AUSTIN, Texas — Travis County District Attorney José Garza announced new indictment charges in connection to a deadly trench collapse that happened in 2021.
Garza said a grand jury indicted the construction company, D. Guerra Construction, and a project superintendent, Carlos Alejandro Guerrero, for criminally negligent homicide.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, on Oct. 23, 2021, two employees of D. Guerra Construction were working inside a trench to install a water waste line for a nearby subdivision around Creedmoor on FM1327.
One of them was 24-year-old Juan Jose Galvan Batalla. He and a coworker already escaped the trench once after it partially collapsed. However, just hours later, prosecutors say the company sent them back into the trench to finish the job.
“The trench collapsed and the soil and debris completely buried Jose Juan Galvan Batalla,” Garza said.
The other employee was partially buried and suffered serious injuries, but Galvan Batalla died from his wounds a week later.
In June 2022, the Occupational and Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) brought the case to Garza's office, after concluding their investigation of the accident.
They cited that D. Guerra Construction was liable for several workplace violations like failing to have a trench protective system in place and exposing workers to cave-in hazards.
“All workers here in Travis County deserve to be safe at work so they can return home to their families at the end of the day. When employers engage in criminal conduct and expose their employees to hazardous conditions, this office will hold them accountable,” Garza said.
Three years have passed since Galvan Batalla died, and the pain is still fresh for the Batalla family.
“He was the light in our home, and he [had] a son,” said Rosa Batalla Morales, Galvan Batalla’s mother.
Her son had only worked at the company for two years and had considered leaving because he said they weren’t taking care of employees.
“The company always told me it was an accident, but always in my heart, as a mother, I felt that they didn't take care of him. that there were people to blame,” Batalla Morales said. “But to me, it felt almost as if they killed him.”
Batalla Morales said her house feels empty now that her son is gone. He leaves behind a wife and son who is now 5 years old. She said she’s faced hurdles to get legal help to find justice for her son, but she's grateful for the action she's seeing now.
“They took a piece of my heart, they took away my life. Justice will be for people who work in construction. Mothers, sons, and employees should take this and find ways to protect themselves and know their rights, so this doesn't happen again,” Batalla Morales said.
OSHA fined D. Guerra Construction $243,000 for failing to report the hospitalization of an employee within 24 hours.
KVUE reached out to the company for a comment, which responded in a statement saying since this tragic event, their thoughts and prayers have been with Galvan Batalla's family, and he was a deeply valued member of their team. However, they said the indictments themselves were too recent to comment on.