$36.1 Million Verdict for Child Left With Traumatic Brain Injury After School Bus Crossing

On the morning of October 3, 2012, a six-year-old girl crossed 9th Street mid-block in San Bernardino County to reach the stop where her Durham School Services bus was waiting. A Subaru Impreza struck her. The impact threw her approximately 70 feet. She suffered a traumatic brain injury along with fractures to her neck, arm, leg, and pelvis.

The injuries left her unable to speak and dependent on 24-hour nursing care. Her family described her condition in terms that made plain the scope of the loss: they became, in their words, her arms, her eyes, and her body. Her doctors testified that she would require that level of care for the rest of her life.

Geoffrey Wells, Ivan Puchalt, and Christian Nickerson of Greene Broillet & Wheeler, LLP took the case to trial in San Bernardino Superior Court. The central argument was not that the bus driver had struck the child, because he had not. The argument was that Durham's own written safety policies required drivers and attendants to prevent students from making mid-block crossings, and that the company's employees had repeatedly failed to enforce those policies at this stop.

The jury returned a verdict of $36.1 million on or about September 25, 2017. It apportioned fault at 80% against Durham School Services and 20% against the child's mother. The driver of the Subaru, though physically responsible for the impact, had been released from the case before trial. No reduction of the award on appeal has been reported in any public source reviewed.

The verdict was one of the larger pedestrian-injury awards recorded in San Bernardino County that year. School Transportation News and the legal trade press covered the outcome as a significant ruling on bus company duty of care toward students crossing to reach stops.