It’s the largest verdict ever awarded by a jury in San Antonio, but the winners aren’t celebrating.

“It doesn’t change anything,” lamented Letty Mendez, whose husband, Blas Mendez Jr., was left incapacitated after a 2021 crash caused by a drunken driver.

She knows it won’t bring back the man she fell in love with more than three decades ago or undo the damage that has permanently altered the San Marcos couple’s lives and those of their three children. She also realizes it’s unlikely they will ever see any of the $831 million awarded in the 12 jurors’ unanimous decision against the now-defunct New Braunfels bar Koozies Icehouse & Grill and its owner.

Still, she said, the verdict is important just to have it “on record.”

Blas Mendez, who turned 55 three days after the jury’s May 19 decision, worked as a behavior specialist with Seguin Independent School District’s special education department at the time of the crash. He had been with the district 21 years.

He was riding his 2018 Harley-Davidson FLXHS Street Glide Special — his “dream” motorcycle he’d owned for only a few months — about 1:40 a.m. July 25, 2021, on a northbound Interstate 35 access road in Hays County when he hit debris strewn across the roadway from a vehicle accident that had just happened and was thrown 40 feet. He was about 2 miles from home.

Lifesaving measures were required at the scene. He suffered multiple skull fractures, facial fractures and a fractured neck. Almost all of the ribs on his right side were broken. So was his collarbone, his left shoulder blade and a couple of fingers on his right hand. His back, arms and legs had road rash.

He also suffered a traumatic brain injury that’s left him with expressive aphasia, which makes it difficult for him to communicate or externalize his thoughts. He’s paralyzed on his right side and now requires a wheelchair to get around.

The vehicle debris came from a crash caused by Carlos Alexander “Alex” Portillo Jr., an 18-year-old San Antonio man who was driving a 2019 Toyota Camry when it struck a guardrail and flipped. He suffered minor injuries.

Portillo, who had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.23%, or almost three times the legal limit, was charged with intoxication assault with a motor vehicle causing serious bodily injury, a third-degree felony. He pleaded guilty and received a 10-year suspended sentence with probation and 300 hours of community service, records shows. He also has spent a total of about 34 days in jail over three different time periods since early last year.

His automobile insurer paid out the maximum limits on his policy to the Mendezes.

Todd Hunter Jr., a Corpus Christi lawyer who represented them, said the trial offered the family an opportunity to “tell their story.”

“They’ve been cooped up in their home and in hospitals taking care of Blas,” he said. “They don’t have an audience to go tell how horrible this was.
Sometimes it feels good and get something off your chest. I mean, that is a positive thing that came out of it.”

Dram Shop Act

After the accident, another lawyer who is a friend of the family asked Letty Mendez, 56, if she had ever looked into the establishment that had served Portillo alcohol before his crash.

“I said I have no idea,” she recalled. “I don’t know where he got served. I don’t know where he drank.”

The lawyer, Chev Pastrano of San Marcos, suggested it might be worth finding out and pursuing litigation against the bar.

“There could be something that would help you and Blas later on with life,” she remembered him saying. “I said, let’s give it a shot.”

So, less than three weeks before the first anniversary of the crash, Letty Mendez, both individually and for her husband for whom she now had power of attorney, filed suit. The original petition, though, incorrectly identified San Antonio’s Bonham Exchange as the establishment where Portillo had been drinking. He had told police he’d been there that evening, but a friend who was with him denied they had been there.

The lawyers amended the suit to add Koozies Ice House LLC and River Road Entertainment District Corp. and dropped Bonham Exchange as a defendant. Koozies owner Robert “Bob” Kane and some of his other companies, as well as five individuals identified as “River Road Personnel,” were later added to the suit. 

Mendez sued under Texas’ Dram Shop Act, which allows an individual injured by an intoxicated driver to pursue a civil case against the business that served them alcohol. She also sued for gross negligence and sought more than $1 million in damages.

Koozies and River Road Entertainment District generally denied the allegations in answers to the lawsuit. Kane, though, never individually responded to the complaint.

Kane’s bankruptcies

Other legal troubles engulfed Kane while the Mendezes pursued their claims against him and his businesses.

In November 2023, less than four months after the second amended petition was filed, Kane sought bankruptcy protection for five of his River Road Entertainment District-related companies — including 8515 River Road PS LLC. Koozies, which never entered bankruptcy, operated at 8515 River Road, according to its Facebook and Instagram pages.

Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta, though, dismissed all five cases in July 2024 after the U.S. Trustee’s Office — an arm of the Justice Department that administers bankruptcy cases — said the companies either failed to provide proof of adequate insurance or the insurance they did have was expected to lapse for nonpayment. Maintaining insurance is often required of businesses in bankruptcy to protect assets and demonstrate an ability to reorganize and continue operating.

Kane, 64, personally filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection on April 1, 2024. He listed about $6.8 million in assets and $1.5 million in liabilities. The bulk of his assets were in the five companies he had put into bankruptcy.

He reported about $78,500 in income from his businesses and $25,150 in Social Security income in 2023.

It’s not clear if the Mendezes’ lawsuit played a role in Kane’s bankruptcy, though he did name them as unsecured creditors because of the lawsuit. Bankruptcy places an automatic stay on pending litigation involving a debtor. Kane listed their litigation claims as “disputed.”

In June 2024, almost 2½ months after the bankruptcy filing, Gargotta denied confirmation of Kane’s reorganization plan and dismissed the bankruptcy. Kane didn’t respond to emails or phone calls seeking comment.

The dismissal of the bankruptcies opened the door for Kane’s lenders to foreclose on properties owned by him and his companies in the River Road area or nearby. The commercial properties’ combined sale amount at the October 2024 foreclosure auction was $11 million, Comal County land records show.

Separately, the records show that another property in the 8500 block of River Road that Kane listed in his bankruptcy petition as his home address, had a reported sale amount of almost $500,000.

Just when Koozies shuttered couldn’t be determined, but its last Facebook post is from September 2023. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission didn’t have a listing for Koozies, though it’s possible the beverage permit was under another name. The permit for another now-defunct Kane establishment, River Road Ice House, expired last summer.

The trial

Attorneys representing Koozies and River Road Entertainment District filed a motion to withdraw from the case in July 2024. They cited Kane’s bankruptcy cases, but those cases already had been dismissed.

In January, a judge granted a default judgment against Kane, three of his companies and three of the River Road personnel because they did not appear in the case or answer the lawsuit. The judge found each defendant liable for the injuries and damages sustained by Blas and Letty Mendez.

Neither Koozies nor River Road Entertainment District was part of the judgment.

A trial to determine damages was held May 19 in state District Judge Tina Torres’ courtroom. None of the defendants showed up. Letty Mendez called Kane a “coward” for choosing not to face her husband in court.

Among those who did testify was Christian Martinez, who identified himself as Portillo’s boyfriend in a February 2024 deposition.

They arrived at Koozies about 7 p.m. July 24 and remained there for about five hours, Martinez said. Though they were underage, Koozies’ owner gave them wristbands that let them buy drinks, he added. They were never asked to present identification.

The owner also served them each a profanely named cocktail consisting of an ounce of Crown Royal whiskey, 2 ounces of Watermelon Pucker Schnapps and 6 ounces of Red Bull Energy Drink, Martinez said. They later had a 90-proof shot, but he couldn’t recall the drink’s name.

Letty Mendez said she didn’t know Kane’s role in that evening’s events until hearing Martinez’s testimony.

“I thought, kids get into bars, kids get served because people don’t pay attention or whatever,” she said. “I was appalled that something like that could happen.”

Their tab for the night included 10 Dos Equis beers, 10 Deep Eddy Vodkas, five Fireball Cinnamon Whisky shots, four Jack Daniels shots, four Miller Lite beers, four Patron Tequila shots and three RumChata drinks.

Martinez wasn’t surprised by the amount of alcohol purchased, saying they probably bought other people drinks that evening.

“That usually happens when we get drunk with our friends,” he said. He and Portillo “were both really drunk,” Martinez recalled.

Letty Mendez testifies

Letty Mendez also took the stand.

“I basically (told the jury) everything that my husband has gone through. All his trauma and his pain and what disability he’s left with, that this took away a wonderful teacher for a lot of kiddos that need that special kind of teacher with that kind of training,” she said, choking up.

Blas Mendez coached middle school and high school football before moving into the special ed department at Seguin ISD.  He started as an adapted physical education coach, working with special needs children. After more training, he became a behavior specialist and worked with children with cerebral palsy, autism, visual impairments and mental health impairments.

“He just seemed to have a knack for it,” Letty Mendez said. He was the teacher other teachers called when they needed help with a student, she said. Former students would call to talk to him when they were having a rough day.

“He never met a stranger,” she said. “If you needed something, you called him.”

With their middle child, Blas III, about to enter his freshman year at Hays High School at the time of the accident, Blas Mendez contemplated moving over to Hays to work as an assistant football coach so he could coach his son.

“That was his dream,” she said. Blas III, now 18, graduated from high school Tuesday. Jax, the youngest at 16, will be a junior at Hays next school year.

She also told jurors about the emotional and financial toll of “essentially losing my best friend and my husband.”

After the accident, Blas Mendez spent 14 days in intensive care at Ascension Seton Hays hospital in Kyle and the next nine months at the Texas NeuroRehab Center in Austin.

He went home in April 2022 and received two to four hours of daily rehabilitation, which included work to increase strength and to perform daily tasks like bathing, brushing his teeth and moving to and from his wheelchair.

In late 2023, he went to TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston for more intense therapy. Their daughter, Alana, 28, stayed in his hospital room the entire time. His therapy was interrupted when he had to go to Austin to have a shunt put in his head to drain excess fluid to avoid further damage to his brain. He and his daughter returned to TIRR and remained another two months.

The verdict

The first question on the verdict form jurors received instructed them to affirm that the negligence of Koozies owner Kane was a substantial factor in the crash. That’s because Kane had been previously found liable when a default judgment was entered against him in January. The jury determined Kane and Koozies were each 45% responsible and Portillo 10% responsible. Jurors were not asked to assign responsibility to any other parties.

Jurors then had to decide how much Blas Mendez should be compensated for his injuries, including his past and future medical care, pain and suffering, disfigurement and lost wages. They awarded him $312.7 million.

Jurors awarded Letty Mendez $277.5 million, including $125 million each for loss of consortium and mental anguish.

Last, the jurors determined that Kane and Koozies should each pay $150 million in punitive damages to Blas Mendez.

The total award adds up to about $890 million. But because Portillo was found 10% responsible and was not a defendant in the lawsuit, his portion of the compensatory damages — $59 million — is subtracted from total award, leaving $831 million.

It surpasses a 2018 jury verdict of $706 million — about $908 million today when adjusted for inflation — in the case of a business dispute. But that verdict was later overturned by a higher court.

“I didn’t know numbers,” Letty Mendez said regarding what her lawyers would ask the jury to award. “I didn’t know anything. I just said you do what you feel you want to do. I just want a verdict against this guy.

“We know that there’s probably not going to be any money just because the guy has declared bankruptcy and he doesn’t have the business anymore,” she said. “I just wanted it on record that that’s the kind of businessman he is, the kind of bar owner that he is. To not show up, to be part of this whole thing from the beginning — that he served them, that he let them into his bar to drink — that should be punished.”

Even though her prospects of receiving any of the award are dim, she expects that once a final judgment is entered, her lawyers will take steps to enforce it. That could include filing an abstract of judgment, which creates a lien on property owned by a defendant. It doesn’t appear Kane owns much real estate in Comal County after last year’s foreclosure sales, however.

‘Ups and downs’

Blas Mendez has had his “ups and downs,” Letty Mendez said. Alana Mendez, their daughter, spent three years caring for him because she didn’t trust anyone else to do it. That allowed her mother to continue working as director of outpatient rehab services for Seguin’s Guadalupe Regional Medical Center.

Letty Mendez resigned from the post in December, however, so she could step in as her husband’s caregiver. She now fills in at the hospital as needed.

“I told (Alana), it’s time for you to go. It’s time for you to start living your life,” Letty Mendez said. “She moved back home and pretty much gave up her dreams of her life to take care of her dad.” Alana, who has a degree in exercise and sports science from Texas State University, had chosen not to continue her education so she could care for her father full time.

The family gets by on Blas Mendez’s disability retirement benefits and accident insurance. Seguin ISD and Blas Mendez’s friends have held benefits for the family, for which Letty Mendez said she is grateful.

Blas III wanted to attend college at Texas A&M University in College Station but instead will go to a community college to save the family money. They had to “dip into” into his college savings and tap retirement savings plans to cover bills.

“I will be forced to cash in my pension, as well, in order to stay in our home a little longer, unless I find work … that will allow me to be at home caring for Blas,” she said.

Letty Mendez said she believes the family’s story hit jurors “pretty personally.”

“A lot of them had experience with loss of this type,” she said. “To send a message, I think, is what they helped us do. Maybe someday it will save somebody.”

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