Jury Awards $190 Million After View Homes VP Killed Two in Drunk-Driving Crash Near Chaparral

On January 17, 2023, Patrick James Woods was driving a company vehicle on Highway 213 near Chaparral, New Mexico. Woods served as vice president and director of land acquisition for View Homes Inc. and was traveling between company job sites that afternoon. He crossed the center line at high speed, struck an oncoming car head-on, and his vehicle then went airborne and hit a third car. Woods left the scene on foot. Officers responding to the collision found an open bottle of Fireball whiskey in the vehicle he had been driving.

Jose Marrero, 20, and Desiree Seanez, 20, were in the car that took the first impact. Both were killed. Three other people across the crash sustained serious injuries. In October 2023, Woods pleaded guilty in criminal court to two counts of homicide by vehicle, leaving the scene of a crash causing great bodily injury, resisting and evading arrest, open container violations, and failure to report the accident. A judge sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

The families of Marrero and Seanez, together with the injured survivors, retained Glasheen, Valles & Inderman Injury Lawyers. Attorneys Noe Valles and Laney Piercy pursued a civil suit against View Homes, arguing on two fronts. The first was that Woods was acting within the course and scope of his employment at the moment of the crash. The second was that View Homes Inc., the parent company, was his actual employer and could not insulate itself through its smaller SDC subsidiary. The plaintiffs also alleged that View Homes had worked to conceal the connection between Woods's movements that day and his company duties.

View Homes contested both points and used its subsidiary structure to argue that liability, if any, sat with the smaller entity rather than the parent. That argument defined the center of the trial.

The Santa Fe jury rejected it. Jurors found that Woods was acting in the course and scope of employment and that View Homes Inc. itself was his employer. Both findings were necessary to hold the parent company responsible for the full damages.

On April 22, 2025, the jury returned a verdict of $190 million for the families of Marrero and Seanez and for the injured survivors. The families and their attorneys announced the result at a press conference two days later, on April 24, 2025. No post-trial reduction or remittitur of that amount appears in public reporting.