Bexar County Jury Finds CPS Energy Liable for 2021 San Antonio Home Explosion
After trial: The jury's $109.5 million verdict does not control what CPS Energy pays. A high-low agreement the parties signed before trial capped the utility's exposure at $60 million, and CPS Energy, a city-owned utility, confirmed the agreement publicly after the verdict.
Won by Lyons & Simmons, LLP.
A Bexar County jury found CPS Energy responsible for a May 2021 natural gas explosion that destroyed a rental home on San Antonio's southeast side and badly injured a mother and her adult son. The jury returned a $109.5 million verdict, but a pretrial high-low agreement between the parties capped CPS Energy's actual payment at $60 million regardless of the jury's number. Jurors cleared two contractor companies of fault and found the utility solely responsible for failing to maintain aging gas infrastructure. Michael Lyons, Chris Simmons, Chris Carr and Michael Wozniak of Lyons & Simmons represented the family at trial.
What happened
On the night of May 1, 2021, a natural gas explosion tore through a rental house in the Colosseum Heights neighborhood on San Antonio's southeast side. Robert Rymers and his mother Virginia Rymers, who lived there together, were inside when the blast hit. The two family dogs were killed, and everything the Rymerses owned inside the house was lost.
Robert Rymers suffered extensive burns and was left permanently disabled by the explosion. Virginia Rymers was burned as well and suffered an air embolism, a condition in which air bubbles enter the bloodstream and disrupt blood flow, and she continues to deal with physical and mental injuries. The San Antonio Fire Department and the San Antonio Police Department's arson team both determined that natural gas caused the explosion, and a later investigation of the gas system at the property traced the blast's origin to a gas leak.
The Rymerses sued CPS Energy, the city-owned utility that runs San Antonio's gas system, in September 2021. They argued that the home's gas system, installed in 1960, had a documented history of failures that had already forced the meter to be replaced twice, in 2008 and again in 2015 after residents reported a strong smell of natural gas and a hissing sound coming from the meter. They also argued that CPS Energy failed to test the gas system around the house when crews did electrical testing in the neighborhood beforehand. The family named two companies that had done energy efficiency work near the home, Right Choice Heating and Air and Franklin Energy Services, as additional defendants.
Trial began on January 21, 2025 in Bexar County District Court before Judge Laura Salinas, case no. 2021-CI-18484. About three weeks later the jury returned a 10-2 verdict clearing both contractors and finding CPS Energy the only party whose negligence caused the explosion. The damages totaled $109.5 million: $103.5 million to Robert Rymers for past and future pain and suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement and physical impairment, and just over $6 million to Virginia Rymers for pain and suffering and mental anguish.
Before trial, the Rymerses and CPS Energy had signed a high-low agreement that guaranteed the family a payment even if the jury sided with the utility and capped what CPS Energy would owe at $60 million if the jury did not. That agreement, not the jury's number, controls what the family actually collects. Michael Lyons, Chris Simmons, Chris Carr and Michael Wozniak of Lyons & Simmons represented the Rymerses at trial, along with Omar G. Alvarez of The Law Office of O.G. Alvarez & Associates in San Antonio.
CPS Energy said after the verdict that it respected the jury's decision but did not believe its gas caused the explosion. No appeal has been reported.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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