The City of Odessa has paid out nearly $465,000 over the last four months in connection with three lawsuits.
According to records obtained under the Texas Public Information Act, the city settled a lawsuit involving a motor vehicle crash and an Odessa Police Department officer for $440,000 in August.
Ector County District Court records show Jacob Andrew Nunez claimed he was driving east on Maple Avenue on Feb. 21, 2021, when he was struck by Officer William Dennis Gryder as he was traveling north on Grandview Avenue.
Nunez claimed Gryder was speeding and disregarded a red light.
A passenger in Nunez’s vehicle, Raquel Marie Stonecalf, joined the lawsuit on behalf of herself and her two children, court documents state.
Court records detailed the case was settled with the help of a mediator.
Records obtained under the TPIA also show the city agreed to pay Ashton Munoz $2,000 in August.
According to court documents, Munoz filed a small claims lawsuit against the city alleging sanitation department employee Manuel Ortiz Jimenez was negligent when he struck his 2022 Ford Expedition on July 15, 2022.
Ector County Justice Court records show Munoz agreed to dismiss the case after reaching an out-of-court agreement.
Two months earlier, an Ector County jury found the city negligent in connection with a Sept. 17, 2017, wreck involving trash truck driver Eden Hinojos and school bus driver Teena Fierro.
The jury awarded Fierro just under $22,720 in June for such things as medical bills, lost income and pre-judgment interest.
Fierro had alleged Hinojos made an unsafe lane change, causing the truck to hit the bus and injure her.
The Odessa American reported in June the City of Odessa settled a lawsuit filed in connection with a September 2020 crash that killed three teenagers and injured two others for $500,000.
The families of two teens, Kaenan Gage Garms, 19, and Evan James Hill, 18, sued the city claiming they were killed in a wreck caused by an obstructed stop sign.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the 161st Ector County District Court, Garms was driving a Ford F-150 north on Clover Avenue on Sept. 19, 2020 when he failed to see the stop sign at 52nd Street because it was blocked by vegetation and his truck collided with a GMC Terrain being driven by Andrew Jakob Nading, 19.
Garms and Hill, who were both in the Ford, were killed as was Nading.
D’Morriyon Breaux, 18, who was in the Ford, and Benjamin Mathew Luna, who was in the GMC, sustained grave injuries, the lawsuit stated.
The families of Garms, Hill and Nading received $100,000 and Breaux and Luna received the same amount.
