The National Trial Lawyers
  • Home
    • Meet Our Team
    • Contact Us
    • Mission & Goals
    • FAQ
  • Webinars
  • News
  • Membership Directory
    • Top 100 Map – Civil Plaintiff
    • Top 100 Map – Criminal Defense
    • Top 40 Under 40 Map – Civil Plaintiff
    • Top 40 Under 40 Map – Criminal Defense
  • Top 100
    • Civil Plaintiff Officers / Executive Committee
    • Criminal Defense Officers / Executive Committee
    • Benefits
    • About
    • Top 100 Presidents Message
    • Diplomat
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Top 100 Badge
  • Top 40
    • Civil Plaintiff Officers / Executive Committee
    • Criminal Defense Officers / Executive Committee
    • Top 40 Under 40 Trial Academy Bootcamp
    • Benefits
    • About
    • Top 40 Presidents Message
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Top 40 Badge
  • Specialty Assoc
    • About
    • Shop
    • Officers
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
  • Nominate
    • Top 100
    • Top 40
    • Specialty Association
    • Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame
    • Trial Lawyer of the Year
    • Trial Team of the Year
    • America’s Most Influential Trial Lawyer
    • America’s Most Influential Law Firm
    • Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Shop
  • Magazine
    • A-List
  • Education and Networking Agenda
    • Trial Lawyers Summit
    • Top 40 Under 40 Trial Academy Boot Camp
    • Mass Torts Made Perfect
    • The Lanier Trial Academy Master Class 6.0
    • The Business Of Law
    • Webinars
  • Hall of Fame
    • Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame

Jury Awards $5M to Passengers in Greyhound Crash When Driver Fell Asleep

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Larry Bodine
Greyhound bus crash

The bus driver fell asleep, because she had inadequate sleep before getting behind the wheel for this overnight NYC to Cleveland route.

A Philadelphia jury awarded a $5.05 million verdict to four passengers in a case known as Hoang v. Greyhound. They were injured when a Greyhound bus collided with a tractor-trailer on Interstate 80 in Central Pennsylvania.

The jury found Greyhound and its driver, Sabrina Anderson, to have acted negligently and to have recklessly disregarded the lives of its passengers.

On July 22, 2016, after a six-week trial, the jury awarded separate verdicts to each of the four passengers, totaling $3.05 million in compensatory money damages and an additional $2 million in rarely awarded punitive damages. The purpose of punitive damages is to deter or punish Greyhound for “outrageous” conduct that was a factual cause in this crash.

According to court records, the jury found Greyhound and Anderson to be 100 percent at fault for the accident. More specifically, Anderson was found to be 55 percent negligent and Greyhound 45 percent negligent. Court records also confirmed that the jury also found that the conduct of defendant, Greyhound Bus Lines, Inc. was deemed “outrageous,” resulting in the punitive damages awarded to each of the plaintiffs.

Preventable fatigue-related crashes

“Greyhound must update and enforce its driver safety rules and fatigue management policies or these preventable, catastrophic, fatigue-related crashes will continue,” Lead Counsel Jon Ostroff said.

“The testimony of CEO David Leach made it clear that Greyhound places profit above the safety of its passengers,” Ostroff says. “Until Greyhound is restructured and safety is given adequate priority and oversight, particularly with respect to fatigue management of its drivers and enforcement of its safety rules, these fatigue-related highway crashes will likely continue.”

“It’s time for the government to intervene and create regulations intended to prevent these fatigue-related crashes from continuing. Appropriate regulations must be implemented, especially with inherently dangerous long routes like the one in our case, which was an overnight, 463-mile route with only one scheduled rest stop for the driver,” he says.

Greyhound’s Safety Director Alan Smith testified that Greyhound had not made any significant changes to its fatigue management program since 2006, which was before he and CEO Leach took over their positions. It is clear that if safety, including proper training and management of its drivers continues to be left in the hands of Greyhound without industry oversight, passengers will continue to be at risk.”

The individual verdict amounts were allocated by the jury to the four passengers as follows:

▪ $3 million for a 21-year-old woman who sustained cervical spine injuries, non- displaced broken bones in her foot, displaced tibia fibula fracture requiring surgery, skull and facial fractures and a traumatic brain injury;

▪ $850,000 for a man who suffered from jaw and dental injuries, a broken wrist, and knee and ankle injuries;

▪ $625,000 for a female passenger who sustained a concussion and underwent six months of chiropractic visits for a back sprain and strain, and

▪ $575,000 for a passenger who suffered from spinal sprain and strain and received approximately six medical treatments.

Driver fell asleep

“The evidence at trial in this 2013 crash clearly confirmed that the driver was driving recklessly and fell asleep, because she had inadequate sleep before getting behind the wheel for this overnight NYC to Cleveland route, “Ostroff says. “She appeared tired to passengers before they boarded, but Greyhound does not require that drivers be assessed for fatigue (or other potential medical, drug or alcohol impairment) by anyone at its NYC terminal before she departed.”

“Greyhound also did not enforce its own safety rules for any drivers of long routes, which requires ‘safety stops’ every 150 miles. The purpose of safety stops is to give the drivers an opportunity to remain alert and awake.”

A CNN investigative report studied this crash and the lack of Greyhound’s safety stop enforcement and confirmed that Greyhound drivers are required to make this 150-mile safety stop. They further confirmed that management does not enforce this safety rule, and CEO Leach is aware of this.

“They don’t enforce their 150 miles safety rule because it costs them money,” Ostroff told CNN. “I would never allow anyone in my family or anyone I know and love to ride on a Greyhound bus.”

Settling cases in hospital rooms

On the day of the crash, Greyhound representatives made settlement offers and sought statements and medical authorizations from many passengers. Greyhound Vice President of Customer Experience Myron Watkins was the highest-ranking executive who was overseeing Greyhound’s response to this crash. Watkins testified that he was aware that adjusters and managers acting on behalf of Greyhound were approaching injured passengers at various hospitals and approaching and entering the hospital rooms of injured passengers.

One plaintiff in this recent trial was hospitalized for a concussion and back injuries. According to Greyhound documents, an adjuster acting on behalf of Greyhound was aware that she was admitted as a concussion patient and was “groggy,” but still attempted to end her injury claim by offering her $1,000 from Greyhound to settle her injury claim from her hospital bed. A Greyhound Terminal Manager also entered her room and approached her later that day. The company then offered the same client $45,000 shortly before trial. Her verdict of $625,000 in the recent Hoang v. Greyhound trial, was almost 14 times this pre-trial amount.

Ostroff Injury Law succeeded in obtaining the first ever release of claims handling documents and memorandums from the company handling the injury claims in collaboration with Greyhound. Greyhound attempted to prevent the release of these documents by withholding them for over a year, until the Superior Court upheld the plaintiffs’ right to obtain these documents. Greyhound’s appeal to the Pa Supreme Court was denied.

 

The trial team of attorneys at Ostroff Injury Law that obtained the Hoang v. Greyhound verdict were Jon Ostroff, Lou Ricciardi, William Coppol, Richard Godshall and Ryan Jablonski.

Ostroff Injury Law still represents 12 passengers injured in this crash. This trial was the first of four scheduled trials, each one on behalf of four clients – including the Estate of Son Thih Than Hoang, who was ejected and killed in this crash.

Ostroff Injury Law is located in Plymouth Meeting, PA and represents victims worldwide who are injured or killed in Greyhound Bus crashes. For more information, visit OstroffLaw.com.

Posted in Auto Accidents, Blog, Personal Injury

Comments are closed.

Recent Posts

The New Mexico Supreme Court Upholds $165 Million Damage Awards in a Deadly FedEx Crash

The New Mexico Supreme Court Upholds $165 Million Damage Awards in a Deadly FedEx Crash

May 20th, 2022

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday upheld $165 million of jury awards against FedEx in a wrongful-death lawsuit stemmin[Read More...]
Noom Reaches a $56 Million Class Action Settlement Over Its Autorenewal and Cancellation Policy

Noom Reaches a $56 Million Class Action Settlement Over Its Autorenewal and Cancellation Policy

May 20th, 2022

Weight-loss program Noom has agreed to a $56 million settlement to resolve class action claims regarding its autorenewal and [Read More...]
Virginians Will Receive $489 Million in a Payday Loan Settlement

Virginians Will Receive $489 Million in a Payday Loan Settlement

May 18th, 2022

Online payday loan companies that charged as much as 919% interest will spend $489 million to reimburse some 555,000 borrower[Read More...]
The State of Minnesota Will Pay $1.5 Million to a Man Who Alleged Excessive Force During an Arrest

The State of Minnesota Will Pay $1.5 Million to a Man Who Alleged Excessive Force During an Arrest

May 18th, 2022

Minneapolis has agreed to pay $1.5 million to a man who said police used excessive force when he was arrested during the prot[Read More...]
A $230 Million Settlement Is Reached Over a 2015 Southern California Oil Spill

A $230 Million Settlement Is Reached Over a 2015 Southern California Oil Spill

May 16th, 2022

The owner of an oil pipeline that spewed thousands of barrels of crude oil onto Southern California beaches in 2015 has agree[Read More...]

Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Attorney information and content provided on this website is provided for the benefit of members of The National Trial Lawyers and as a public service by Legal Associations Management, Inc. The website and all data are the property of Legal Associations Management, Inc. Data, including without limitation attorney information and content, on the site may not be mined, sold, or used commercially for any purpose without the explicit written consent of Legal Associations Management, Inc. This site may not be accessed by any automated program for extracting data for any use. By accessing and using the site you agree that you will not develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots, or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plug-ins and add-ons, or any other technology) to scrape data or otherwise copy profiles and other data. Unauthorized use or attempted unauthorized use of this system may subject you to both civil and criminal penalties.