HOUSTON - An employee of the financial services firm Raymond James & Associates who crashed his plane and killed five others was working at the time, a Texas appeals court has ruled in the ensuing wrongful death litigation.
The family members of the victims of an April 2019 crash near Kerrville Municipal Airport sued the estate of pilot Jeffrey Weiss later that year in Houston probate court, as well as Raymond James.
The claimants said because Weiss, a senior vice president of investments who had worked for the company since 2012, was flying some of the passengers to a ranch owned by Stuart and Angie Kensinger to discuss a building and landscaping project, then the company was liable.
A jury agreed, awarding $12,042,203.30, plus interest, to the victims' estates. Passing in the crash were Stuart Kensinger, who was a managing partner of a Houston financial firm; his wife Angie, the lacrosse coach at St. John's School; Scott "Reagan" Miller, owner of an architecture firm; and Mark Scioneaux and Marc Tellepsen, owners of a landscape architecture firm.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded Weiss was at fault for the crash. The Court of Appeals for the First District on March 31 held Raymond James should be liable, as it frequently reimbursed Weiss for his aviation activities like transporting potential clients.
An employee is acting in the scope of his or her employment if they are acting in "the furtherance of business" and his conduct is "authorized by his employer," Texas law says.
"It is undisputed that prospecting was one of Weiss' essential job duties and that he had recently identified these individuals as prospects," Justice Jennifer Caughey wrote.
"There is also evidence he used his passion for aviation to develop business... (T)he circumstances, taken together, offer some evidence that he was prospecting on the day of the fatal flight and acting within the scope of his employment at the time."
The NTSB's investigation blamed the crash on a lack of fuel. The plane had left West Houston Airport that morning, bound for Kerrville so the parties could visit the Kensingers' property near Hunt. The NTSB said because passenger weight exceeded the plane's limits, Weiss probably tried to make up for that by carrying less fuel.
Though Raymond James disputed liability, the plaintiffs pointed to Weiss' personal business development account. The expense reports related to that account showed reimbursement for flights involving clients and potential clients, and Weiss had identified the Kensingers as the latter in 2018-19.
Raymond James' travel reimbursement policy expressly forbade the use of private aircraft, but in 2015, a manager asked the company whether Weiss would be allowed to do so. The company refused.
Once he obtained his personal business development account, Weiss did anyway, classifying air miles as road miles. A Houston branch manager testified that the policies of that account did not include a ban on flight expenses.
Though the company said it wasn't aware Weiss was misclassifying miles, he once submitted a report for 2,856 miles in one day.
"Administrative employees who assisted Weiss in submitting his (expenses) acknowledged they knew he was piloting his own plane in connection with firm business," Justice Caughey wrote.