{"id":6909,"date":"2026-10-05T06:58:43","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T06:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelawyerworld.com\/blog\/?p=6909"},"modified":"2026-10-05T06:58:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T06:58:46","slug":"two-texas-crash-cases-with-the-same-facts-and-opposite-verdicts-one-second-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelawyerworld.com\/blog\/two-texas-crash-cases-with-the-same-facts-and-opposite-verdicts-one-second-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Texas Crash Cases With The Same Facts And Opposite Verdicts, One Second Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Permanent disability, in a Texas injury claim, means a medical condition that is not going to be rectified in the person’s lifetime, which is how Attorney Felix Gonzalez of Felix Gonzalez Accident and Injury Law Firm<\/a> puts it and it is a good plain definition. Paralysis, a brain injury that does not come back, the loss of a limb, blindness. The damages in these cases are the largest in Texas law because the care runs for decades and the lost earnings run to the end of a working life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet in Texas the size of the injury has very little to do with whether a dollar gets paid. Two cases, 68 years apart, with the same shape to the crash, show that better than any definition. Take a look at the pair first, then ask yourself why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case<\/td>What came into the lane<\/td>Time in the lane before impact<\/td>Jury<\/td>Final result<\/td><\/tr>
Biggers v. Continental Bus, Texas Supreme Court, 1957<\/a><\/td>A Ford shoved across the center line by the car behind it<\/td>About 3.5 seconds<\/td>For the family<\/td>Family won, verdict reinstated<\/td><\/tr>
Werner Enterprises v. Blake, Texas Supreme Court, 2025<\/a><\/td>A pickup that lost control on ice and crossed a 42 foot median<\/td>Two to three seconds<\/td>$89.7 million for the family<\/td>Family took nothing<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Same Crash, Two Families, Two Endings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In both cases the commercial driver was in his own lane. In both, the other vehicle came across into him. In both, the family said the commercial driver was going too fast for the conditions and a jury agreed. The Biggers family collected. The Blake family, with a twelve year old girl paralyzed from the neck down, collected nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we give it a look, ah, this case, now do you wonder why? The answer is shorter than you would think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biggers v. Continental Bus, 1957: The Bus Was Speeding And The Family Won<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A wet two lane highway eight miles north of Huntsville, in 1951. Enoch Biggers was driving a Ford south. The car behind him braked hard on the wet road, locked it’s wheels, slid into his rear bumper and shoved the Ford diagonally across the center line, into the northbound lane, in front of a Continental bus. The bus was over the speed limit. It stayed in it’s lane and hit the Ford. Biggers died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His widow Patricia and the children sued the bus company. The jury answered 79 special issues, found the bus driver negligent for his speed, for not keeping a proper lookout and for not braking and found each one a proximate cause. The Court of Civil Appeals wiped it out and ruled the family would take nothing, on the ground that a car pushed into your lane is no one’s doing but the car’s and speed had only “furnished the occasion”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Texas Supreme Court put the verdict back, on May 22, 1957. It’s reasoning was short. A driver in his own lane can foresee that another driver might not stay in theirs; that is why speed limits exist. The Ford had been in the bus’s lane for something like three and a half seconds. Whether a bus at a lawful speed could have slowed or steered in that time was a question for the jury and the jury had answered it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Biggers, a Texas driver who is speeding in his own lane can be liable when someone comes across into him, provided there was time in which his speed made a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That has been Texas law for 68 years and it still is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Werner v. Blake, 2025: The Truck Was Speeding And The Family Got Nothing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Interstate 20 outside Odessa, December 30, 2014, ice on the road. Trey Salinas was driving an F 350 east with Jennifer Blake and her three children in it. He lost control at 50 to 60 miles an hour and in two to three seconds the pickup left the eastbound lanes, crossed the 42 foot grass median and hit a Werner 18 wheeler coming west. The Werner driver, Shiraz Ali, was a trainee, with his trainer asleep in the sleeper berth and the Blakes said he was going too fast for the ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n