Texas Injury Lawyers Blog

Published on: September 16, 2014

Texas Ranch Operator Liability for Trespassers’ Fatal Truck Crash

A family from Mexico — a mother, father, and child — hired a “coyote” to transport them into the United States, to either New Orleans or Houston.

He picked them up in a truck at a safe house in Texas, along with another passenger. They drove to the private Jones Ranch, arriving before dawn. The coyote ordered his passengers to move from the back seat to the floor of the truck. Somehow he had keys to the locked gate of the ranch and drove onto the property.

A ranch employee spotted and stopped the strange truck, even in the early morning darkness, and asked the driver what he was doing on the ranch. The employee observed only the driver and a front seat passenger and also wrote down the license plate number of the truck.

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Published on: September 16, 2014

Liability for Dog Bites in Texas

By Carabin Shaw

In Rodriguez v. Reed, a Texas plaintiff appealed the trial court’s summary judgment in favor of the defendant in a dog bite case. The case arose when the defendant was contacted at work that his burglar alarm was going off. He left his workplace and went home. He turned off the alarm and determined nobody had broken in. Meanwhile, police officers came to his house to respond to the alarm call. The call noted that the front glass had broken and that there were multiple dogs in the home.

The defendant’s car was in the driveway when Officer Espinoza and Officer Rodriguez (the plaintiff) arrived. One of the officers determined that the car was the defendant’s. There was no broken front glass. The officers went to the side of the house and came upon a fence with a locked gate. One officer went to the other side. Rodriguez jumped the gate and drew his weapon. At that moment, the defendant opened the back door and let the dogs out. When the plaintiff went around the corner, two dogs came into the yard, and one of them bit the plaintiff in the forearm. The plaintiff shot the dog, killing him. He jumped back over the fence.

The officer sued on the grounds of strict liability, claiming that the dog was known to have abnormally dangerous propensities and claiming that the defendant had negligently handled the dog. The defendant filed a motion for summary judgment that was both traditional and a “no evidence summary judgment motion.” The latter claims there is no evidence to support an essential element of the other party’s claim. The plaintiff filed a response that included statements from the defendant’s neighbors and copies of police records about prior alarm calls to the defendant’s house.

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Published on: September 10, 2014

Personal Injuries at Texas Amusement Park

By Carabin Shaw

Recently, two Texas teens fell over 12 feet off a carnival ride and were injured. One of the two teenagers sustained serious injuries, and the other was left with minor injuries. Some witnesses commented that the ride operator had not shut the door to the ride. The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions found that over 1,200 people were injured on rides in 2011.

The amusement parks in Texas operate under the rules of the Texas Department of Insurance. Although there is significant oversight of parks, there are many similar accidents in Texas. The most likely reasons for amusement park injuries are mechanical failures such as lap belts or other restraints that don’t work, operator errors such as improperly maintaining the ride, and customer actions such as standing up or sitting improperly.

If you are hurt on an amusement park ride, you may suffer significant injuries. Three types of liability may apply if you are hurt or a loved one is killed on a ride: negligence, premises liability, and product liability. The most straightforward theory is negligence. In Texas, negligence is conduct that is less careful than what a reasonable person would do to avoid the risks of injury to another. For example, in the case described above, the operator could be found negligent for failing to close the door of the roller coaster ride. Operator error is one of the most common causes of injuries on roller coasters.

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Published on: August 25, 2014

Worker Injured on Former’s Employer’s Premises

By Carabin Shaw

A recent appellate case arose when a plaintiff was seriously burned after falling into a pool of hot water at the defendant’s chemical plant. The plant had multiple manufacturing units, but the facility was owned by DuPont. The unit where the plaintiff was injured was a formaldehyde production unit. Steam was a key part of the chemical production, and both steam and formaldehyde were supplied by D.B. Western, Inc., which built a formaldehyde manufacturing plant on land adjacent to the chemical plant. Steam pipes ran through the DuPont plant, and through them ran formaldehyde and steam from the adjacent plant.

There were steam traps designed by D.B. Western that DuPont and its outside company Spirex Sarco were responsible for maintaining. In 2004, DuPont sold the formaldehyde unit to Invista, and the employees of DuPont working there, including the plaintiff, became Invista employees. Invista had a contract with the same contracting company to purchase the steam and inspect the pipeline system. The plaintiff was burned by hot condensate that was in a pool under a pipeline.

The plaintiff sued DuPont, the owner of the plant, alleging negligence in the design, construction, and maintenance of the pipeline and steam traps, as well as premises liability. With regard to premises liability, the plaintiff claimed he was an invitee of DuPont. The plaintiff’s wife alleged loss of consortium.

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Published on: August 18, 2014

Death of a Minor in Go-Kart Accident in Texas

By Carabin Shaw

Recently, a 14-year-old girl passed away after a go-kart accident outside the Texas Motor Speedway, where she was participating in a go-kart race. The race was sponsored by the Sports Car Club of America. The girl’s go-kart kept going after she crossed the finish line and crashed through a low fence. Her helmet fell off when she crashed. Although she was airlifted to a hospital, she was pronounced dead afterward. It is not known whether the girl lost control because she suffered some sort of medical condition, or if the go-kart experienced a mechanical failure.

If the cause of an accident causing injury or death to a minor is mechanical failure, it may be appropriate to bring a wrongful death lawsuit. In Texas, a plaintiff bringing a product liability suit must prove the product was defective, the product reached the plaintiff without a substantial change in its condition, the defect made the product unreasonably dangerous, and the defect caused the plaintiff’s injuries and resulting damages.

When a product liability suit is brought, your attorney will need to retain experts to prove whether there was a design, manufacturing, or marketing defect and to testify about whether there was a safer alternative design. When there is a manufacturing defect claim, the plaintiff’s expert must be able to testify that the product deviated from its planned specifications. When there is a marketing defect, the plaintiff will have to show that the product lacked an adequate warning.

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Published on: August 15, 2014

Discovery in Texas Manufacturing Defect Tire Case

By Carabin Shaw

In a product liability or manufacturing defects case in Texas, it is common to need extensive discovery on the manufacturing process. Among other things, plaintiffs will need to propound written discovery, take depositions, and retain experts on the issue of defects. Sometimes, a site inspection is also required to determine whether there were particular actions or processes that could have caused a defect. There may be certain kinds of investigation and discovery that are harder to obtain, particularly if a company has taken remedial steps or discontinued manufacturing a particular product since your accident.

In a recent appellate decision, the court considered the plaintiffs’ efforts to sue a tire manufacturer in a wrongful death case after a car accident that was allegedly caused by a defectively manufactured tire. The plaintiffs argued that the tire manufacturer was grossly negligent in its manufacturing practices and that the tire design was defective in failing to include a ply cap or nylon overlay. Accordingly, they asked to view the manufacture of the tire with the overlay so that they could prove how simple it was to add a cost-efficient safety component to the tire.

The plaintiffs asserted that if the actual machine used to manufacture the title wasn’t available, they were willing to view a similar tire-building machine. They explained that any deviations from the norm that their tire expert identified were caused by a person or the equipment used in the process. They hoped to use the recording to prove a correlation between activity in the plant and the later failure due to a defect.

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Published on: August 8, 2014

Two Texas Students Die From Head-On Collision With Wrong-Way Pickup Truck

By Carabin Shaw

Two Texas residents recently died in a car accident near Wichita Falls. One was 23 years old, while the other would have been a 17-year-old high school senior at Maud High School.

The cause of the car accident is still under investigation, but the details appeared to be that the two were in a pickup truck pulling a trailer down U.S. 82, moving westbound, between Wichita Falls and Seymour. They were reportedly behind another pickup truck moving westbound, when a truck headed eastbound crossed the center line and stuck the first pickup truck before hitting theirs head-on. There was a curve along the highway that might have contributed to the accident. While the trailer from the first pickup truck ended up running off the road, there were no reported injuries from the first pickup truck. Meanwhile, the 23-year-old and 17-year-old died at the scene, as well as the driver of the truck that crossed the center line. A passenger from that truck caught on fire and was currently in the hospital in critical condition.

Students at Maud High School mourned the loss of both victims, for the 23-year-old was a 2009 graduate. This marked the third student death in the past two years. The 23-year-old was remembered for his love of football and for being an excellent player, while the 17-year-old was remembered for being quiet until people got to know her, and then revealing a very kind heart. Both were interested in race car driving and were reportedly on their way to pick up a race car when the accident occurred. There will be grief counselors available to help students through this difficult time.

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Published on: August 4, 2014

As the Hydraulic Fracturing Practice Grows in Texas, So Do Concerns About Its Safety

By Carabin Shaw

At a time when onshore oil and gas drilling continues to rise, many questions remain unanswered about the safety of “fracking,” or hydraulic fracturing, a method of oil extraction that has grown increasingly popular.

Hydraulic fracturing is a method used in Texas and across the United States to access oil in onshore areas where it would otherwise be too difficult to drill. The process involves injecting high-pressure fluid into a well bore in order to create small fractures in deep rock formations. The small fractures then allow oil or gas to escape and reach the well. The hydraulic fracturing method was first used in 1947, and it has since spread widely across the country. Many proponents of the method praise the fact that it allows the United States to continue to produce domestic energy despite earlier beliefs that there were very few reachable oil reserves remaining.

At the same time, critics of hydraulic fracturing claim that it poses a threat both to the environment and nearby communities, and to the oil and gas workers themselves. One area of concern is the type of chemicals used in the high-pressure solution. While proponents of the method claim that chemicals are just a tiny percentage of the overall solution, the fact is that significant chemicals are still being used. Yet the companies with the most hydraulic fracturing wells have failed to disclose at least one chemical used in the process, making it impossible to get an accurate sense of the method’s effect on the groundwater that it comes in contact with, and therefore on its community impact. Still, several communities located near hydraulic fracturing wells have complained that their water was contaminated by fracturing fluid. At least Texas is one of five states that require public records on any fluid spills.

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Published on: July 25, 2014

Texas Workers Compensation System Too Often Fails to Perform Its Duty to Injured Workers

By Carabin Shaw

While Texas has been fortunate to have sustained economic growth for several years, enough to be dubbed the “Texas miracle,” some argue that this growth has come at a disturbing price, particularly higher worker fatalities and weak benefits for workers who are injured.

Texas is the only state in the country that does not require employers to carry workers compensation insurance. This means that as many as half a million workers may be risking their health every day at job sites that will not provide for them if they get injured. That is a real problem given that Texas has led the country in occupational fatalities for seven of the last 10 years.

Employers here do have the option of purchasing private occupational insurance. However, those plans come with several problems attached. Their benefits are often strictly limited, as are the workers’ legal rights and medical options, and they are generally not regulated by the state. Employers claim that employees get faster and better care under the private system, although there is little information to support or refute that view.

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Published on: July 18, 2014

One Year After Loved One is Killed at Six Flags, a Dallas Family Wants Answers

By Carabin Shaw

One year after a Dallas woman tragically fell to her death at a Six Flags amusement park in Arlington, the legal issues are far from over.

The accident occurred on the evening of July 19, 2013, when 52-year old Rosa Esparza fell 75 feet from where she had been sitting, behind her daughter and son-in-law, on one of the thrill rides. Prior to this, Esparza was allegedly upside down in her seat and holding on for “dear life” before plunging to her death from the Texas Giant ride. This was Esparza’s first visit to the Six Flags theme park.

Following the tragedy, the Arlington Police Department and Six Flags conducted an investigation into what went wrong. The ride shut down for the rest of July and August, before reopening in September after the investigation found no evidence of mechanical failure. Added to the ride were restraining bar pads that had been redesigned, seat belts, and a coaster seat at the entrance so potential riders could determine whether they would fit into the cars securely. Esparza’s family learned that the coaster seat had remained stored after the Texas Giant ride reopened in 2011 following a $10 million renovation.

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