LOS ANGELES COUNTY METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, OPERATOR OF BUSES & TRAINS, FOUND LIABLE BY JURY, TO PAY $2,247,000 TO INJURED BUS DRIVER
The Metrolink Train that crashed on Friday, September 12, 2008 in Chatsworth was part of a network of separate independent rail and bus lines that includes the MTA (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority) along with other bus and train transportation companies and agencies serving Southern California . News sources are reporting as of Saturday morning that the Metrolink commuter train crashed head on with a Union Pacific freight train going in the opposite direction on the same track. At least 18 so far are reported dead, 135 people injured, many critically injured, and all 12 hospital trauma centers were utilized to care for the accident victims.
In other news about injuries and damages caused by transportation companies, The MTA was recently found by a Los Angeles Superior Court jury to be liable for damages in the amount of $2,247,000. The jury determined that a 53 year old driver for the MTA was terminated because of minor disabilities (which he contends were caused by many years of driving for the MTA), and that the MTA did not engage in an interactive process to find a reasonable accommodation so that the driver could continue to work. The jury found the MTA discriminated on the basis of disability in violation of State law. The bus driver was terminated by the MTA just before he was to reach 23 years of service which would have required full payment of his pension.
Stephen Allen Jamieson, a partner in the Los Angeles Law Firm of Solomon, Saltsman & Jamieson together with his associate Ryan Kroll convinced a Los Angeles Superior Court jury that character counts, even the character of a large company. As Jamieson argued to the jury, “If the MTA had simply cared enough about its long term bus driver to follow the law this honorable man would never have been fired and this case would never have seen this courtroom.”
The MTA would not put the bus driver back on the job even though he demanded to go back to work, obtained a release from his doctor to go back to work, and was otherwise qualified to return to work. The jury determined that the driver for the train rail and bus company was entitled to money compensation for his injuries and emotional distress and loss of earnings and loss of pension benefits in the amount of Two Million Two Hundred Forty-Seven Thousand Dollars ($2,247,000).
The $2,247,000 verdict for compensatory damages will be included in a judgment that will also award an additional substantial amount for attorneys’ fees and costs of suit. Lead trial attorney Stephen Allen Jamieson, and his lawyer partners, in the Law Firm of Solomon, Saltsman & Jamieson, Stephen Warren Solomon, Ralph B. Saltsman, Bruce Evans, and their lawyer associates Michael Akopyan, Julia Sullivan, and Ryan Kroll are pleased to achieve a great result for their deserving client.
This was an exceptional result for the client. With over 100 years of combined experience among the lawyers of the Law Firm of Solomon, Saltsman & Jamieson they have also achieved many other exceptional results in many areas of the law including, but not limited to, obtaining compensation for people suffering with serious personal injuries, brain injuries, spinal injuries, broken bones, emotional distress, and loss of earnings, resulting from different types of motor vehicle accidents, construction accidents, and all types of negligence and intentional actions and omissions, caused by transportation agencies and companies, and others.
