Mother of student in Hays CISD school bus crash sues truck driver, company and owner

A mother who was riding on the bus that rolled over during last month's fatal Hays school bus crash is suing the driver of the concrete pump truck that struck the bus and the driver's employer.

Victoria Limon, the woman filing the lawsuit, stated that she suffered injuries to her back and other parts of her body. Limon also filed the lawsuit on behalf of her daughter, who is not named in the suit and is said to have suffered injuries to her head and other parts of her body. The lawsuit said that neither of them have recovered from their injuries.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday by lawyers with the Scott Hendler Law Firm, is asking for a monetary award of more than $1 million. The lawsuit was filed against the concrete truck driver, Jerry Hernandez; the concrete company, listed in the lawsuit as FJM Concrete LLC and FJM Concrete Pumping LLC; and the owner of the company, Francisco Xavier Martinez Jr.

Reached by the American-Statesman on Tuesday, Martinez deferred comment to his attorney. Thomas Fagerberg, whom Martinez previously said was his attorney, and Laurence Dunne III, a criminal defense attorney listed as representing Hernandez in Bastrop County records, did not immediately return requests for comment.

Limon's lawsuit is the second filed in the aftermath of the March 22 wreck in which a concrete pump truck being driven by Hernandez swerved into the oncoming lane on Texas 21, striking the side of a Hays school bus carrying 44 prekindergarten student and 11 adults who were on their way home from a field trip to a zoo in Bastrop County.

The bus rolled over, and the concrete truck hit another vehicle traveling behind the school bus. The crash killed 5-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya and the driver of the other vehicle, 33-year-old Ryan Wallace, a University of Texas doctoral student who was weeks away from defending his dissertation.

Hernandez, 42, admitted to investigators with the Texas Department of Public Safety that he had gotten about three hours of sleep the night before, and that he smoked marijuana at about 10 p.m. and then did cocaine at 1 a.m. Hernandez was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide a week after the wreck.

Martinez was previously ticketed for employing an unlicensed driver. Hernandez also failed two drug tests in 2022 and 2023. Despite these violations and the resulting "prohibited" status of his commercial driver's license, Hernandez was permitted to operate the concrete pump truck involved in the March 22 crash in Texas.

In addition to asking for money to help pay for their medical bills, Limon's lawsuit also asks for monetary relief for the emotional distress endured by the mother and daughter as a result of the crash.

A copy of the crash report filled out by DPS troopers and released by the Texas Department of Transportation shows that Limon suffered "incapacitating injuries" and was taken by Austin-Travis County EMS to St. David's South Austin Medical Center. The report also lists a student with the same last name as suffering from "incapacitating injuries."

The lawsuit states that Hernandez "breached" his duty to act like a "reasonable" person when he decided to drive the concrete truck in an "unsafe manner." It also states that FJM and Martinez were "negligent ... when they entrusted Hernandez with their vehicle."

Staff writers Keri Heath and Chase Rogers contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Another lawsuit stemming from deadly Hays CISD school bus crash filed