Midland County Jury Holds Oilfield Contractor Liable for Crash That Killed Mother's Three Children
After trial: No appeal of the verdict has been reported. According to its own counsel, the defendant had gone out of business, its insurer was paying defense costs, its actual exposure was a small fraction of the award, and settlement talks were continuing at the time of the verdict.
Won by Lyons & Simmons, LLP.
On January 14, 2017, Luis Rangel Jr. was driving to work at high speed in heavy rain on State Highway 158 outside Midland, Texas, when his pickup crossed into oncoming traffic and killed Coast Guard petty officer Kantrell Hires and three of his children, ages 16, 14 and 12. The boys' mother, Neva Rogers, sued Rangel and his employer, DanCar Energy Construction, arguing that a company policy requiring workers to report and sign in on bad-weather days put Rangel on the road that morning. A Midland County jury agreed in May 2021, deliberating six hours before awarding Rogers $5.9 million, reported to be the largest personal injury verdict in the county's history. DanCar's lawyer publicly disputed the award, said the company had already gone out of business and said the money would never be paid, and what Rogers ultimately collected is not public. Michael Lyons, Christopher Simmons, Christopher Carr and Stephen Higdon of Lyons & Simmons represented Rogers at trial.
What happened
Just before 6:30 a.m. on January 14, 2017, Luis Rangel Jr. was driving his Ford F-150 pickup east on State Highway 158 outside Midland, Texas, in heavy rain. Traveling at a high speed, by one account as fast as 90 mph on wet pavement, he lost control. The pickup skidded and hydroplaned across the double yellow line into the westbound lanes and hit a Chevrolet Impala driven by Kantrell Hires, a 36-year-old Coast Guard petty officer first class stationed in Corpus Christi. Hires was traveling with three of his four sons, ages 16, 14 and 12, on his way to help his new wife move to their home outside Corpus Christi. All four were killed, three of them at the scene and the oldest boy later in surgery. A preliminary state crash report listed unsafe speed as a contributing factor.
Rangel, then 25, was treated for minor injuries, and investigators said there was no evidence he had been drinking or using drugs. He was charged with four counts of criminally negligent homicide, convicted by a Midland jury and sentenced in 2019 to five years of probation, meaning he would serve no time as long as he met its terms. The three boys were the children of Hires and his ex-wife, Neva Rogers, who buried all three of them.
Rogers sued Rangel and his employer, DanCar Energy Construction LLC, an oilfield construction company then based in Glen Rose, Texas. She argued that DanCar bore responsibility alongside its driver because a company policy required workers to show up and sign in on bad-weather days in order to be paid, even when supervisors then sent them straight home, a rule her lawyers said put Rangel on a rain-slicked highway before dawn. DanCar's lawyer, Brent Cooper of Cooper & Scully in Dallas, disputed that any such formal policy existed and said Rangel was scheduled to work indoors that day, so "the weather had nothing to do with anything."
The case was tried in the 385th District Court in Midland County, cause number CV-54482, before a judge sitting by assignment. Midland County is generally regarded by trial lawyers as one of the state's most conservative, pro-business venues, and Lyons said jury consultants had advised his firm against taking the case to trial there. The jury deliberated six hours before awarding Neva Rogers $5.9 million in May 2021, a result The Texas Lawbook reported was believed to be the largest personal injury verdict in the county's history.
Cooper told The Texas Lawbook after the verdict that the award was "a made-up number" with "no basis for recovery of such damages under settled Texas law," and that the money would never be paid. He said DanCar had gone out of business a couple of years before trial, that its defense costs were being covered by its insurer, Liberty Mutual, and that settlement talks with Rogers were continuing. No appeal of the verdict appears in Texas appellate records, and what, if anything, Rogers ultimately collected is not public.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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