Adult, parents of children involved in Hays CISD school bus crash file lawsuit on Tuesday

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correctly show the number of lawsuits filed to date in connection to the March 22 fatal crash involving a Hays school district bus.

A teacher's aide who was on the Hays school bus that rolled over after being struck by a concrete truck filed a lawsuit against the truck driver, the company he worked for and its owner on Tuesday — marking one of several lawsuits stemming from the fatal March 22 crash.

In addition to Ana Laura Zapien Flores, the suit was filed on behalf of guardians of seven students whom the lawsuit claims were injured in the crash. None of the students were named in the suit.

The lawsuit is asking for a monetary award of more than $1 million.

The lawsuit was filed against the concrete pump truck driver, 42-year-old Jerry Hernandez, who veered into oncoming traffic on Texas 21, striking the Hays school bus carrying 44 prekindergarten students and 11 adults. The crash killed 5-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, who was aboard the bus, and 33-year-old Ryan Wallace, a University of Texas doctoral student who was driving a vehicle behind the bus.

Hernandez 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.

In addition to Hernandez, Flores and the students' guardians are suing FJM Concrete LLC, FJM Concrete Pumping LLC and Francisco Xavier Martinez Jr., the owner of the company.

The lawsuit is one of at least five filed in connection to the crash as of Tuesday, according to Bastrop County records.

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.

Martinez did not immediately return a request to comment Tuesday afternoon, nor did his lawyer, Thomas Fagerberg. Hernandez's criminal defense attorney, Laurence Dunne III, also did not immediately return a request to comment when reached by the American-Statesman.

The lawsuit states that Hernandez "failed" to "operate his vehicle in a reasonable and prudent manner."

For Martinez's role, the lawsuit said that by employing Hernandez and failing to properly train and keep tabs on his history, Martinez and FJM Concrete acted negligently and violated "numerous" state and federal statutes.

The lawsuit noted that Martinez "employed a driver whose disregard of the federal regulations and lack of understanding of basic driving rules meant it was not a matter of whether Jerry Hernandez would cause a catastrophic collision, but a matter of when he would do so."

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday afternoon by Austin-based lawyer Jason Feltoon, whose firm said the suit represented the "most severely injured survivors."

"Incidents such as this occur when institutions lose sight of public interest and the individuals within place their own self-interest above the general welfare," a written statement by Feltoon said. "For this reason, we intend to hold responsible the driver, his company, and all who would willingly trade our public safety in order to maximize their own profits."

In the suit, the students are said to have suffered medical pain that will likely continue to result in expenses until they are 18. The suit asks for damages to cover the Flores' and the children's physical and emotional pain caused by the wreck.

A copy of the crash report filled out by the Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and filed by the Texas Department of Transportation said that Flores suffered "incapacitating injuries" and that she was taken to Dell Seton Children's Hospital by Lockhart EMS.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Fifth lawsuit filed resulting from Hays CISD fatal school bus crash