A 2012 accident at a New Jersey airport left one man dead and resulted in a jail sentence for the man who was driving the bus that struck the victim. On Sept. 9, the 48-year-old driver was sentenced to 364 days in jail. He will be on probation for three years upon his release and will also perform 150 hours of community service.
On November 12, 2012, around 4:00 a.m., a 61-year-old man was walking in a parking lot at Newark Liberty International Airport when he was run over by a bus owned by Academy Bus lines. The driver exited the bus and checked the man's pulse. He then returned to the vehicle and continued driving according to prosecutors in the case. The driver called a dispatcher for the company about two minutes later and reported that there was a man lying in the parking lot, but he did not say that he had hit the man.
The attorney for the bus driver stated that his client did not intentionally hit the man. The judge agreed but said that the defendant was being sentenced for his actions after the fatal accident. The wife of the man who was killed reportedly filed a civil lawsuit against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bus driver and other entities.
Commercial vehicle accidents can lead to wrongful death claims being filed against the companies that own the vehicles involved and, as in this case, the owners of the location of the accident. In civil cases that stem from incidents like the one recounted, police reports, statements from expert witnesses and attorneys' research may yield evidence to that unsafe locations and employer negligence contributed to such accidents.