A Texas appeals court has upheld a $10.9 million jury verdict against the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma that found the tribe liable for a 2013 charter bus crash near Dallas.

“The lesson from this is calling someone an independent contractor is not the end of the story,” said Eric Stahl, an attorney at The Law Office of Frank L. Branson, which represented some of the plaintiffs in the case. “If they are subject to control, they are agents and vicarious liability applies.”