Rusk County, TX — April 23, 2024, Jerry Moore and Michael Moore were killed following a motorcycle vs. cow accident just before 2:30 a.m. on County Road 2142.
According to officials, the incident was two separate collisions a few minutes apart. They occurred near the intersection of C.R. 2142 and C.R. 2143, a few miles west of Tatum.
Investigators say the first collision happened at approximately 2:23 a.m. as 59-year-old Jerry Glenn Moore was on a Honda motorcycle going southbound. Up ahead, a cow was apparently in the roadway. Jerry Moore’s bike hit the cow, ejecting him and causing fatal injuries.
Minutes later, 53-year-old Michael Keith Moore was on a separate Honda motorcycle, also going southbound. Michael Moore’s motorcycle hit the now reportedly dead cow. As a result, Michael Moore also sustained fatal injuries.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
Right now, I have no more information about this than what’s already public. However, my concern is folks may see the crash involve an animal and just write off everything as an unavoidable tragedy. But a cow on a roadway isn’t some deer jumping out of nowhere. In all likelihood, the cow came from someone’s property. So where did it come from, and how did it get to the road?
The law in regards to cattle causing crashes is relatively straight-forward. If an animal’s owner makes reasonable efforts to keep their animals contained and safely off the roads, they likely wouldn’t be responsible for a sudden, unexpected escape. And if they fail to exercise basic care, and it leads to an accident, they can be on the hook for that.
For example, let’s say a ranch owner’s fence is damaged due to an overnight storm, and a cow wanders from the property during that time. That’s not necessarily something anyone can really control. However, if a ranch owner leaves a gate open, fails to fix damaged fencing they’ve known or should know about, or otherwise fails to make improvements that have failed to keep animals contained in the past, they can be responsible if that oversight allows an animal to escape and gets someone hurt or killed.
Frankly, this isn’t the sort of thing authorities typically investigate, and I can’t help wondering if they, too, might be writing this off as unavoidable. Maybe it was, but it’s important to let the evidence say if that’s true or not. The victims’ loved ones deserve to know there are no unanswered questions about what went wrong here. That’s especially true if all of this could have been avoided.
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