Jurors express sympathy for elderly plaintiff but rule against her
After a day and a half of deliberations, a jury on Friday cleared City Hall of liability in an accident that left an elderly Big Blue Bus passenger with a broken hip.
But after delivering their verdict, jurors cautioned City Hall not to interpret their ruling as a complete victory.
“This is not a verdict for the City of Santa Monica,” said juror Bruce Bolkin, president of a Sylmar-based printing company and a former attorney. “We do not think this was right. We think this was woeful.”
Bolkin and other jurors said they believed City Hall should do more to train bus drivers to be more careful with elderly passengers so the same accident doesn’t happen again. But ultimately there were too many questions raised by city attorneys to legally justify ruling in Olive Karony’s favor.
Karony, 85, of Santa Monica, broke her hip on the Big Blue Bus No. 3 line in July of last year when the bus took off, causing her to fall. Her lawyers argued in the trial that City Hall was negligent because it does not require its bus drivers to wait for elderly people to be seated before they start moving.
But Deputy City Attorney Norman Hirata said that if City Hall enacts stricter training guidelines, it will become more vulnerable to litigation.
Currently, bus drivers are only required to wait for people with disabilities or with special needs to be seated before they begin driving. Simply being elderly is not considered a special need.
Despite that, Hirata argued during the trial that Sanchez had waited for Karony to be seated but that she stood up after the bus was in motion and began walking toward the back of bus before she fell.
Karony, who now walks with a cane, sat alone in the courtroom long after the verdict was rendered.
“I just can’t believe this,” she said through tears. “The only thing that was against me was I can’t remember after I fell what happened.
473,“How this jury could decide against me I just don’t know. I wish someone could explain this to me.”
Twelve expert and eyewitnesses testified during the week-long trial, which was presented to jurors for deliberations Wednesday afternoon. Other than bus driver Victor Sanchez, of Palmdale, and Karony, the only two other eyewitnesses were an Australian couple who witnessed the accident and testified via satellite.
The couple was on the bus at the time of the accident and said Karony was walking down the aisle when the bus took off with an unexpected lurch from the intersection of Sixth Street and Wilshire Boulevard, causing Karony to fall.
Hirata attempted to poke holes in their testimony, pointing out that neither of the witnesses actually saw Karony board the bus. He also showed jurors a medical worker’s report indicating Karony fell when the bus came to a stop and not when it first pulled away from the curb.
Karony, who at the time of the accident was on her way from the YMCA to her Montana Avenue home, was taken to St. John’s Hospital where she underwent surgery to have a plate and pins permanently installed in her hip.
She spent a week in the hospital, three weeks at a nearby rehabilitation center and now lives with a permanent in-house caretaker. In the trial, Karony asked for nearly $300,000 in past and future medical expenses, as well as an unspecified amount in pain and suffering.
Catherine Lerer, one of Karony’s attorneys, said she is considering filing an appeal.
“She doesn’t care that much about the money,” said Lerer, who added that City Hall had made earlier settlement offers but declined to say for how much. “She just wanted to be vindicated by a jury.”
In the meantime, Sanchez, who sat beside Hirata in his Big Blue Bus uniform for the entire trial, said he is relieved by the ruling and will likely return to his route on Monday.
Lerer said that because City Hall won, she doubts it will change the way it trains bus drivers.
But some jurors on Friday demanded City Hall not remain idle.
“People need to go to the council or do something,” said juror Michelle Brauer of Mar Vista, a Loyola-Marymount Law School student. “Because it’s ridiculous.”
“People need to go to the council or do something because it’s ridiculous.” — — MICHELLE BRAUER Juror
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 16, 2003. Read the original PDF.