Last Wednesday a bus owned by Capricorn Bus Lines, heading back to Houston from Mexico, overturned near Victoria, Texas, killing one passenger and injuring 44 others. One of the passengers had to have her arm amputated as a result of the accident.

Now, new reports say the bus owner, which earlier went by the name Flores Charter and Tours, settled a lawsuit in 2002 regarding an accident in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. In that accident at least 46 passengers were injured, although court records fail to mention if any of these injuries later resulted in death.

In Wednesday’s accident, police suspect the driver, who probably should not have been driving anyways, might have fallen asleep behind the wheel. 42-year-old Roberto Garcia Cruz, driver and employee of Capricorn Bus Lines, had three prior drunk driving convictions, and had a commercial drivers license that did not allow him to drive the bus outside of Texas state lines. Capricorn Bus Lines insists they check the driving records of every driver before they are hired, but, as of yet, they have failed to explain why Cruz was still hired.

Although Capricorn by itself does not have the permits to run buses outside the state or out of the country, it leases its services – and this is where it starts getting really complicated – to another company, International Charter Service, Inc. (ICS), a Houston based company. Following Wednesday’s rollover, new investigations have revealed at least 19 citations involving ICS. These include just about every mechanical defect that can lead to an accident - from tire thread separation and engine oil leaks, to broken windshields and damaged brake hoses. Log books were found to be insufficiently maintained. Drivers in many cases were not able to prove how many hours they had been behind the wheel. On at least two occasions, drivers were detained because it was thought they were behind the wheel for too long.

These leasing alliances are the reason many transportation inspectors find it difficult to place responsibility, when accidents like the one that occurred on Wednesday take place. Much like nursing home companies that use all kinds of devious ownership and management manipulations to cover their tracks so as to protect themselves from abuse allegations, bus companies too, it seems, have perfected the skill of weaving a fine web of management and leasing alliances, making it difficult, if not impossible to assign blame.

If you or a loved-one has been injured or killed in a bus crash caused by the ignorance or negligence of either the driver or the company, contact the California personal injury lawyers at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.