SAN ANGELO, TX — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the United States Postal Service to pay more than $8.6 million for a San Angelo-area crash in which a USPS driver slammed into a minivan and left a mother and two teenage girls with lifelong injuries.
The USPS driver, who was on her first day on the job, was wearing headphones and failed to look, brake or slow down.
U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas found the Postal Service solely liable in the Feb. 12, 2023, wreck near the intersection of Olsak Road and FM 765 southeast of San Angelo. The court rejected government claims that a missing stop sign or the other driver’s failure to wear a seat belt caused or contributed to the harm.
Figure 4: Pl.’s Ex. 15 at 2 (Everitt’s van).
Figure 5: Pl.’s Ex. 15 at 3 (Nieto’s vehicle).
Jayleah Everitt was delivering Amazon packages when she entered the highway intersection without yielding. Alexandria Nieto was driving westbound at the 75 mph speed limit with her 14-year-old daughter and her daughter's friend.
The impact sent the minivan airborne. Nieto and her daughter were ejected; the friend, who was belted, remained inside. All three required hospitalization. The daughter's friend was life-flighted to Fort Worth.
Hendrix called Everitt’s testimony that she saw nothing and did nothing “a shocking testament to her distracted or mindless driving.” The court found she either was not looking at the road or had her attention “glazed over in complacency” from the headphones. Even if the stop sign had been present, the crash still would have occurred, the judge ruled.
The USPS argued the missing sign was the fault of Tom Green County or the Texas Department of Transportation and that Nieto’s injuries were worsened by not wearing a seat belt. Hendrix rejected both defenses. The county had no duty over the sign, TxDOT had no notice it was missing, and the victims’ injuries were broadly similar regardless of seat-belt use.
The final judgment awards:
- Alexandria Nieto: $2,022,929.04
- Her daughter: $2,838,973.16
- Her daughter's friend: $3,750,606
The totals cover past and future medical expenses, pain and suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement, and future lost earning capacity. The court found each suffered a mild traumatic brain injury from which they recovered and face no increased dementia risk, but awarded damages for ongoing physical pain, scarring, and mental-health injuries.
National Trial Law partners Jamal Alsaffar and Tom Jacob represented the families.
“It was shocking how careless and dangerous the Postal Service’s driver was acting that day,” Alsaffar said. “Yet the government spent three years pointing the finger at anyone but themselves.”
Jacob said: “The postal van entered a highway intersection at 41 miles per hour. The driver did not slow down. She did not brake. She did not even look left or right.”
Hendrix concluded: “The events of February 12, 2023, were entirely avoidable. Had Jayleah Everitt done the bare minimum required of any reasonable driver, she would have paid attention to the road. She did not.”
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