A Portland jury held C.R. England not responsible for a 2005 traffic accident involving one its drivers and an 85-year-old woman, who was seriously injured
, according to published reports in The Oregonian.

Prior to dying of cancer in 2007, Marjorie Dunn, the woman in the accident, filed a lawsuit accusing the driver, Jesus Nieves Olivares, and the Salt-Lake-City-based refrigerated carrier of negligence. Andrea Lister, Dunn's daughter, took on the suit after her mother's death, the newspaper reports.

After about four hours of deliberation, the jury voted to relieve C.R. England of responsibility for the accident.

The case against the trucking carrier focused on Nieves Olivares' inabilities behind the wheel, and on C.R. England's hiring of him.

According to the newspaper, he had a criminal background, having served 10 years in prison for killing three people in Puerto Rico, where he's from. The case also accused C.R. England of providing little training for Nieves Olivares. He hit the road after three weeks of training and 12,000 miles of on-the-road with an instructor, the news service says.

The suit alleged that the company ignored Nieves Olivares' past when hiring him, according to the paper. The allegations also said C.R. England kept the new driver on the road -- with no additional training and no drug or alcohol testing -- even after two accidents and multiple tickets for hours-of-service violations.

The lawsuit accused the truck driver of running a red light and colliding with Dunn, who had come into the intersection, and said the trucking company was pressuring him to deliver his load of bananas. However, defense witnesses said he had entered the intersection on a yellow light.

The judge ruled that Olivares' criminal background was not relevant to the case, so the plaintiffs centered their argument on England's hiring and training procedures.