Bell County, TX — August 29, 2024, a Temple man was injured due to a semi-truck accident at around 12:30 a.m. along Highway 317.
Initial details about the accident say that it happened northwest of Temple in the area of Highway 317 and Triple Heart Lane.
Officials said that a 42-year-old Temple man was in a semi-truck going northbound on the highway. Up ahead, three bulls were in the road. The truck hit one of the animals, then spun to a stop along the side of the road. Due to the accident, the man sustained serious injuries. Right now, additional details are unavailable.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
People see a vehicle hit an animal, and they just figure there’s not much to be done. Generally, that’s true. It’s not like people can hold a deer accountable, for example. But with livestock animals, things are more complex. There aren’t really wild cows roaming around, which means the animals likely came from someone’s property. It’s important to know, then, if the property owner could have prevented the accident.
Livestock owners have a general duty to reasonably secure their property so animals don’t escape. Obviously, things can happen, and that responsibility only goes so far. If, for example, a storm damages a fence overnight, allowing an animal to wander onto the roadway, a property owner isn’t likely able to do anything about that immediately. But if there is damage that they knew about and failed to fix in a timely manner, they can then be responsible if an animal gets loose due to their negligence and causes an accident. So is that what happened here, or was this just an unfortunate, unavoidable accident?
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