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Press Room
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Jury awards families $23.6 million for accident
May 16, 2004
By Brian Knox
Wise County Messenger
A year and a half after a devastating car accident, the Hughes, Watkins and Royse families have what has eluded them for so long: closure.
That closure was given to them in the form of a jury verdict Thursday in the 271st District Court in Decatur. TXI, truck driver Ricardo Rodriguez of Dallas and trucking company owner Aurelio Melendez of Dallas were found responsible for the deaths of Kim Hughes; her mother, Joyce Watkins, and her two children, Shiloh Hughes and Afton Hughes Royse, all of Paradise. Royse also lost her two unborn children. All were killed in an accident Dec. 17, 2002, near Paradise on Texas 114.
The Wise County jury awarded the family nearly $23.6 million in damages, including $7.5 million to be paid by TXI for “gross neglect” in its hiring practices. Attorneys for the Paradise families argued that TXI and Melendez allowed an unqualified driver, Rodriguez, to operate a rock truck which caused the fatal accident.
Rodriguez was found 50 percent responsible for the accident by the jury.
Plaintiffs attorney Derrick Boyd of Simpson, Boyd and Powers explained in his opening statement last Tuesday that the evidence showed Rodriguez had crossed the centerline of the road and was in the process of moving back into his lane when the initial sideswipe collision occurred with Kim Hughes’ vehicle, causing the vehicle to lose control and hit a pickup traveling behind the rock truck.
After deliberating for more than 24 hours, the jury delivered its decision Thursday afternoon, bringing an emotional eight-day trial to a close. As they filed out of the jury box, jurors hugged teary-eyed family members who thanked them for their judgment.
For those family members, Thursday’s verdict will allow the healing process to begin.
“The past year and a half has been a nightmare,” said Clint Royse, the husband of Afton Hughes Royse and the father of 2-year-old Jagr Royse who survived the wreck. “We finally have some closure. We’ve been wanting to know what happened on Dec. 17, 2002, and now we do.”
During Rodriguez’s video-taped testimony on the first day of the trial, he said he moved to the right two to three seconds before the impact occurred. He later amended his testimony to one second. With the gouge marks on the road found just inside Rodriguez’s lane, Boyd said that would prove Rodriguez must have been in Kim Hughes’ lane of traffic as the two vehicles approached each other.
They also argued that Rodriguez should never have been allowed to be on the road, claiming that he used a fake Social Security number to obtain a fraudulent driver’s license.
“They (TXI) allowed a driver without a valid driver’s license, who had been convicted of criminal acts and been deported twice, to get behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound rock truck and kill six family members,” said plaintiffs attorney Mike Simpson.
TXI and Melendez, who leases trucks to TXI, were each found 25 percent responsible for the fatal accident.
Attorney Mark Stradley of Dallas, who was representing TXI in the case, said there was no evidence to prove that Rodriguez was in Kim Hughes’ lane of traffic before the accident.
He told the jury that the evidence showed that Kim Hughes was the one who crossed the center stripe and struck Rodriguez’s truck.
Following the trial, Stradley said the plaintiffs attorneys were successful in keeping two key pieces of evidence out of the trial that may have changed the outcome.
“There was evidence that Mrs. Hughes may have been using a cell phone at the time of the accident,” Stradley said. “There was also the exclusion of the DPS trooper’s opinion ... that the accident was the fault of Mrs. Hughes, that she lost control for unknown reasons and came into our lane.”
Stradley added that he hoped the trial did bring closure for the families involved.
He did not rule out the possibility of appealing the decision.
“We will probably pursue whatever avenue of appeal is available,” he said.
On Thursday afternoon, TXI issued a press release with their comments on the jury’s verdict.
“Any loss of family is an extremely sad and painful experience and our condolences have been with the family for their loss since the accident,” said Randy Jones, vice president of corporate communications of TXI, in the release.
The statement also said, “No evidence was found or presented to show that the driver of the TXI owner operated vehicle was responsible for the accident.”
Simpson said after the trial that he hopes the verdict will make TXI take responsible action.
“Hopefully today they (TXI) will take (Rodriguez) off the road,” he said. “Hopefully they will respect this jury’s verdict. We’ve asked repeatedly that he be taken off the road.”
When reached by phone for further comment Thursday, Jones said he did not know whether Rodriguez was still driving for TXI, but added, “All of our drivers are qualified.”
While they await word on a possible appeal, the victims’ family members will take comfort in knowing that the jury was unanimous in finding Kim Hughes zero percent responsible for the accident.
But that comfort won’t replace the pain they still feel.
“We spent Mother’s Day this past Sunday at the cemetery,” Clint Royse said. “I tried to explain to Jagr why his mother wasn’t here.”
The mood in the second floor courtroom was often very somber during the trial. The victims’ family members and even some jurors wiped away tears as friends and family described the void that had been left in their lives since the accident.
Johnny Watkins, the son of Joyce Watkins and the brother of Kim Hughes, described the family as “very close, very loving” during his testimony. He described how much his mother meant to the family.
“She was basically the strength, the glue that held this family together,” he said.
Watkins said the judgment confirmed what the family has always known.
“Justice has been served,” he said.
One juror, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Rodriguez’s credibility played a large part in determining his responsibility for the deaths.
“One of the biggest factors was the driver had an invalid driver’s license because his Social Security card wasn’t real,” the juror said. “Also, when he testified that he had never crossed that (center) line, well, everybody at some point has done that. That kind of stuck in everybody’s mind.”
The juror said that after looking at the accident reconstruction theories of both sides, the jury felt the plaintiffs theory was more credible.
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