Breaking Courthouse News

The jury in the Hughes civil case being tried for the second time has ruled in favor of TXI. No money damages will be awarded based upon the verdict (unless there was some side agreement). The jury's decision came in shortly before 5:00 p.m. in the 271st Judicial District Court in Decatur.

In a long legal history, the case was first tried in 2004 in Decatur to a jury which led to an award of $15,787,190 in compensatory damages and $6,658,000 in exemplary damages. The Second Court of Appeals took away the exemplary damages on appeal but otherwise affirmed the verdict. However, the Texas Supreme Court then heard the case and overturned the verdict and sent the case back to Decatur for retrial. That occured over the last two weeks.

From one of the opinions: "Several members of the Hughes family were killed when their vehicle collided with an eighteen wheel tractor-trailer rig heavily loaded with gravel. The accident occurred outside the city of Paradise on Highway 114, a two-lane highway. At the time of the accident, Kimberly Hughes was driving west toward Paradise with four other family members in her GMC Yukon. Ricardo Rodriguez, who was driving the gravel truck for TXI Transportation Company ("TXI"), was traveling east in the opposite direction. For reasons in dispute, the Yukon crossed the center line into the eastbound lane, collided with the gravel truck and careened down the length of its trailer. At the gravel truck's tail end, the Yukon spun sideways into the path of an eastbound Ford pickup. The resulting collision killed everyone in the Yukon except Hughes's infant grandson."

Edit: This didn't make the Messenger's Update on the following morning?

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