Know your legal options if your child is injured on a school bus.
Millions of children across Texas rely on the school bus to get them to and from school every day. While children are rarely injured on school buses, injuries do happen, and recent, scary accidents have parents concerned for their child’s safety.
Remind yourself of important school bus laws for back to school.
Back to school is right around the corner for Texas. As we enter the school year, drivers will once again be sharing the roads with school buses and increased child pedestrian traffic.
Kids Across San Antonio are Heading Back-to-School
(August 25, 2022) San Antonio is officially back to school this week. Back to school means busy parents are rushing to drop off their kids before work, and school buses are adding to the already congested construction traffic areas. It’s important during this time that drivers brush up on their back-to-school safe driving techniques. In this article, we’ll look at crash statistics and cover tips for safe driving practices during the school season, as well as what to do if your child has been injured in a school transportation accident.
Did you know?
How do you know if you have a personal injury claim? You can suffer personal injuries when injured physically, psychologically, or emotionally usually due to negligence, carelessness, or wrongful conduct of another individual. It’s typically the case that when an individual files a personal injury claim, they or someone they love sustained injuries due to another’s negligent actions.
Because personal injury law covers a vast amount of different situations, it’s extremely important for you to consult with an experienced lawyer if you believe you have a personal injury claim. For instance, you are potentially at risk of suffering personal injuries in situations such as automobile accidents, trucking accidents, dog bites, motorcycle accidents, and many others.
Given this information, you need to seek professional legal advice from an experienced lawyer to know if you have a personal injury claim. A personal injury attorney will aim to determine who is responsible for the injury or death. They then evaluate the legal issues applicable in a particular situation and determine which course of action is best for their clients. If required, they will file a personal injury lawsuit on behalf of those injured. They take these steps in order to protect the injured party’s rights and ensure proper compensation is received.
For some people, a daily commute is an escape before the demands of the day. For others, it can be stressful. For those who rely on public transportation to get around on a daily basis, there is a reasonable expectation of safety while they are on board a bus or train. Indeed, no one expects to be injured while on public transit. However, when these injuries occur, those responsible may be held accountable for their actions through a Texas personal injury lawsuit.
For example, in a recent Texas Supreme Court opinion, a plaintiff was injured while riding a bus supplied through a public transit authority. The plaintiff boarded a bus and grabbed onto a hanging strap. The bus was operated and driven by a new employee who was still in training, with his supervisor standing behind him. As the driver pulled away from the stop, another passenger shouted, “Back door!” to notify the driver that a passenger was still trying to exit from the vehicle’s rear door. Although the bus was only traveling less than five miles per hour, the driver made an abrupt stop, causing the plaintiff to fall forward into the partition behind the driver’s seat. The plaintiff suffered injuries to his neck and shoulder. After several months of treatment, the plaintiff underwent surgery to repair a herniated disc in his neck.
The plaintiff sued the transit authority, claiming it was negligent and responsible for his injuries. Because the defendant was a common carrier, the plaintiff argued, they owed him a duty to exercise “a high degree of care.” In Texas, common carriers are people or entities that are in the business of carrying passengers or goods and are hire-able by the public. To qualify as a common carrier, the entity must provide transportation services to the general public, as opposed to services for particular individuals or specific groups.
In some Texas car accident cases, one or more drivers involved in the accident may be issued a traffic citation, causing some to wonder what impact that could have on a subsequent personal injury claim. Under Texas law, a motor vehicle driver must exercise reasonable care under the circumstances presented. This means that the level of care that is required in ordinary circumstances may not be sufficient in other situations. For example, the reasonable care required may be different when it is raining or snowing, or while driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
If a driver is issued a citation for a traffic violation, some evidence concerning the violation may be able to be used in a Texas personal injury claim. If a driver violates a traffic law or similar statute, evidence of that violation may constitute negligence per se, or negligence as a matter of law. However, the violation of a statute does not always mean there will be a finding of negligence per se. If the court determines that the defendant was negligent per se, then the jury will be instructed that is the case and the only issues for the jury to determine are causation and damages.
Texas courts consider various factors in determining whether a violation of the statute constitutes per se liability, including whether the plaintiff’s injury is due to a direct or indirect violation of the statute, and whether the statute would impose liability without fault.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Texas issued a written opinion in a case involving a fatal Texas pedestrian accident, requiring the court to discuss the damages cap provision of the Texas Tort Claims Act (TTCA). Specifically, the court had to determine if the damages cap provision applies individually or cumulatively in cases involving several independent contractors. Ultimately, the court concluded that, when a contractor is performing an essential government function, the damages cap applies cumulatively to all defendants.
The Facts of the Case
The plaintiff was the surviving daughter of a woman who was struck and killed by a public bus in Fort Worth. The bus was driven by a man who was employed by a company that was an independent contractor that provided drivers for Fort Worth’s public transportation system.
The plaintiff brought a Texas personal injury claim against several parties, including the driver, the driver’s employer, and the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (FWTA). The FWTA is a regional transportation authority that provides for all of the public transportation needs of the city. The plaintiff claimed that each of the organizational defendants was vicariously liable for the driver’s negligence.
In a recent Texas bus accident decision, the court considered the parents’ claim that a school district had caused their son’s death. The son, who was disabled, started going to school in the district at age three. The district picked him up in a bus used to pick up disabled students. The boy would stay in his wheelchair while being lifted onto the bus, and the wheelchair was locked into place by the district employees. The bus had both a driver and an attendant.
One day in December, the boy became unresponsive while traveling to school in the bus. The driver and attendant saw he was in distress and stopped the bus. They waited for an ambulance rather than take him to a nearby ER. They didn’t try to resuscitate him while they waited. However, their decisions to stop and wait for an ambulance were in accord with District procedures related to students who face conditions requiring medical care while traveling on the school buses.
Within an hour of getting on the bus, the boy died. His parents sued the district in the following year for wrongful death and survival damages. They later amended their complaint to allege that the bus driver had negligently driven such that their son had been tossed around in his wheelchair, that the driver had driven at an unsafe speed and disregarded curbs, bumps, and stops, that District employees hadn’t properly used available mirrors and cameras to observe their son during the trip, and that locks on the support chair were used in an unsafe and negligent way.
In a recent Texas appellate case, the court considered whether there were enough facts to establish a waiver of the Arlington Independent School District’s immunity from suit under the Texas Tort Claims Act in a bus accident case. The case arose when a minor was standing inside a school bus aisle. The bus was going five miles per hour when the driver slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting another bus. The minor was thrown forward and hit the windshield.
The minor’s representative sued AISD on the grounds that the bus driver was negligent and had caused the daughter’s injuries and damages. The complaint stated that the trial court could hear this case because its sovereign immunity was waived for personal injury claims caused by negligent school bus drivers under § 101.021(1) of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code. The trial court denied the school district’s motion for summary judgment, which argued there was no jurisdiction due to sovereign immunity.
The school district argued that the parent had not pled a claim that fell within the law’s limited immunity waiver for the use of a motor vehicle. Instead, it argued, the complaint just showed that the district had failed to supervise, direct, or control students riding the school bus. Prior case law stated that when claims have to do with the direction and supervision of students, there is no waiver of immunity. The allegations have to be related to the negligent use of a motor vehicle in order for the lawsuit to proceed.
In Austin Independent School District v. Idolinda Salinas, a mother sued individually, as a next friend of her son, for injuries suffered by her son when he opened a back exit door and leaped from a moving school bus.
The son was a child with a disability going home on a District school bus. The bus passed his stop, so the son asked that the driver pull over to let him out, but the driver didn’t. The son tried to climb out a window, and when that didn’t work, he went to the back of the bus.
He stood at the back of the bus for a while and then opened a handle on the back door, which triggered a buzzer to alert the driver. The door opened, and the boy jumped out and suffered injuries. The bus driver only pulled over when she saw the boy on the ground.
Texas Injury Lawyers Blog