$812 Million Verdict for Family of Worker Killed in Pecos Chemical Plant Explosion, Part of $1.6 Billion

On October 7, 2023, Reinaldo Garcia Peña, 57, and Angel Alaffa, 30, were doing piping and welding work at the Pecos Liquids Handling Facility in Pecos, Texas, a plant that receives, stores, and transfers highly flammable natural gas liquids and condensate from Permian Basin oilfields. Both men had traveled hundreds of miles from the Rio Grande Valley for the job. While they were working atop a tank battery that still held flammable hydrocarbons, the tank exploded. Both men were killed.

The evidence at trial described a facility that handled some of the most dangerous materials in the oilfield with almost none of the safeguards federal law requires. The plant was subject to OSHA's Process Safety Management rules, yet jurors heard that the workers were never given the company's own safety manual, never received a safety orientation or any training, and were never issued hot work permits before welding. The gas monitor they were given could not detect the very vapors that fueled the explosion. A contractor had left a hydrocarbon cleanup unfinished while assuring workers the area was safe, and the plant manager, the highest-ranking authority on site, had never completed a single OSHA process safety course.

The families sued Upton Assets, LLC, the facility's owner, along with other defendants, in the 381st Judicial District Court in Starr County, cause number DC-23-465, before Judge Jose Luis Garza. The Garcia Peña family was represented by Rob Ammons and Herbie Montalvo of The Ammons Law Firm with co-counsel from the Escobar and Zambrano firms; the Alaffa family was represented by Martinez Reilly, PLLC. Thomas O. Hanks Jr., Upton's owner and himself a named defendant, admitted at trial that he had never read the safety manuals his own facility was required to follow.

In April 2026, after a two-week trial, the jury answered every question unanimously. It assigned 100 percent of the responsibility for both deaths to Upton Assets and found the company grossly negligent as to both men. The verdict totaled more than $1.6 billion: $812 million for the Garcia Peña family, including $101.5 million for his widow, $50.75 million for each of his two daughters, and $609 million in punitive damages, and roughly $809 million for Alaffa's widow, young daughter, and parents, including another $609 million in punitive damages. Press accounts describe it as what is believed to be the largest workplace wrongful death verdict in Texas history.

What the families will actually collect is a separate question, and the answer is that it is unresolved. Upton Assets filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 6, 2026, roughly two weeks before the jury returned its verdict, which moves enforcement of the judgment into the bankruptcy court's claims process. How much is ultimately paid will depend on available insurance and the company's assets rather than the jury's numbers, and Texas law separately limits punitive damages in most cases. What the verdict does establish is a jury's unanimous finding of who was responsible: the company that sent two untrained men to weld on a tank it had never made safe.