Weslaco, TX — There was an accident last week in Weslaco that involved a city-owned truck with the meter division and at least one other car. It happened along Pike Boulevard and the news reports are saying that the driver of the city-owned truck might have been on his cellphone when he crossed into oncoming traffic, hitting another car.
Two women in the car hit by the city owned-truck were taken to a hospital. Apparently, there were two boys in the car as well, ages 5 and 7, but they weren’t injured. One of the women injured was pregnant.
So far, none of the injuries seem to be serious and police confirmed that the truck driver’s drug tests came back negative. Right now, they say, this is a matter to be dealt with by the city manager and city attorney.
Witnesses told KRGV News that the city truck driver was on his cellphone at the time of the accident, but that hasn’t been officially confirmed yet.
Weslaco
Commentary:
It looks like this truck was owned by the City of Weslaco and the driver was also an employee of the city, which makes this an unusual situation. In a normal car accident, you can file an insurance claim – or even a lawsuit – to make the other driver pay for the damage/injuries they’ve caused. But, cities and other governmental entities are afforded a certain level of protection that most other drivers aren’t: sovereign immunity. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the city won’t take responsibility for their driver, but they certainly don’t have to. And that’s true of any insurance company you try to file a claim against.
A lot of people would assume that filing a claim against a city in Texas would be the same as filing against an insurance company like Allstate, but that’s not the case. Texas law makes it a little more difficult in terms of filing the claim because there are certain “notice” requirements that each city requires. I looked online for Weslaco’s City Charter, where they’d normally have that information, but it’s not there. You’d have to contact the city attorney and ask for the guidelines at that point. Some cities might require you to put the city attorney on notice 15 days after an accident or perhaps 30 days, it’s different for each local government.
— Grossman Law Offices
