Bexar County Jury Awards Lytle Woman $43.5 Million After Oilfield Company Employee Rear-Ends Her on I-35

On a day in 2015, Jenny Hennes of Lytle was driving her 2009 Cadillac STS through stop-and-go traffic on Interstate 35 in San Antonio when a 2012 GMC Yukon struck her from behind. The SUV was owned by JC Fodale Energy Services, an oil field services company based in Shreveport, Louisiana, and was driven by its employee Mickey Hunt. Hennes suffered neck, back and shoulder injuries, and according to her lawyer she is likely to have trouble finding work.

Hennes sued the company and Hunt in Bexar County. Her attorney, Thomas J. Henry, built the case around cellphones. Jurors were told that Hunt had texted more than 2,000 times while driving during the five months before the wreck, and that on the day of the crash he had been on a phone call for about two minutes, after sending texts in the four minutes before that. Henry also argued that Hunt was a company executive in charge of safety, a description Hunt disputed. In discovery, Henry said, his team found that JC Fodale had several different cellphone policies for executives and for other employees.

The trial began Nov. 6, 2017, before State District Judge Stephani Walsh. The jury decided the crash was caused by the company's lack of safety management and by Hunt's failure to drive carefully. On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, it returned a verdict of $43.5 million against JC Fodale and Hunt.

The Express-News reported the total as $43.5 million, although the separate amounts it listed add up to more than that. For compensation, jurors awarded almost $7.3 million for physical pain and mental anguish, $2.9 million for physical impairment, almost $1.3 million for medical expenses and $1.1 million for lost earnings, past and future. They also assessed $30 million in punitive damages against the company and $2.5 million in punitive damages against Hunt personally.

After the verdict, Henry said the case set a standard for employers to adopt and enforce policies on phone use in vehicles, and noted that many large companies now ban it outright. The defendants' lawyer, Brian Cano of Houston, said they would appeal and predicted a retrial. JC Fodale had filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in February 2016, and Henry's firm told the bankruptcy court it would not pursue claims against the company's bankruptcy estate, leaving the insurance coverage as the route to collection.

JC Fodale and Hunt did appeal. The trial court signed its judgment on Jan. 19, 2018, a motion for new trial followed, and the case went to the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio that April. Before the defendants filed their brief, the parties reached a settlement. In an October 2018 court filing, the defendants told the court the agreement would release Hennes's claims and the judgment once it was funded. On Jan. 16, 2019, the court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the appeal and ordered them to bear the appeal costs. The settlement terms were not disclosed, and the amount of the signed judgment is not public. Texas law limits punitive damages, so the jury's figure may not be what the judgment ordered.