I recently read that a trucker who, in 2012, had caused the death of an 11-year old girl was sentenced to four years in prison. The trucker’s name is Hector Pena, and in September, 2012 Mr. Pena was turning a corner at the intersection of North 26th Street and North 30th Avenue in Texas City, Texas, when his 18-wheeler left the road and hit Christina Lopez, who was waiting for her school bus at the time.
During Pena’s civil trial, Lopez’s family argued that Pena was speeding and wasn’t paying attention to the road. They also argued that Pena’s employer, Altom Transport, Inc., had not given Pena the amount of training needed to properly do his job. Pena’s defense amounted to a great, big, “Nuh-uh.” Where Lopez’s family showed that a police investigation found that Pena’s truck had left the road, Pena’s defense argued that the police report was in error. Where Lopez’s family claimed that Pena had not received the amount of training mandated under federal law, Pena’s defense argued that he had. Basically, when Lopez’s family said it was day, Pena’s lawyers argued that, no, it was night.
Christina Lopez was waiting at a bus stop when the accident occurred. She wasn’t standing in the middle of the street. If she had been, you can make a strong argument that she’d still be alive today. She was standing at the edge of a neighbor’s yard when Pena’s truck left the road and killed her. These are facts. A jury of Pena’s peers referred to those same facts when they sentenced him to four years in prison. Pena and his lawyers are perfectly within their rights to refute those facts, however, refutation alone only brings up a question his defense seems unable to answer: If Pena didn’t kill Lopez when his truck went off the road, then when did he kill her?
No one seemed to be disputing that it was Pena’s truck that caused the accident. And if Pena had received the proper amount of training, and his truck never left the road, that only means that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings, and wasn’t able to spot Lopez as she was standing out in the road. It seems as if Pena’s lawyers chose to argue against all of the charges except the most important one.
Unfortunately, this behavior is more than typical when it comes to trucking companies. The payout in Pena’s civil case was upwards of six million dollars. That’s a lot of money. And in the beginning, there was even more on the line. Trucking companies, if their only interest is in defending their bottom line, have no choice but to defend their drivers, regardless of how bad the case is. Logically, it makes sense. But on an emotional level, on a human level, it’s things like these that make people hate insurance companies. The man killed a child. If we’re not going to nail a person for that, then what are we going to nail a person for?
Is this a problem inside the trucking industry? Yes. Does this mean that there’s something inherently evil about the trucking industry? Of course not. I know it’s easy to look at a personal injury lawyer taking down a truck driver and saying, “Surprise, surprise, surprise,” but this is something that needs to be addressed. I have nothing against truck drivers, but I have everything in the world against bad truck drivers. Hector Pena is a bad truck driver. When an accident like this takes place, people like him need to be held responsible, and it’s wrong that a company’s obsession with its bottom line would stand in the way of that happening.
— Grossman Law Offices
