On a fall evening just a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday, a group of three family members in their 50s—driver Carlos* and passengers Carmen* and Teresa*—were in an SUV, traveling down a state highway in rural Lavaca County, Texas.

As they approached an intersection with a county road, a driver in a heavy-duty pickup truck—David*—blew a stop sign and began to cross the highway directly in front of them. Carlos had no time to stop and smashed into the front passenger side of the pickup.

The collision was so forceful that both vehicles were propelled off the road. The SUV smashed into a fence and came to rest in a ditch, while David’s truck skidded and flipped onto its hood in a nearby field. The SUV was so badly mangled that both female passengers had to be removed from the vehicle using the jaws of life.

After receiving emergency treatment at the scene, Carlos and Teresa were taken by ambulance to the hospital. Carmen had to be airlifted to a trauma hospital in Austin.

* Names changed for privacy.

All three occupants grapple with devastating injuries

All three occupants suffered catastrophic injuries, especially the two female passengers.

Carmen

Carmen spent the next 10 days in the hospital, missing Thanksgiving with her family. During those frightful few days, she needed multiple blood transfusions and a total of six surgeries: three to repair damage to her leg and ankle, and another three to repair her damaged intestines.

Unfortunately, Carmen also developed a nodule in her esophagus from the intubation for her emergency surgeries. After the doctors removed the nodule, she was unable to speak for several months. Once healing from this was complete, she needed one more surgery to fix her hernia. These surgeries also left multiple permanent scars on her legs and abdomen.

More than a year after the crash, Carmen still needed ongoing medical care and therapy to manage her symptoms. She also needed regular help from family members to accomplish daily tasks and was unable to return to help manage their family restaurant business.

Teresa

The crash caused severe trauma to Teresa’s face and abdomen, alongside other injuries. After a few hours of evaluation at a local general hospital, the doctors made the decision to airlift her to a metropolitan trauma hospital for further care.

Teresa needed surgery to repair a severe cut to her lower lip. She also had significant damage to bones in her jaw and near her eye, a fractured sternum, and fractured vertebra in her upper back. Her vision was also significantly impaired and continued to worsen. A month after the crash and just a few days before Christmas, doctors had to operate on her right eye. Unfortunately, she has permanently lost vision in this eye.

The lip surgery left significant scars and, because the lips no longer fully meet, Teresa developed a persistent dribble as well as “whistle” while speaking. She will likely need scar revision surgery to correct this problem after non-invasive treatments haven’t had the desired results. She also continued to experience pain throughout her body, including her arm, knee, and shoulder for months after the crash.

Miguel

While Miguel was the least severely affected of the three occupants, his injuries were still quite serious. They included a fractured sternum, multiple fractured ribs, and serious cuts and bruises to his face. In the hospital, he complained of severe pain in his chest, abdomen, head, and leg.

Miguel missed nine weeks of work during his recovery, followed by about a month of only being able to work part time. A year after the crash, Miguel still cannot lift anything heavy without pain and has had to modify his daily routine. He also will, in all likelihood, require surgery at some point in the future to address nagging crash-related issues.

Crosley Law gets at-fault driver to admit to grossly negligent behavior

There was absolutely no doubt that David, the driver of the pickup truck, was fully to blame for the crash. The responding police officer cited him for disregarding the stop sign on the official crash report, which David did not contest.

David also freely admitted several things to us during his deposition testimony:

• He agreed that he did not stop at the stop sign, even though he knew he had a duty to do so.
• He agreed that he failed to check for oncoming traffic before pulling into the road.
• He admitted that he had “a couple of drinks” before getting behind the wheel.
• He agreed that even though he knew the risks of his actions and had even been in a crash before when he had failed to yield the right of way, he still disregarded those risks.
• When we asked him, point blank, if he accepted fault for the collision, he said yes.

This was not just a momentary mistake of lapse of judgement. David’s admissions and past record showed a conscious indifference to the safety of others—not just negligence, but gross negligence.

Crosley Law helps the victims get the fairest possible settlement

Even when liability is extremely clear, crashes that involve multiple severely injured individuals can be extremely challenging for two major reasons:

• There may not be enough insurance coverage to fully cover everyone. In Texas, drivers can legally carry as little as $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident in liability coverage. In that scenario, no individual victim could receive more than $30,000 from the insurance policy and the total can’t be more than $60,000 even if three or more people are hurt.
• When there’s not enough insurance to go around, dividing the payout fairly between multiple victims can be extremely contentious. For example, a few years back we represented Joshua, a man who was injured while riding in a work truck with some of his co-workers. Because his co-workers needed immediate surgery and Joshua did not, their attorneys argued he only deserved a small fraction of the settlement. But we were able to prove that, due to his permanent brain injury, Josh—a father, and a healthy young man before the crash—would experience lifelong difficulties and deserved a significant share of the settlement.

Fortunately for Carmen, Teresa, and Carlos, the circumstances of this case weren’t nearly as harsh as they could have been.

First, David was carrying $500,000 in liability insurance. While this was less than what Carmen, Teresa, and Carlos truly deserved, it was much better than if he had been carrying little or no insurance.

Second, all three victims were close to one another and chose to file a single, combined claim. This significantly reduced the complexity of the case and allowed Crosley Law to fight on behalf of all three together. Our team worked closely with their doctors, medical experts, and other professionals to calculate the full amount that each person truly deserved. Then, we helped them determine a fair division of the settlement funds that all three could agree on.

Because one of the passengers also had an auto insurance policy with $30,000 in uninsured motorist coverage and $2,500 in personal injury protection, Crosley Law was able to obtain total compensation of $532,500—the maximum amount from all applicable policies.

Car Crash? Call Crosley

Car accident cases are almost never easy. Even if the at-fault driver fully admits they were responsible, that’s still no guarantee the insurance company is going to calculate your damages correctly or allocate them fairly between multiple victims. There also may be other sources of insurance coverage you weren’t even aware existed.

If you or a loved one has been injured, call Crosley Law today at (210) 529-3000 for a free case review. Our attorneys will fight for every cent possible, while you focus on healing.