I don't know if any of ya'll know his work, but John O'Quinn was a pretty big shot in the plaintiff's bar around here. He's probably best known for the breast-implant cases in the 80s and 90s, but he's an all around plaintiff's guy. More money than god, his name is on a shit ton of buildings around town. He also was into cars, and had a collection of about 600 that apparently made Jay Leno jealous.
Anyhow, he and another guy were killed this morning in a one-car accident. The news reports have been pretty coy about the cause of the accident, but it's pretty clear from the pictures of the car that the suburban was going ridiculously fast. Check out the
news story and click on the slideshow (no gore, just a very mangled car). They hit the tree so hard that it sliced the car in half through the hood into the passenger compartment. The force of the accident also uprooted the tree. The cops had to cut down the tree in order to be able to tow the suburban away.
That particular stretch of road is a limited access parkway. Speed limit is about 45, and most people go around 55 or 60. It was raining this morning, and the roads were slick. At 8:15, there would have been a fair number of other cars on the road getting into downtown. He must have been going at least 80 miles an hour.
The Houston legal community is sort of shaken but unsurprised, given that a lot of people had seen him drive.
