Family and friends of four Houston-area women who died in a crash with an 18-wheeler in the Texas Panhandle have filed a lawsuit against supermarket chain H-E-B, among others, alleging that negligence caused the fatal collision.
In early November, 19-year-old Lakeisha Brown from Galveston, 20-year-old Myunique Johnson from Stafford, 27-year-old Taylor White from Missouri City and 30-year-old Breanna Brantley from Rosharon were traveling south along U.S. 87 — approximately 10 miles south of Dalhart — when their vehicle got a flat tire.
According to the lawsuit, filed on Dec. 23 in Bexar County, the vehicle occupied by the four women slowed down and activated its hazard lights. As the car slowed down, the driver of an 18-wheeler carrying potatoes for H-E-B allegedly struck the car from behind, pushing it across two lanes of traffic and into the median. A dashboard camera video from a third vehicle, which was shared with media outlets by attorneys for the plaintiffs, shows the moments leading up to and including the crash. All four women died as a result of the crash.
The lawsuit, filed by representatives of the women's estates, seeks more than $1 million in damages and claims the driver of the 18-wheeler, Guadalupe Villarreal, "was distracted and the likely source of that distraction is his mobile phone." H-E-B, Villarreal and transportation companies Parkway Transport, Inc. and Scrappy Trucking, LLC., are named as defendants in the case.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that since H-E-B owns Parkway Transport, which contracted Scrappy Trucking to have Villarreal drive the shipment, all four are legally responsible for the fatal crash.
"Four young women's lives have been unimaginably cut short, leaving their families devastated, because these companies and their driver demonstrated brazen disregard for the safety of others," a spokesperson for the plaintiffs said in a statement. "We intend to hold the defendants fully accountable for their actions and extreme negligence in such an avoidable tragedy."
In a statement toHouston Public Mediaon Wednesday, an H-E-B spokesperson said the crash involved a third-party vendor driver and not an H-E-B "partner."
"Our H-E-B Family is devastated by this tragic accident, which resulted in the loss of the young women involved," the spokesperson said. "H-E-B and the contractor are fully cooperating with the investigation."
The lawsuit argues that H-E-B should be legally responsible because the company was "negligent in selecting and retaining Parkway and its owner operator Scrappy as a motor carrier."
A Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson toldHouston Public Mediaon Wednesday the investigation into the crash was ongoing, but that the preliminary investigation found that the driver of the 18-wheeler "failed to control its speed." Villarreal was injured in the crash and transported to a hospital with "non-life-threatening" injuries, according to DPS.
Neither Villarreal, Parkway Transport nor Scrappy Trucking had defense attorneys listed for them as of Wednesday, according to Bexar County court documents.
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