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# Injured passenger wins $14 million from Transit Authority
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/injured-passenger-wins-14-million-from-transit-authority/
- Published: 2007-06-09T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T01:01:39.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press Staff*

SM COURTHOUSE A jury this week awarded close to $14 million in damages to a 58-year-old man who sustained brain damage when the MTA bus he was riding collided with a parked vehicle.

Attorneys representing Joseph L. Garcia, who currently suffers from brain damage and paralysis as a result of the 2005 crash in Santa Monica, sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for negligence. On Wednesday, the Santa Monica Superior Court jury awarded him $13,820,000.

Six days after Garcia’s trial began, on May 25, the MTA admitted liability. Before the trial took place, the MTA offered $5 million to settle the case. Garcia’s lawyers — Browne Greene and Geoffery S. Wells, of the Santa Monica-based law firm of Greene Briollet & Wheeler — counter offered, seeking $29 million, but the MTA rejected the deal.

“An ordinary member of the public, Joseph Garcia, had every right to expect that the person driving the MTA bus he boarded was properly trained,” said Wells. “But the driver was not, and that’s why the MTA admitted liability in this case and only the damages issue alone was tried.

“We thank the jury for doing the right thing by Mr. Garcia, who was so horribly injured that he requires 24-hour attendant care for the rest of his life.”

Garcia was riding on an MTA bus on June 25, 2005, traveling on Santa Monica Boulevard, when driver Sylvia Delana Fairfax collided with a parked vehicle, causing Garcia to “violently” strike his head within the interior of the bus.

The suit was filed on March 3, 2006\. “It is good that this case has resolved,” said Browne,“but it was a far cry from being over because it raises serious concerns about fallibility of the MTA’s driver training program. It’s frightening to think that the MTA is allowing unsafe drivers on the road and potentially jeopardizing the public’s safety.

“In Joseph Garcia’s name and on behalf of the greater public,”continued Greene,“we ask that Mayor Villaraigosa and our city leaders take notice of this case and use it to spearhead an investigation of the MTA. Until then, the MTA is the equivalent of a five-alarm fire burning out of control.

“No man, woman or child who ‘goes metro’ should ever have to ride in fear of who is behind the wheel.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 9, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/060907.pdf?ref=smdp.com)