Family dog hit and killed by distracted, speeding FedEx driver who didn’t stop

(SC) A couple days ago my family dog (who also served as my mom’s service dog) was hit and killed by a FedEx driver who was speeding through our neighborhood while appearing to be looking at her phone and swerving into the wrong lane (there are bloodstains on the road that prove this). The driver looked directly at my mom, shocked, as if to check and see if she noticed, then sped off without stopping.

Using the location of the driver’s truck in two different photos with time stamps from a ring camera, plus a super long tape measure provided by a neighbor who works in real estate, we determined the driver was going approximately 43 mph when she hit my dog. This is a quiet residential zone where the speed limit is 20 mph.

Idk if it matters, but the driver is actually not a real FedEx employee, she is an independent contractor who buys routes from FedEx? I don’t know how that works.

I know what many people are probably thinking it’s our fault because the dog was in the road. No. The dog was supervised and was able to be called back on command. She had just finished doing her business and was relaxing in the yard just like every other day, my mom turned around for like 5 seconds to throw away the poop bag, and when she turned back, she saw the truck barreling down the road towards our dog who had wandered a couple of feet into the road. My mom screamed bloody murder and waved her arms, but somehow the driver still did not seem to see or hear her even though she was just a few feet away. My mom called our dog back but it was too late. A neighbor 3 houses down and across the street with the TV on was able to hear my mom screaming and immediately came running. But the driver a few feet away couldn’t hear her? Because of this, we believe the driver was likely wearing headphones, which is not permitted by FedEx.

FedEx also has an ordinance that requires drivers to stop and notify owners when they’ve hit an animal. We spoke with our county’s animal control investigator who is going to write her up for this; she will have to go to court for it and my mom and I are both fully planning to speak/testify if they’ll allow us.

FedEx has made it IMPOSSIBLE to find any helpful online info about customer service numbers to call, so we spent about 3 hours trying all sorts of different numbers and getting fucked around at every turn. Finally, another one of our neighbors got home from work, guess where? FedEx! She called her boss’s boss and immediately got someone on the phone with my mom, bless her heart.

Apparently FedEx has spoken with the driver and her official statement is that my dog ran into the road chasing a squirrel, and when she felt the bump she assumed she just hit the squirrel. The video apparently doesn’t show her using a phone, but we haven’t seen the footage ourselves yet. In my opinion, this claim is complete bullshit. She knew exactly what she did and sped away after locking eyes with my mom because she knew she was guilty.

We also filed a police report for the reckless speeding over twice the legal limit in a residential area and suspected use of phone + headphones while driving.

Beyond any sort of punishment at work or loss of job (fingers crossed), it’s looking like we’re going to have to handle this in civil court if we actually want anything done about it. No one in my family has been to civil court before and I have a couple of probably stupid questions: is it even worth it? Or are we 100% in the wrong because the dog was in the road? If you think we should sue, what do we ask for? How do you put a price on a life? Can we prove her negligence resulted in animal cruelty? Can she serve jail time for this? I assume we should retain a lawyer in this situation? What should we be doing right now?

Please help me, we want justice for my dog’s wrongful death.