Andrea Cano v. Tony Hodges and Carter BloodCare

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided August 14, 2025·No. 02-24-00479-CV·Published

Opinion

In the

Court of Appeals

Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth

No. 02-24-00479-CV

ANDREA CANO, Appellant

V.

TONY HODGES AND CARTER BLOODCARE, Appellees

On Appeal from the 236th District Court Tarrant County, Texas

Trial Court No. 236-313740-19

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Womack and Walker, JJ.

Memorandum Opinion by Justice Womack

MEMORANDUM OPINION

I. INTRODUCTION

Appellant Andrea Cano, who sued appellees Tony Hodges and Carter

BloodCare (Carter) for negligence and gross negligence1 following a bus crash, appeals from a take-nothing judgment rendered after a bench trial. In a single issue, Cano argues that the trial court erred by rendering a take-nothing judgment in appellees’ favor because they failed to provide necessary expert testimony to support their inferential-rebuttal theory that the bus crash was an unavoidable accident caused by a sudden medical emergency. We will affirm.

II. BACKGROUND

This case concerns a one-vehicle bus crash that occurred in February 2016. At

the time of the accident, the bus, which belonged to Carter, was traveling from Carter’s headquarters to a Carter blood drive at a Walmart. Four Carter employees were in the bus: Hodges, Cano, Tamicka Sharp, and Yesica Alcala-Orozco. Hodges was the bus’s assigned driver; Cano, Sharp, and Alcala-Orozco were passengers.

1 Cano’s appellate brief does not address her gross-negligence claim. Indeed, it does not even contain the words “gross negligence.” Accordingly, our analysis focuses solely on Cano’s negligence claim. To the extent that she seeks to challenge the trial court’s denial of her gross-negligence claim, we overrule such challenge due to inadequate briefing. See Tex. R. App. P. 38.1; Fredonia State Bank v. Gen. Am. Life Ins. Co., 881 S.W.2d 279, 284 (Tex. 1994) (observing that error may be waived by inadequate briefing).

The drive was uneventful for roughly the first hour and fifteen minutes. But around this point in the trip, Cano felt a “bump or thump” and “knew something was wrong.” At first, she believed that the bus had a flat tire and would pull over, but then it began fishtailing. Sharp began yelling at Hodges to pull over and stop the bus, but he would not respond. Because Hodges was not responsive and appeared to be in a “seizure[-]like trance,” Sharp and Cano attempted to stop the bus themselves by pressing buttons and attempting to reach for the brake, but these efforts were unsuccessful.2 Eventually, Cano grabbed the steering wheel and maneuvered the bus into a grassy median where it collided with a metal wire divider before coming to a stop. During the crash, Cano suffered a broken wrist.

Immediately after the accident, an emergency medical technician (EMT) arrived on the scene. The EMT, having observed that Hodges had left facial droop and left- side weakness and numbness, told him that he had suffered a stroke.

Hodges was taken to the hospital, where he was admitted “w[ith] acute stroke.”

According to Hodges’s medical records, the attending physician, Dr. Song, concluded that an “embolism of [Hodges’s] right carotid artery” had caused him to suffer a “[c]erebrovascular accident (CVA),” which is commonly known as a stroke.3 While

According to Cano, Hodges pushed her away while she was trying to stop the 2

bus.

See, e.g., Blan v. Ali, 7 S.W.3d 741, 743 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1999, 3

no pet.) (noting that the appellant had experienced “a past cerebral vascular accident (‘CVA’), commonly known as a stroke”).

Hodges was at the hospital, a neurologist named Dr. Haq also examined him and told him that he had suffered a stroke.

Cano, like Hodges, was treated by medical professionals after the accident. Her medical records reflect that she told her treaters that she had been in a bus crash after the driver had gone into a “seizure[-]like trance,” adding that “we think the driver was having a stroke.” In her Carter employee injury report, she listed “driver blacke[d] out” as the cause of her injuries. Cano also told another treating physician that “the bus coach she was working in was involved in an accident due to the driver having an acute health issue.” And during her testimony at trial, Cano acknowledged that Hodges had suffered a medical emergency on the day of the accident.

Those investigating the crash concurred that it had been caused by a medical emergency. The police accident report reflected that the cause of the accident was that the “operator [had] suffered a medical emergency.” Cole Captain, who was a Carter operations coordinator at the time of the accident, testified that based on his interactions with Hodges shortly after the crash, he believed that Hodges had suffered a significant medical event because he appeared impaired, his hands were shaking, and he could not even write out his own statement about what had happened.4 Further,

4 In his report, Captain described the accident as follows:

[Hodges] stated [c]oach was bouncing as they were crossing bridge and wind was pushing the coach. Tried to slow down and get over because [Sharp] was yelling to stop the coach. The wind and bouncing pushed

Terrie Henderson, Carter’s Director of Human Resources, testified that based on her review of statements gathered by Captain, she had concluded that an unpreventable medical incident—Hodges’s stroke—had caused the crash.

Ultimately, Cano sued Hodges and Carter for negligence and gross negligence based on the bus crash.5 Hodges and Carter filed an answer in which they generally denied Cano’s claims and asserted, as an inferential-rebuttal theory, that Hodges’s stroke “immediately prior to the accident in question caused a sudden emergency and an unavoidable accident.” Following a bench trial, the trial court signed a take- nothing judgment in favor of Hodges and Carter. Cano filed a motion for new trial, which was overruled by operation of law. She also requested findings of fact and conclusions of law, but the trial court never issued any, and Cano did not file a past- due notice. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 296, 297. This appeal followed.

[the] coach into the rail. [Cano] came to the front and got on [Hodges’s]

lap to help get control and stop the coach. EMS was called.

Thus, in his initial statements to Captain, Hodges claimed that high winds had caused the crash; he did not mention a stroke. At trial, Hodges testified that he did not remember speaking with Captain after the crash and that he did not recognize his signature on the accident report. He also testified that he did not remember “any wind blowing or pushing the coach” at the time of the crash.

5 Cano originally named Sharp as a defendant as well, but she later nonsuited her claims against her.

III. DISCUSSION

In a single issue, Cano argues that the trial court erred by rendering a take-

nothing judgment in appellees’ favor because they failed to provide necessary expert testimony to support their inferential-rebuttal theory that the bus crash was an unavoidable accident6 caused by Hodges’s stroke. Thus, in effect, she contends that the judgment should be reversed because the evidence is legally insufficient to support the trial court’s implied finding that appellees proved the necessary elements of their unavoidable-accident theory. See City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802, 812 (Tex. 2005) (“When expert testimony is required, lay evidence . . . is legally insufficient.”). We disagree.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Andrea Cano v. Tony Hodges and Carter BloodCare, (Tex. Ct. App. 2025).

Andrea Cano v. Tony Hodges and Carter BloodCare (Andrea Cano v. Tony Hodges and Carter BloodCare) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Dillard v. Texas Electric Cooperative
157 S.W.3d 429 (Texas Supreme Court, 2005)
Guevara v. Ferrer
247 S.W.3d 662 (Texas Supreme Court, 2007)
Perry v. Cohen
272 S.W.3d 585 (Texas Supreme Court, 2008)
Rosemond v. Al-Lahiq, M.D.
331 S.W.3d 764 (Texas Supreme Court, 2011)
Hutchison v. Pharris
158 S.W.3d 554 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2005)
BMC Software Belgium, NV v. Marchand
83 S.W.3d 789 (Texas Supreme Court, 2002)
Morgan v. Compugraphic Corp.
675 S.W.2d 729 (Texas Supreme Court, 1984)
Gillespie v. Wesson
370 S.W.2d 918 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1963)
Toles v. Toles
45 S.W.3d 252 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2001)
Fredonia State Bank v. General American Life Insurance Co.
881 S.W.2d 279 (Texas Supreme Court, 1994)
First City National Bank of Houston v. Japhet
390 S.W.2d 70 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1965)
Holt Atherton Industries, Inc. v. Heine
835 S.W.2d 80 (Texas Supreme Court, 1992)
Otis Elevator Co. v. Shows
822 S.W.2d 59 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1991)
Reinhart v. Young
906 S.W.2d 471 (Texas Supreme Court, 1995)
Osuna v. Quintana
993 S.W.2d 201 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1999)
Johnson v. Kindred
285 S.W.3d 895 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2009)
Blan v. Ali
7 S.W.3d 741 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1999)
City of Keller v. Wilson
168 S.W.3d 802 (Texas Supreme Court, 2005)
Maximum Medical Improvement, Inc. v. County of Dallas
272 S.W.3d 832 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2008)
Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Burk
295 S.W.3d 771 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2009)