Some Cat Tracker News

Wildcat fans in particular, and possibly fans of other schools, remember the Cat Tracker incident in Lawrence last year. In case you've forgotten, one man was killed and another suffered a serious head injury when the double-decker party bus went under an overpass (they were standing on the roof). A terrible tragedy that was totally preventable.



Anyway, the good news this week is that Chris Orr, the man critically injured but not killed in the wreck, is starting to regain his memory. It's been quite the journey for the former sportswriter, who has recovered from injuries that left him in critical condition. Best of luck to you, Chris.

Now, on to the news you knew would be coming after something like this happens. That's right, a lawsuit has been filed. The widow of victim John Green has sued the bus owner, Bob Pottroff (among others). This is a civil lawsuit, which means the widow (plaintiff) will have to establish the bus owners had a duty of care toward her husband, that they breached that duty, that their breach was the cause of her husband's death, and that damages resulted.

***Note: None of this is legal advice, and none of it is based specifically on Kansas law. It's merely based on general principles of tort law, and is espoused by someone who is not a lawyer (yet).***

The plaintiff probably can't establish a duty of care based merely on operation of the vehicle, because it didn't actively create a risk. Most likely, the plaintiff will have to establish there was a special relationship between the deceased and the driver. Is there a special relationship between the driver of a party bus and its passengers?

If a duty is established, the plaintiff must next establish the defendant was negligent in performing that duty (or breached that duty). Negligence is the failure to conform one's actions to the standard of a reasonable person. Was it reasonable for a person in the defendant's position to know there were people on top of the bus, and if it was, was it reasonable to keep driving the bus with such knowledge? Seems pretty likely to me. Further, the driver was not licensed to drive a bus, and was driving the bus with people on top, which is against the law. A violation of the law is negligence per se, which means such a violation is presumed to be negligence. There is some issue of contributory negligence on the part of those who were standing on top of the bus as well.

If a duty and a breach of that duty are established, we move on to causation. Causation is really freakin' complicated. Suffice it to say, it's likely provable to a jury that the continued driving of the bus with people on top led to the injuries (although there is an argument that the 'cause' was the victim climbing on top of the bus).

Finally, if all elements are proven, we must ask if there were damages. Damages are pretty easy, we have a man dead. Further, he was a young, Kansas City-area businessman. There could be a lot of future income at stake here, and this could end up being a fairly high dollar lawsuit, when you factor all types of damages in.

Bob Pottroff is a fairly high-powered, if not universeally well-liked (in comments), Manhattan lawyer. He's the guy you turn to if you want to get out of a legal jam (and you have the money to pay for it). Maybe he can get himself out of this jam.

Oh wait, forgot two things.

1. Juries hate lawyers, especially lawyers as defendants.

2. The plaintiff, the dead man's widow, was eight months pregnant at the time of the incident.

Settle, Bob.