A jury has ordered the owners of an Oklahoma charter bus to pay $2.8 million to country singer Toby Keith and other members of his family after a 2001 accident in which Keith’s father, H.K. Covel, was killed after his truck crossed the median on Interstate 35 into the path of the bus. The family’s lawyer had produced an expert witness to testify that the bus’s brakes should have been in better repair and that the driver should have been better trained. Covel’s truck had been bumped by another vehicle and the family said it filed the suit to establish that the accident wasn’t his fault. (“Jury rules Toby Keith’s father not at fault in crash that killed him”, AP/KTEN, Dec. 24).
Cross median into bus’s path, it’s bus owner’s fault
A jury has ordered the owners of an Oklahoma charter bus to pay $2.8 million to country singer Toby Keith and other members of his family after a 2001 accident in which Keith’s father, H.K. Covel, was killed after his truck crossed the median on Interstate 35 into the path of the bus. The family’s […]
10 Comments
This “joint but severable” thing is riduculous. This case shows that it is all about the money.
So the bus driver couldn’t brake fast enough, but the decedent didn’t get any fault for not maintaining or regaining control when his vehicle was “bumped.” Does anyone know how wide the median was?
This is one of those hard cases. From the news reports, it appears that there were problems with the brakes. Was that a cause in fact? Who knows?
Seems to me that the bus driver should never have been found to be negligent/poorly trained. Doesn’t Oklahoma have a form of the sudden emergency doctrine? No matter how well trained someone is, dealing with a car crossing the median probably isn’t affected by how well trained someone is.
Um, if that was their only goal, they coulda sued the guy who bumped him, instead of the rich company he careened into.
I think the jury just took pity on the poverty-stricken status of the plaintiffs here.
Seriously, “brake problem” and “improper driver training,” like everything else in the plaintiff grab-bag, can be spun from nothing with the right “expert” to opine that things should have been done differently. I wonder if the whole seamy world of “experts” in court needs legislative reform, and that includes doctors, for both plaintiff and defendant side.
I beg to differ, Throck. I’m certain if you were to ask the plaintiff’s counsel they would be more than happy to set you straight on your assertion. It’s NOT about the money. Is it ever?
the bus driver was not trained, licensed and not to mention the bus had bad breakes. The owner knew that the bus had break problems months before the accident.
are they to blame? in part. the bus and the driver should never have been on the road. but i do not feel they should be liable for all of it. the driver that bumped the vehicle and the bus should share 50-50.
Unless P could prove with certainty that with better brakes the bus could have avoided the accident, there should have been absolutely no recovery from the bus company. The bus was driving as designed, on the highway, until P’s truck came flying across the median. Is that the bus company’s fault? Of course not. But heck, in the world of jackpot justice in this country, juries don’t care. Get past summary judgment and P’s can count on collecting more often than not. It’s truly sad what our system encourages. And I’m a lawyer – though I’m more and more troubled in admitting so.
Silly me. I thought the standard was preponderance of the evidence in civil cases.
If the bus had not properly maintained its brakes and properly trained its driver, and if such maintenance and training would have prevented this fatal collision, then yes, the bus company should be held liable for not providing maintenance for the bus and training for the driver.
One of the reasons that reasonable people make sure that their brakes are properly maintained is to avoid unusual occurrences on the road not initially caused by them.
One strange thing. People seem to think that just because X is negligent, Y cannot also be negligent.
That is, frankly, a stupid view.
The bus companies of the world should be aware that occasionally other vehicles end up in locations they are not ideally supposed to be. In this case, because a third party forced it to be there. And they should maintain their brakes and train their drivers to save lives in those sorts of situations.
Indeed, joint and several liability is a “ridiculous thing.” At least the legislature in Oklahoma thought so, but the governor vetoed joint and several reform there in ’07.