to impeach your credibility.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company. You are not required to. If they call, take their name and number and tell them your attorney will call them back. If you have already given a statement, do not panic — but do not give another one.
Play 2: The fast settlement check with a release buried under it. A check may arrive fast — sometimes within weeks of the crash — with a release document attached. The release, once signed, extinguishes all claims against that insurer and their insured. The check is designed to arrive before the full extent of the injuries is known, before the medical records are complete, and before the family has had time to think clearly. A head injury that the family was told would “fully recover” may still be producing symptoms six months later, but if the release was signed, the case is over.
The counter: Never sign anything from an insurance company without having it reviewed by a lawyer. A document that looks like a simple acknowledgment may be a full release of all claims. The money they are offering now is a fraction of what the case is worth — and they know it.
Play 3: The independent medical examination with the insurer’s doctor. The insurance company may demand that your loved one be examined by a doctor of their choosing — an “independent” medical examination that is neither independent nor objective. The doctor is selected by the insurer, paid by the insurer, and produces a report that almost always minimizes the injuries. The report will say the head injury was “subjective,” the rib fractures are “healing as expected,” and the patient has “reached maximum medical improvement.”
The counter: You have the right to be represented at the examination. Your own treating physicians — the doctors who actually cared for your loved one — carry far more weight than a doctor who saw them once, at the insurer’s request, for thirty minutes. The medical record built from day one, by the treating team, is the counter to the insurer’s hired report.
Play 4: Social media surveillance. The insurance company will monitor the injured person’s social media accounts and those of the family. A photograph of the injured person at a family gathering, smiling, will be used to argue the injuries are not serious. A post about feeling “blessed” or “grateful” will be taken out of context and used to minimize mental anguish.
The counter: Set all social media accounts to private. Do not post about the crash, the injuries, the medical treatment, or the legal case. Do not discuss the case in text messages or emails. Assume everything you write is being read by someone who wants to pay you less.
Play 5: The “we need more time” delay. The adjuster may be polite, responsive, and slow. They may ask for additional documentation, request extensions, and string the process out month after month. The goal is to let the clock run — not the two-year statute of limitations, but the evidence clock. Every month that passes, another piece of evidence becomes harder to obtain. The dashcam footage is overwritten. The tow yard scraps the vehicle. The witness’s memory fades. The adjuster is not being disorganized. They are running the clock.
The counter: The preservation letter goes out the day you call us. The evidence is frozen before the adjuster’s delay strategy can work. And if the insurer lets evidence die after receiving a preservation demand, the jury can be told to assume the lost evidence was as bad for the defense as the plaintiff says it was.
What a Case Like This Is Worth: Honest Valuation
We will not tell you a number and pretend it is a promise. Every case is different, and the value of this case depends on facts that have not yet been established — the cause of the crash, the identity of the at-fault party, the insurance coverage available, and the full extent of the injuries and losses.
What we can tell you is the range, and the factors that determine where a case like this falls within it.
At the low end, if investigation reveals no identifiable liable third party and UM/UIM recovery is limited or unavailable, the recovery from a third-party claim could be zero. This is why the DPS crash report and the accident reconstruction are prerequisites to meaningful valuation — you cannot value a case until you know who is responsible.
In the median scenario — an identifiable at-fault passenger-vehicle driver with clear liability — the combined value for the wrongful death and personal injury claims typically falls in the range of $1.5 million to $3.5 million. The wrongful death value is moderated by the deceased’s likely retired status, which reduces the lost-earning-capacity component, but the loss of companionship and mental anguish damages remain substantial, particularly for a long marriage. The personal injury claim carries solid special-damages value given the Lubbock trauma-center hospitalization and the anticipated lengthy rehabilitation, but the expected full recovery caps the non-economic damages at a moderate-to-significant level rather than catastrophic.
At the high end, if a commercial vehicle or a grossly negligent third party caused the collision with clear liability, the combined value can reach $5 million to $8 million or more. A commercial carrier’s coverage tower, stacked in layers above the $750,000 federal floor, can provide the resources for a recovery that reflects the full measure of the loss. If the at-fault conduct reflects conscious indifference to the safety of others — extreme speeding, intoxication, texting while driving at highway speeds — exemplary (punitive) damages become available under Texas law upon clear and convincing proof, which can push the value higher still.
The extreme width of this range reflects the complete absence of crash-causation facts in the available reporting. This is not a deficiency in the case — it is the reason the investigation must happen fast. The DPS crash report and an independent accident reconstruction are the documents that turn this range into a number.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can guarantee is this: we will investigate thoroughly, we will preserve every piece of evidence, and we will build the case to its maximum value — not the value the insurance company wants to pay, but the value the law allows.
The First 72 Hours: A Practical Roadmap
If you are reading this in the days after a crash, here is what matters now, in order.
Medical care comes first. If your loved one is still hospitalized, the priority is her recovery, not the legal case. But the medical record being created right now is the foundation of the legal case, so make sure the treating team is documenting everything — the mechanism of injury, the initial Glasgow Coma Scale score, every CT and MRI, the rib fracture imaging, the pain management plan, the cognitive assessments, the neuropsychological referral. If the hospital has not ordered neuropsychological testing, ask for it. The baseline cognitive assessment is the single most important medical document for a head-injury case, and it must be done while the patient is still in the acute phase.
Do not give a recorded statement. To anyone. Not to the other driver’s insurance company, not to your own insurance company beyond the basic facts of the crash (date, time, location, vehicles involved), and not to any investigator who is not a law enforcement officer. If someone calls and asks you to describe what happened, take their name and number and tell them your attorney will contact them.
Do not sign anything. Not a release, not a settlement offer, not a medical authorization, not a document you do not fully understand. If someone puts a document in front of you and says “this is just a formality,” do not sign it. Bring it to a lawyer first.
Do not post about the crash on social media. Not about the injuries, not about the medical treatment, not about the legal case, not about the other driver. Set your accounts to private. Assume everything you write is being read by the insurance company.
Request the DPS crash report. The CR-3 is typically available 5 to 14 days after the crash. It can be requested through Texas DPS. If you cannot do this yourself — and if you are in a hospital waiting room, you probably cannot — ask a family member or your attorney to do it for you.
Send a preservation letter. This is the letter that tells the at-fault driver, their insurance company, any commercial carrier, and any other party to preserve all evidence related to the crash — the vehicles, the EDR data, the logs, the footage, the maintenance records, the phone records. The letter does not require a lawsuit. It does not require a lawyer. But a lawyer’s letter carries weight that a family’s letter does not, because it signals that the evidence will be demanded in formal discovery if it is not preserved voluntarily.
Call a lawyer. Not next month. Not after the funeral. Now. The consultation is free. The call costs nothing. And the lawyer’s first act — sending the preservation letters, requesting the DPS report, identifying the evidence that is about to disappear — is the act that determines whether the case can be built at all.
How We Build the Case: From Preservation to Verdict
Here is how a case like this is actually built, from the day you call to the day the number is finalized.
Week one. The preservation demand goes out — to the at-fault driver, their insurer, any commercial carrier, the tow yard, and any telematics provider. The DPS crash report is requested. The medical records release is obtained. The vehicles are located and their status is verified — neither vehicle is released, salvaged, or repaired until the EDR data has been imaged by a trained expert with the right forensic tools.
Weeks two through four. The DPS report arrives. It identifies the involved parties, the road conditions, the witness identities, and the officer’s preliminary causation assessment. If a commercial vehicle is identified, the FMCSA SAFER database is pulled — the carrier’s safety rating, its crash and inspection history, its insurance on file, its out-of-service rates. If the carrier’s safety record shows a pattern of violations in the category that caused this crash, that pattern is the opening of the negligent-hiring or negligent-retention claim.
Months one through three. The accident reconstruction expert is engaged. The expert analyzes the EDR data, the scene photographs, the physical evidence, and the vehicle damage to establish the collision dynamics — the speeds, the angles, the point of impact, whether evasive action was taken, and whether the crash was avoidable. The medical records are collected continuously as treatment continues. The neuropsychological baseline is established. If the rehabilitation extends beyond the expected recovery period, a life-care planner is engaged to project the future cost of care.
Months three through six. The discovery phase begins if a lawsuit has been filed. The records demands go out — for the driver’s phone records, for the carrier’s hours-of-service logs, for the maintenance records, for the internal communications. The depositions are scheduled — the at-fault driver, the safety director, the investigating officer, the treating physicians. The defense expert’s report is obtained and analyzed. The proof story is assembled, piece by piece, until the narrative is complete.
Months six through eighteen. The case is prepared for trial — not because every case goes to trial, but because the cases that settle for full value are the ones the insurance company knows are ready to be tried. The demand is structured to trigger the insurer’s duty to accept a reasonable settlement within policy limits — a duty Texas law imposes on every insurer. If the insurer rejects a reasonable demand and the case goes to trial, the insurer can be held responsible for the full verdict, even if it exceeds the policy limits.
Resolution. Most cases settle. Some go to trial. A few go to appeal. The number at the end is built from all of it — the frozen evidence, the reconstructed crash, the documented injuries, the projected future costs, the lost companionship, the mental anguish, and the punishment damages that apply when the at-fault conduct was more than just careless. The number is not a guess. It is the product of a process that begins the day you call.
Why This Firm
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — he knows how to find the story the evidence tells, and he knows how to tell it to a jury. He is admitted to the State Bar of Texas (Bar #24007597, licensed November 6, 1998) and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He leads the active $10 million-plus hazing lawsuit in Harris County — the Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston case — and he hates losing.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He sat in those rooms. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the claim is fed into valuation software that discounts pain it cannot see, and how the quick check arrives with a release printed on the back before the MRI results do. Now he sits on your side of the table. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
The fee is contingency: 33.33% if the case settles before trial, 40% if it goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The phone is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by live staff — not an answering service.
We have recovered more than $50 million for our clients, including a $5 million-plus brain-injury settlement, a $3.8 million-plus amputation settlement, and a $2.5 million-plus truck-crash recovery. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But they tell you what we are capable of when the evidence is preserved, the case is built, and the fight is taken to the other side.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a wrongful death claim in Texas?
Texas law generally gives you two years from the date of the death to file a wrongful death claim. This is the statute of limitations, and missing it means the case is barred forever — no matter how strong the evidence is. But the evidence that wins the case does not last two years. The vehicle’s black-box data can be overwritten in days. The dashcam footage can be gone in a week. The trucking company’s driver logs can be legally destroyed in six months. The two-year deadline is the back wall. The front wall is measured in weeks. Call a lawyer now, not because the deadline is close, but because the evidence is disappearing.
Can I still recover if my loved one was partly at fault for the crash?
Yes. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. Your family can recover as long as your loved one was not 51% or more at fault for the crash. If they were 20% at fault, the recovery is reduced by 20% but is not eliminated. This is exactly why the insurance company works so hard to pin percentage points on the deceased — every point they can assign is money off the settlement. The evidence that proves what really happened — the EDR data, the crash reconstruction, the witness statements — is what keeps those points off.
What if the other driver had no insurance or not enough insurance?
Your own uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage steps in. In Texas, UM/UIM coverage is presumed to be included in every auto policy unless you rejected it in writing. If the at-fault driver had no insurance, your UM coverage pays what the at-fault driver’s policy should have paid. If the at-fault driver had some insurance but not enough, your UIM coverage pays the difference up to your policy limits. Many families do not even know they have this coverage. Check your declarations page, or let us check it for you.
How much is my wrongful death case worth?
The honest answer is: it depends on facts that have not yet been established. The cause of the crash, the identity of the at-fault party, the insurance coverage available, and the full extent of the losses all determine the value. In our experience, a case with an identifiable at-fault passenger-vehicle driver and clear liability typically falls in the $1.5 million to $3.5 million range for combined wrongful death and personal injury. If a commercial vehicle or grossly negligent third party was involved, the value can reach $5 million to $8 million or more. If no liable third party can be identified, the third-party recovery could be zero. The DPS crash report and an independent accident reconstruction are the documents that turn this range into a number.
Do I have to go to court?
Most cases settle without a trial. But the cases that settle for full value are the ones the insurance company knows are ready to be tried. We prepare every case as if it is going to trial — the evidence is preserved, the experts are engaged, the depositions are taken, and the trial strategy is built. When the insurance company sees that preparation, they settle. When they do not, we try the case. The decision to settle or go to trial is always yours, made with our advice, based on the facts of your case.
How much does a lawyer cost?
Nothing up front. We work on contingency: 33.33% of the recovery if the case settles before trial, 40% if it goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The phone call costs nothing. We advance the costs of the investigation — the crash report, the expert fees, the deposition costs, the filing fees — and those costs are repaid from the recovery at the end. If there is no recovery, you owe us nothing for costs or fees.
What should I do right now, while my family member is still in the hospital?
Focus on her recovery. Make sure the medical team is documenting everything — the head injury, the rib fractures, the cognitive assessments, the pain management, the rehabilitation plan. Ask for a neuropsychological referral if one has not been made. Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company. Do not sign anything. Do not post about the crash on social media. And call a lawyer — the preservation letters that freeze the evidence can go out while you are sitting at the bedside, and they do not require your active involvement. We can handle the investigation while you handle the healing.
What if a commercial truck was involved in the crash?
If the DPS report shows a DOT-numbered carrier, the case changes fundamentally. The carrier’s insurance coverage is far larger — at least $750,000 for general freight, $1 million for oil and hazmat, $5 million for the most dangerous cargo. The evidence-preservation clock is different: the driver’s hours-of-service logs can be legally destroyed in six months, the daily vehicle inspection reports in three months, and the post-crash drug and alcohol testing must be attempted within 8 hours for alcohol and 32 hours for drugs. The preservation letters to the carrier, its insurer, and the telematics provider must go out within days. If you suspect a commercial vehicle was involved, call us immediately — the evidence in a trucking case dies faster than in any other type of crash.
Can I file a claim if the crash was caused by a dangerous road condition?
Yes, but the rules are different. If a governmental entity — a state agency, a county, a city — is responsible for the road design or maintenance, the Texas Tort Claims Act applies. This law has its own notice requirements, which can be shorter than the general two-year statute of limitations, and its own damage caps. A road-defect claim requires proof that the governmental entity knew or should have known about the dangerous condition and failed to fix it. TxDOT maintenance logs, prior incident reports, and engineering studies are the evidence. These cases are complex and the deadlines are tight — call a lawyer immediately if you believe a road condition contributed to the crash.
How do I know if I need a lawyer?
If someone died, you need a lawyer. If someone sustained a head injury, you need a lawyer. If the crash involved a commercial vehicle, you need a lawyer. If the insurance company has already called you, you need a lawyer. If you are not sure who was at fault, you need a lawyer. The cost of calling is zero. The cost of not calling could be everything — the evidence that disappears, the statement you give that gets used against you, the release you sign that extinguishes your claim. A free consultation is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone
You are in the worst moment of your life. Someone you love is gone, and someone you love is hurt, and the world is asking you to make decisions you never wanted to make. The insurance company is already moving. The evidence is already fading. The clock is already running.
You do not have to figure this out by yourself. That is what we do. We handle the investigation, the evidence preservation, the insurance negotiations, and the legal fight — so you can focus on healing, on mourning, and on your family.
The call is free. The consultation is confidential. We answer 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Hablamos Español. You will speak to a lawyer, not a receptionist. And we do not get paid unless we win your case.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. Or contact us online. We will send the preservation letters. We will request the crash report. We will identify the evidence before it disappears. And we will tell you, honestly, whether you have a case and what it is worth.
The evidence is disappearing right now. Let us help you save it.