Rochester Business Journal

 A jury in Livingston County has awarded three victims of a 2005 I-390 bus crash $2.25 million.

The award goes to two members of a Canadian girls’ hockey team and the team’s assistant coach.  Eight more members of the under-21 team await trials to determine damages.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys from the New York City-based Seeger Weiss LLP maintained at a liability-phase trial last June that the driver of the team’s Coach Canada bus lacked sufficient experience and suffered from lack of sleep after driving from Ontario and staying up to watch the Wildcats game. In settlement agreement reached then, Coach Canada agreed to take 90 percent of the blame for the accident, while the owner of the tractor-trailer agreed to accept remaining liability.

The bus crash occurred in January 2005 after the Windsor, Ont.-based Windsor Wildcats’ chartered bus collided with a tractor-trailer and veered off the road near Geneseo.

The accident happened a day after the Windsor, Ont.-based Windsor Wildcats team
played a game in Rochester when team members were headed south on an excursion to a local ski area.

A six-day trial to determine damages due to the first three plaintiffs concluded March 8 with the jury’s $2.5 million verdict.  Individually, the three plaintiffs, who say they have suffered from post-traumatic stress in the wake of the crash, got $1 million, $750,000 and $500,000 awards. Pain and suffering components came to $500,000, $375,000 and $250,000 respectively.

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