Baum Hedlund's Bus Litigation Experience

Baum Hedlund has represented bus accident victims across the country for many years.  The firm has handled litigation for families in more than 75 bus accident cases across the United States involving school buses, tour buses, motorcoaches, chartered buses and city buses.

Baum Hedlund has prevailed in many of the most highly‑publicized commercial transportation cases in the nation including more than 230 commercial trucking, train and bus accident cases. The firm has litigated wrongful death and serious injury cases for over 25 years and its attorneys have tried well over 200 cases in their careers.

In two foreign bus accidents in Cancun, Mexico and Faversham, England, dozens of American families hired Baum Hedlund to represent their interests in these mass disasters.  The firm was able to prosecute these cases in the United States and maintain U.S. jurisdiction. Baum Hedlund’s experience with the complex choice of law and difficult insurance coverage problems led to the successful resolution of these international tour bus accidents.

Many of the cases the firm has litigated involve children riding school buses.  Some of these accidents have occurred while transporting children to and from school or to events, while some have involved the bus driver running over the child after the child left the bus. 

Among the many bus accident lawsuits handled by our firm is the Girl Scout bus crash near Palm Springs, California in 1991.  Seven people were killed and 47 were injured in that crash.  Baum Hedlund represented 27 people, mostly children, from that accident in which a school-type bus, loaded with Girl Scouts, nose-dived into a gully, and ultimately resulted in the death of four girls when they were thrown through windows onto the rocky ground.

In that bus accident, the firm’s attorneys argued successfully in court that on side impact, unsecured students and passengers can be severely injured when hurled against unpadded walls or through weak windows.

Baum Hedlund’s work on what has been called the worst drunk driving accident in our nation’s history is featured in the book, Reckless Disregard.  A church bus—a former school bus—full of children riding home from a theme park was hit by a drunk driver named Larry Mahoney, driving a pickup truck  near Carrollton, Kentucky in 1988.

The impact of the pickup did not even wake some of the sleeping children on the bus, but the fire and panic that erupted did.  The accident caused the front right leaf spring of the suspension to puncture the unprotected fuel tank, next to the front door. The leaking fuel caught fire and the front door was instantly engulfed in flames. Most of the 40 people who survived the crash—some severely burned—shoved their way out the back rear exit. 27 people, mostly children, were not able to make it out the only exit and were killed by the fire.

Shortly after the accident, Ford Motor Co. approached the families of those who were injured and died and quickly settled their potential claims.  Two families refused to take even one dollar from Ford unless they also changed the way they manufactured buses.

One of these families, whose 14 year-old daughter was killed in the fire, hired Baum Hedlund after interviewing 30 other law firms.  In cooperation with a Kentucky law firm hired by the only other non-settling family, the two law firms obtained court approval to have access to the bus and its parts.

The attorneys hired a team of structure, automotive-safety and fire experts, who together fully examined the wreckage and determined multiple defects were responsible for the great numbers of deaths and injuries. They determined that the NTSB’s investigative report did not even address what they found to be flaws in the bus’ structure.  The firms’ automotive-safety expert told the attorneys, for example, that he found that Ford relied on weak rivets to hold the bus’ leaf spring assembly—part of the suspension system—onto the chassis’ frame.

The experts also said the bus lacked sufficient spot welding to secure floor panels. They found that panels on the front of the bus split on impact, leaving large gaps and that those gaps allowed gas and flames to come up through the floor board or at least provided another source of oxygen to allow the fire to spread.

Armed with four years of relentless investigation and evidence, in unison, the two firms brought Ford to trial for design defects of the fuel system.  The case was successfully resolved and a substantial judgment was obtained after six weeks of trial.

Baum Hedlund’s and the other firm’s intensive investigation lasted four years and involved nearly 10,000-man-hours at a cost of over $1 million for all people involved.     

At the resolution of this case Kentucky officials said that important safety changes had been made in the state since the bus crash but our clients wanted even greater changes and vowed to continue their fight for bus safety. Accordingly, they and Baum Hedlund created information packets, including a crash test video that reenacted the actual crash, and organized and funded the mailing of this information to bus manufacturers and school transportation officials in all 50 states and Canada.  The included letter urged them to move the fuel tanks away from the front door by relocating them between the main frame rails behind the rear axle.

Too often the important issues raised by lawsuits end with those lawsuits.  Not this time.  The responses to our mailing came from all parts of the country, from people who realized that fuel tank placement was an extremely important issue and that something had to be done about it.

Many bus accident victims or their families hire our firm because of our many years of experience handling bus accident litigation and other forms of commercial transportation liability. Baum Hedlund concentrates its practice on wrongful death and serious personal injury cases throughout the United States. The firm is listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers and maintains the highest AV® peer review rating, obtained through a rigorous process conducted by the leading international lawyer directory, Martindale Hubbell.

About 12,000 people are injured and 330 people are killed every year in bus accidents in the United States. On average—over the last five years—there have been about 9,000 bus accidents per year.

Bus accident victims and their families have a right to seek personal injury and wrongful death damages against errant bus drivers and their companies. Any such lawsuit may well involve more than one state's law or court system, and numerous complex choices and decisions may have to be made to maximize recovery or streamline procedures.

Those responsible for these accidents should be held accountable and safety improvements made. There are usually a number of weak links in the chain of events which lead up to an injury or death – negligent operators, negligent supervision, poor maintenance, design flaws, failed parts, faulty reporting, etc. Each individual or group responsible for one or more factors may be called upon to pay a portion, or even all, of the compensation due the injured person or family members. Each of those entities may be situated in a different state and the harm may have occurred in yet another state.

*AV® Rating Explanation: Martindale-Hubbell is the facilitator of a peer review rating process. Ratings reflect the confidential opinions of members of the Bar and the Judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell Ratings fall into two categories - legal ability and general ethical standards. "CV, BV and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies." "An AV® rating reflects an attorney who has reached the heights of professional excellence. He or she has usually practiced law for many years, and is recognized for the highest levels of skill and integrity."