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October 16, 2007

Bus crash lawsuit stays in Texas

By KIM SMITH DEDAM

â Plaintiffs seek $50M for 2006 Greyhound highway accident

ELIZABETHTOWN -- Twenty-seven plaintiffs are now involved in legal action against Greyhound Bus Lines over the Aug. 28, 2006, bus crash on Interstate 87.

At a hearing in Dallas last Friday, the bus company tried to move the case from Texas to New York, according to attorney Ed Jazlowiecki of Forestville, Conn., who represents the passengers.

"We told them, no way, you're not getting out of Texas."

Personal-injury laws are more liberal in the Gulf States, he said, and the settlement would likely be larger there.

The lawsuit, originally with 10 litigants seeking $20 million in damages, is now looking for something close to a $50 million settlement.

Jazlowiecki's firm is representing 20 of the litigants and has consolidated the case with four other law firms, "so we're up to 27," he said in an interview Monday.

Another three or four separate cases pertaining to the bus crash were filed in New York, Jazlowiecki said.

The Greyhound bus blew a tire that had a slow leak, an investigation found, and flipped one and a half times before coming to rest upside-down astride a median ditch near mile marker 115 in Elizabethtown.

Five people on the bus were killed, including the driver, Ronald Burgess. All 49 people who survived the crash were injured.

Jazlowiecki said that every one of his clients suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome due to the crash.

"There are some people that will probably never work again."

One of the most severely injured patients, an elderly woman, spent nine months in the hospital and at a recovery center in Montreal, Jazlowiecki said.

The bus was traveling from New York City to Montreal, and most of the people on it were Canadian citizens.

State Police accident reconstruction found the bus had been traveling at 78 miles per hour and dropped to zero miles per hour in six seconds, but police did not list speed as a contributing factor in the crash.

Jazlowiecki said the investigation found the driver did not fall asleep.

"In this case, the guy's going 13 miles per hour over the speed limit."

Tires and tire-safety standards are also a focus in the case.

Jazlowiecki does not expect the lawsuit to go before a jury.

"A jury would crucify Greyhound," he said. "Once we know one hundred percent it's going to settle in Texas, it will move along very quickly. I'm hoping it (the settlement) will happen in early 2008."

Greyhound spokesman Dustin Clark said Monday that the company would not comment on matters pending litigation.

The company also has not responded to the Elizabethtown Volunteer Fire Department's request to replace five sets of bunker gear that were rendered unusable after recovery efforts to remove the bodies from the crushed bus.

First Assistant Chief Bill Wright said Greyhound officials initially reassured him that they would be reimbursed for the ruined gear.

"But this one sent us to that office, and so far we haven't gotten anywhere with this."

Clark did say he would look further into the request for replacement bunker gear for the Elizabethtown volunteer firefighters.

kdedam@pressrepublican.com

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