Thread: TX Court asked to void $15.8 million award

This angers me beyond words!
Don't Ask, Don't Tell?? Are You Kidding?!!

TEXAS SUPREME COURT

Court asked to void $15.8 million award
Driver unfairly revealed to be illegal immigrant, trucking firm says.
By Chuck Lindell

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A cement-hauling company is asking the Texas Supreme Court to toss out a $15.8 million verdict, arguing that jurors were improperly told that its gravel truck driver — involved in a 2002 accident that killed four members of a family — was an illegal immigrant.

Revealing the driver's immigration status was meant to inflame Fort Worth-area jurors with prejudicial, irrelevant information, TXI Transportation says.

The information "gave permission to this non-Hispanic jury to decide that the truck driver was responsible — not because he crossed the center line of the highway, but because he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and was allowed to drive the truck," TXI's lawyer, Reagan Simpson, told the court during oral arguments in October.

Lawyers for the Hughes family, which lost members of four generations in the accident, said the immigration information was presented to show that the truck driver did not have a viable commercial driver's license and that TXI did not properly investigate its employee's driving record.

"TXI admitted that it didn't train or test him and took on face value that he had seven years of driving experience," said Brian Stagner, a lawyer for the Hughes family. "We were able to prove, in part by using immigration evidence, that he had little over two years."

TXI Transportation — a subsidiary of Dallas-based TXI Corp., the state's largest producer of cement — also argued that Hughes lawyers improperly struck a Hispanic member of the jury pool before the 2004 civil trial, a claim that received a lot of attention during oral arguments.

Ideally, courtrooms are refuges from prejudice, but in reality judges and lawyers are like the rest of society, still struggling with issues concerning race and ethnicity.

Some standards are well established — potential jury members cannot be struck based on race. Others are applied case by case, such as whether a person's status as an illegal immigrant is germane.

The judge in the TXI case said that it was, and jurors heard almost 80 references to driver Ricardo Rodriguez's crossing the border illegally, being deported and holding a falsified Social Security number.

For the Hughes family to keep its $15.8 million award, at least five of the Supreme Court's nine justices must find that Rodriguez's illegal status was relevant and not an appeal to racial prejudice.

But during oral arguments, several justices questioned whether the driver's immigration status should have been raised.

"In today's politically charged world, where the so-called illegal immigrant is the cause of all of society's problems," Justice David Medina said, "it seems (the information was offered) to let this jury know that we have an illegal alien over here who may have caused this horrible, horrendous accident, and we want you to punish him and disregard the facts."

Where was the truck?

After doing Christmas shopping on Dec. 17 in Fort Worth, five members of the Hughes family were returning to their homes in Paradise, about 30 miles to the northwest. The day was clear and dry.

On a highway just outside of town, their GMC Yukon sideswiped a fully loaded gravel truck traveling in the opposite direction. The SUV scrapedalong the truck's side until it emerged, spinning and skidding, into the path of a full-size pickup.

Only 1-year-old Jagr Royse, who was in a child safety seat, survived. His uncle, grandmother and great-grandmother were killed. So was his mom, Afton Hughes Royse, pregnant with twins. None of the adults was wearing a seat belt, an accident report said.

Rodriguez passed drug and alcohol tests after the wreck and was not cited for any traffic violations.

An accident reconstruction expert hired by the Hughes family concluded that the gravel truck driver had drifted into the opposite lane.

TXI's expert disagreed, but Wise County jurors ordered the company to pay $22.4 million to Hughes family members.

An appeals court cut the award by $6.66 million but in a 2-1 decision upheld two critical factors in the verdict: the Hughes family's accident reconstruction report and the inclusion of Rodriguez's status as an illegal immigrant at trial. It also upheld a pretrial decision by Hughes lawyers to strike a Hispanic member of the jury pool.

Arguing before the state Supreme Court, TXI lawyer Simpson said the jury strike showed that race was improperly "front and center" during the entire trial. A lively discussion followed.

'Looks Hispanic'

Frank Gonzalez was among 52 members of the jury pool for the TXI-Hughes trial. During jury selection, Hughes lawyers struck Gonzalez from the panel without asking him any questions. Their rationale: The man had lived in Wise County for only 2½ years.

But another juror, a county resident for three years, was not struck. TXI thinks the real reason for Gonzalez's dismissal was his Latino surname, and the company pointed to a handwritten note by the Hughes jury consultant: "Looks Hispanic," the consultant wrote under the name of Patrick White, another potential juror who in fact was Anglo.

TXI argued that the note improperly introduced race into the jury selection process, which produced a panel free to discuss the driver's "inflammatory" immigration status without the discomfort of doing so in front of a Hispanic juror.

Since 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court has banned striking members of the jury pool based on their race — issuing a key civil rights ruling that, some lawyers say, simply drove the practice underground as lawyers found race-neutral reasons to strike unwanted jurors. It is up to the trial judge to determine that the reason cited is valid, though higher courts frequently revisit those decisions during appeals.

Stagner, the Hughes family lawyer, told the Supreme Court that the consultant's notation was inconsequential.

"The 'looks Hispanic' obviously wasn't next to Mr. Gonzalez; it was next to Patrick White," he said.

"Yeah, but it isn't race neutral, either," Justice Scott Brister interjected.

"But we didn't strike Patrick White," Stagner said.

Brister: "I know, but it shows us that somebody was thinking about that, doesn't it?"

Stagner: "The same jury consultant noted other features about the panel members."

Brister: "But jury consultants are not supposed to notice that feature, are they?"

The case is TXI v. Randy Hughes, 07-0541.

clindell@statesman.com; 912-2569

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... court.html

"Revealing the driver's immigration status was meant to inflame Fort Worth-area jurors with prejudicial, irrelevant information, TXI Transportation says."

prejudicial? - Inflame jurors with the TRUTH would have been a more accurate statement.

irrelevant? - Since when is it irrelevant to state a fact, ie; that an individual is ILLEGALLY driving a cement truck? Would it be acceptable if I passed illegally into Mexico and began to pilot a commercial passenger plane for Mexican airlines and killed people when I crashed into a neighborhood??

This company should pay through the NOSE for hiring like this and putting Americans lives at risk. They broke the law just hiring an Illegal Alien. That family should be awarded the entire company in my opinion.

but notice the ethnicity of the judge. So--why are Hispanics so protective of illegal Hispanics even when it deals with harm rendered to American citizens??

Illegal Immigrant Trucker Kills Family

The Texas Supreme Court is being asked to overturn a multi million-dollar verdict against a large company because jurors were improperly told that the gravel truck driver who killed four family members is an illegal immigrant.

Revealing the driver’s immigration status at trail was intended to inflame jurors with prejudicial and irrelevant information, according to attorneys for the Dallas cement hauling company (TXI Transportation Co. v. Hughes). In 2002 the illegal immigrant, driving one of the company’s trucks, drifted into the opposite lane of a Ft. Worth highway and struck a sports utility vehicle occupied by five family members returning from Christmas shopping.

The family’s vehicle scraped along the truck’s side until it emerged spinning and skidding into the path of a full-size pickup, according to news reports. A one-year-old strapped to a car seat was the lone survivor. Family attorneys said the immigration information was presented in court to illustrate that the driver—previously deported and using a fake Social Security—did not have the commercial driver’s license required to operate the truck and that the company did not properly investigate his driving record.

A state appellate court upheld the jury verdict, including the mention of the driver as an illegal immigrant, and now the Texas Supreme Court will rule on the case. During oral arguments at least one Supreme Court Justice revealed that the driver’s legal status should not have been mentioned at trial.

Sarcastically claiming that “the so-called illegal immigrant is the cause of all of society’s problemsâ€

Added to Home Page
http://www.alipac.us/article4256.html

For the family to keep its $15.8 million award, the majority of the Supreme Court's nine justices must find that the driver’s illegal status was in fact relevant and not simply an appeal to racial prejudice.

How's this for revelance?

Where would an illegal alien take and pass a driver's test? That's relevant enough for me.


There's a reason we have driver's tests, it's to make sure you know the rules of the road and how to operate a motor vehicle! Legal residents are required to take and pass this test in order to get a license.

[quote]Sarcastically claiming that “the so-called illegal immigrant is the cause of all of society’s problemsâ€