HOUSTON -- Stan Holland simply stopped at a red light on October 24, 2006. Then a City of Houston dump truck plowed into the back of his SUV.
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Battle continues in dump truck accident case
November 18, 2008
Holland made it out alive, but is paralyzed. His wife feeds him through a tube every four hours.
Tracy Knetsar lost much more.
"The dump truck driver drove across an intersection and killed my husband. Try to be in my shoes that night when I went home and had to tell my eight-year-old daughter that her father wasn't coming home," said Tracy Knetsar, victim's wife.
Knetsar said her husband Adam's career was on the fast track. But when dump truck driver Clinton Mitchell ran a light, he ended it.
Mitchell's been sentenced to five years in prison.
The families of the three people he injured or killed are suing the city for damages, but the state's Tort Reform Act limits the payout to $500,000 per incident -- not per family. However, a judge has allowed the families to collect up to $250,000 separately.
The Knetsar family is asking the City Council not to appeal.
"It is absurd that we are being placed in the position of begging for one third of $750,000 rather than one third of $500,000. Adam's family deserves a hundred times that amount for the tragic loss we have all suffered," said Leslie Knetsar, Adam Knetsar's mother.
Council members were moved enough to ask City Attorney Arturo Michel for a briefing.
"What we're trying to do is see if we can get this resolved. We hope to either move forward or get this entire matter settled," said Michel.
After two years of fighting, the families aren't planning to give up.
"The government thinks that if they can overlook it, people will let it go and forget about it. We're not going away," said Knetsar.
