11 STUDENTS INJURED IN DEADLY SCHOOL BUS ACCIDENT NEAR HOUSTON | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog

11 STUDENTS INJURED IN DEADLY SCHOOL BUS ACCIDENT NEAR HOUSTON

By Rachel E. Montes posted in Auto Accidents on Wednesday, December 29, 2010

A school bus carrying the Crosby High School’s ninth-grade girls basketball team was involved in a major collision last night when it was struck by an SUV driven by Sideny Eugene Kelton. Police say a vehicle ahead of Kelton was stopped to yield to oncoming traffic to make a left turn onto Tall Cedars Street and Kelton moved into the southbound lane, apparently to avoid hitting the vehicle, but then Kelton hit the school bus head-on. Police report that Kelton died at the scene.

The eleven students and two adults on the bus were all taken to area hospitals and have been released. The school bus did not have seat belts.

WHO PAYS IF YOUR CHILD IS HURT IN AN ACCIDENT ON A SCHOOL BUS?

Obviously, it is important to get your child the appropriate medical care he or she needs. The question is who is going to pay for the medical bills?

In Texas, the answer to that question, depends on who is at fault for the collision, and how much insurance coverage is available to pay for those damages.

Let’s assume that the Mr. Kelton was negligent and that he alone was the sole cause of the collision. If that is the case, then hopefully he is insured, and claims can be made with his insurance company. However, most drivers are either not insured at all, or have only the minimum amount of insurance coverage required by law. As a result, it is very likely, that in any car wreck where 13 people are treated at a hospital, that there will not be enough insurance to pay for everyone’s medical expenses, not to mention other damages. The minimum amount of insurance coverage is set to increase in 2011, but for now, the minimum liability coverage is $25,000 per person or $50,000 per occurrence.

TOO MANY PEOPLE AND NOT ENOUGH INSURANCE

If you are involved in accident like this one, you need to get legal advice as soon as possible. In these cases, it is essentially a race to get your claim paid. The person at fault has a limit of insurance coverage. Once those funds have been paid, even if you have a valid claim, you are likely to find that there is no insurance coverage remaining to pay your claim and that the person who caused your wreck does not have enough personal assets to pay your damages.

In 1994, the Texas Supreme Court in the case of Texas Farmers Ins. Co. v. Soriano et al, 881 S.W.2d 312 (Tex. 1994) addressed the responsibilities of a liability insurance company when it is faced with a settlement demand arising out of multiple claims and inadequate proceeds, an insurer may enter into a reasonable settlement with one of the several claimants even though such settlement exhausts or diminishes the proceeds available to satisfy other claims.

It is essentially a first come, first serve rule. The first person to present a valid and reasonable demand is entitled to get paid even if other valid claims are known to exist. Depending upon the unique facts of the case, there are a number of specific requirements that have to be included in the demand to make it a valid demand. If the demand does not include these specific requirements, technically speaking, it is not a valid demand and the insurance company may be forced to pay other people’s claims before paying you. It may even exhaust the policy limits and have no additional funds to pay your claim if you delay or fail to present a valid demand. As a result, if you are involved in one of these multi-car crashes, you should run, not walk, to a lawyer to get immediate legal advice or you may find yourself in a situation where you get victimized twice.

 

DO SCHOOL DISTRICTS HAVE UNINSURED/UNDERINSURED MOTORIST (UM/UIM) COVERAGE OR COVERAGE FOR PERSONAL INJURY PROTECTION (PIP)?

Based upon the assumption that Mr. Kelton is the only person at fault, and that he is either uninsured or does not have sufficient insurance coverage (underinsured) to pay for everyone’s damages, the question then changes to is there any other insurance money available to pay for these damages?

In Texas, public schools do not carry uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. While school districts are authorized to purchase insurance protection for claims made against the school district and their employees by injured parties as indicated under the Texas Tort Claims Act (Chapter 101, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code), under Article 3, Sections 50, 51 & 52 of the Texas Constitution, a school district is not authorized to spend funds to benefit private individuals.

Under Articles 5.06-1 and 5.06-3 of the Insurance Code, the no-fault character of the coverages would provide benefits to the persons to whom the school district owes no legal obligation.  Thus, the Attorney General of Texas has held in Opinion No. H-602 (1975) that the provisions of such coverage, at the expense of the school district, would amount to granting of public money or thing of value to an individual which is in violation of the Texas Constitution.

According to that opinion, to purchase UNINSURED MOTORIST/UNDER-INSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE or PERSONAL INJURY PROTECTION COVERAGE with district funds would be unconstitutional and that such coverage does not in any way meet any obligation of the school district created by the Texas Tort Claims Act. The opinion may be accessed on line at (Article no longer available online)

 

OTHER PIP OR UNINSURED/UNDERINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE

If one of the parents of the students on the bus have PIP, MEDPAY or UM/UIM coverage on their personal auto insurance policy, then that parent and student can submit a claim to their insurance company for their injuries and damages.

 

CAN YOU SUE THE BUS DRIVER OR THE SCHOOL DISTRICT?

Just because the students were on a school bus going or coming home from a game does not mean the school district is responsible to pay for those medical bills. The school district would only be responsible if the bus driver was negligent and, to some degree, proximately caused the collision. If the bus driver was negligent, but that negligence was only 1% of the cause, then the school district would only be responsible for 1% of the damages.

In Texas, if you are injured in an auto accident with a public school bus, you can sue the school district for your damages, but The Texas Tort Claims Act requires that you bring your claim or lawsuit against the governmental entity for whom the officer works (i.e. the school district), not against the bus driver. See Section 101.026 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code.

Depending upon which governmental unit the driver works for, the law also limits how much can be recovered. The law caps the amount of damages that people get government to pay on these claims. See Section 101.023 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code.

Although in Texas there is a 2 year statute of limitations, when the person driving a vehicle is a local or state government employee, the law (Section 101.101 of Texas Tort Claims Act) requires that you submit proper written notice of your claim to the correct governmental entity within a much shorter time period, within 6 months from the date of the incident. However, depending on the unique facts of a particular case, there may be other laws that impose shorter notice periods and other notice requirements in addition to those in this section of the Texas Tort Claims Act.

In addition, if the case involves a claim against a federal employee, there are different notice requirements imposed by federal law. In any event, the lesson to be learned if you are every involved in any type of incident with a governmental employee, you need to appreciate that there are probably requirements imposed by that require you to submit proper legal notice of your claim within a very short amount of time to a specific person, and the failure to provide this proper and timely written notice of your claim, may cause you to lose all of your rights against the responsible person even if you file a lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations.

1 Comments

  1. Clarine Matzinger on June 15, 2012 at 11:41 am

    I am continuously searching online for articles that can facilitate me. Thx!

Leave a Comment