Renteria v. LACMTA: $1.4 Million Verdict for the Mother of a Cyclist Killed by a Metro Bus

On May 15, 2017, Luis Alvarez, Jr. was riding his bicycle in the right lane of a Los Angeles street. Ahead of him, a Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) bus had pulled to a stop. Following the rules of the road, Alvarez moved into the left lane to go around it. As he tried to merge back into the right lane in front of the bus, the bus moved forward and struck him. He was dragged roughly 70 feet and died at the scene.

Alvarez was the son of Maria Renteria. She brought a wrongful death claim against LACMTA, the public agency that owns and operates the Metro bus system in Los Angeles, for the loss of her son. Because the defendant was a public transit authority rather than a private driver, the case carried the procedural and evidentiary weight that comes with suing a government body. It was tried in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Renteria was represented by Doris Cheng of Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger. At trial, Cheng argued that the bus driver had failed to keep proper watch on the road around her and had departed from the training LACMTA itself required for operating a transit bus near cyclists and other traffic. The plaintiff's case rested on a simple point: a professional driver behind the wheel of a heavy passenger vehicle carries the duty to see what is in front of the bus and to avoid hitting it.

LACMTA framed the collision differently. Its lawyers argued that the bus operator should not be held to a higher standard of care than Alvarez or any other bicyclist using the road, and they pointed to his decision to move back toward the right lane directly in front of a bus that was about to proceed.

The jury weighed both positions. Jurors assigned a share of the negligence to LACMTA and a share to Alvarez, an apportionment consistent with California's comparative fault rules. The panel then awarded Maria Renteria $1.4 million for the death of her son. The verdict was entered on May 3, 2019.

Cheng later discussed the trial on the Great Trials Podcast, episode 149, describing how she built a wrongful death claim against a public transit defendant and how the jury divided fault between a professional bus operator and a cyclist.