SAN ANTONIO – A wrongful death lawsuit being heard in 150th District Court alleges a deicing agent in use the night of Dec. 16, 2008, caused a fatal crash on the Interstate 10/Interstate 37 interchange the next morning.
The family of 32-year-old Ramiro Reyes is suing the Texas Department of Transportation for unspecified damages.
Their attorney, Fidel Rodriguez Jr., said he expects to put some of them on the stand Thursday.
Rodriguez said Reyes was on his way to work at Parent-Child Inc. on Cupples Road Dec. 17, when his pickup skidded on the I-37 ramp off of I-10, slamming into a guardrail and a concrete pillar, killing him.
The jury in Judge Janet Littlejohn's court Wednesday afternoon heard a series of video depositions from Texas Department of Transportation employees, including that of Will Shuler.
He testified he spoke to and e-mailed management that night telling them it was "a bad call" because weather conditions that did not warrant using the deicing agent.
Shuler said in his deposition that he was told to do it anyway. He said he had told those in charge a temperature reading at 2 a.m. showed it was 38 degrees on a section of highway, well above freezing at that point.
The TxDOT decision to go ahead with the deicing of San Antonio highways is being defended by David Strain, an assistant attorney general, who questioned the plaintiff's assertions.