Church Bus Crash in Upstate NY

Emergency responders rushed multiple victims from a Queens church to an area hospital following a wreck on the New York State Thruway.

According to investigators, the van’s driver swerved to avoid another vehicle, lost control of the passenger van, hit a guardrail, and plummeted over the side of a cliff. All fourteen passengers were treated at a nearby hospital. The driver wasn’t hurt.

The Church of God of Prophecy, in Ozone Park, issued the following statement: “We thank God that all involved are in a place to receive the appropriate care needed and expect full recoveries across the board. We do ask everyone to keep our church members, their families, and our church at large in your prayers, as well as respect the privacy of our church as we navigate this unfortunate situation.”

Passenger Injuries

Many people believe there’s a special place in hell reserved for church members who sue their churches. A passage in the New Testament seemingly forbids it. Most other faiths have similar beliefs and similar prejudices. 

However, those early churchgoers didn’t tumble off cliffs and get stuck with $100,000 or more in medical bills. Additionally, in another passage, followers are urged to settle matters quickly with their adversaries before they go to court. At the Pianko Law Group, that’s exactly what our professional team does, or at least tries to do.

Once medical treatment is at least mostly complete, we send demand letters to defendants. We wait until this point because, if the claim settles too early, the victim might be financially responsible for any future medical expenses.

If the defendant is willing to do the right thing, the matter ends. However, at that point, an insurance company is usually involved. And contrary to the ideas expressed on TV commercials, insurance companies are never willing to do the right thing. They’re only willing to do the cheapest thing.

So, attorneys usually must file legal paperwork, to protect the legal rights of victims and also to jumpstart the negotiation process.

Rollover Wrecks

Since these collisions involve some complex medical and legal issues, they’re usually difficult to settle. 

Today’s cars and trucks are much safer than the ones made in the 1990s. However, most of these advances keep people safer in front, rear, and sideswipe collisions. That makes sense, as these crashes constitute most car accidents in New York.

During rollover wrecks, the force is spread all over the vehicle. The result is cabin intrusion. That’s engineer language for a crumpling effect which causes the car, truck, or in this case a van, to fold inward upon itself. 

Rollover wrecks are especially common in scenarios like the one in the above story, particularly if the vehicle has a high center of gravity, as is the case with pickups, SUVs, and vans. Guardrails effectively contain vehicles with low centers of gravity. But other vehicles simply topple over the guardrail and down the embankment, or whatever the guardrail was guarding against.

Speed also contributes significantly to rollover wrecks. A tortfeasor (negligent driver) could be traveling below the speed limit and still be moving too fast for the conditions. When speeding drivers swerve, they often overcorrect, trying to regain control of their vehicles. But overcorrection has the opposite effect. The driver completely loses control of the vehicle.

We mentioned energy displacement, and the way it contributes to the injuries in a rollover crash, above. Energy displacement also contributes to the causes of these wrecks. Quickly changing directions disrupts the vehicle’s momentum. So, as these drivers try to regain control, they’re fighting gravity as well as the other forces. When we fight gravity, we generally lose.

Rollover wrecks often cause serious injuries as well. As the vehicle tumbles, the people inside it usually tumble as well. That’s especially true in buses, vans, or other large passenger vehicles which have no airbags that hold victims in place. In many cases, these injuries cause permanent disabilities.

First Party Liability

Compensation is available for medical bills and other economic losses associated with these injuries. A New York personal injury attorney must prove negligence, or a lack of care, by a preponderance of the evidence, or more likely that not. Attorneys can also obtain compensation for noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. The most common causes of negligent driving are:

• Aggressive Driving: This is an extreme example of aggressive driving. Marge clearly enjoyed her new SUV, but she was also clearly negligent. Other forms of aggressive driving, which are no less negligent, include tailgating, speeding, and other driving behaviors that are very common on New York roads.
• Impaired Driving: Fatigue, a common form of driver impairment, may have been an issue in the above story. It’s a long drive from Queens to Niagara Falls, especially if you’re driving back that night. Extreme fatigue has the same effect on the body and brain as alcohol. Other forms of driver impairment include a medical condition, distraction, and drug use.

Sometimes, a defective product causes a car crash, or at least causes the injuries in a crash. A Georgia jury recently ordered Ford to pay $1.7 billion because a defective roof on a pickup collapsed during a rollover wreck. “I used to buy Ford trucks,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer remarked after the trial. “I thought nobody would sell a truck with a roof this weak. The damn thing is useless in a wreck. You might as well drive a convertible.”

Manufacturers are strictly liable for the injuries their defective products cause. Negligence is usually only relevant to the amount of damages in the case.580

Occasionally, police investigators blame a wind gust or a wet road for a rollover wreck. However, for negligence purposes, such conditions generally only contribute to wrecks. They don’t cause them. If winds are gusty or the pavement is wet, drivers have a duty to slow down and use extra caution.

Third Party Liability

Respondeat superior employer liability is one of the most common vicarious liability claims. These claims basically serve two purposes. First, commercial vehicle wrecks often cause catastrophic injuries. Most drivers don’t have enough insurance coverage to fairly compensate these victims. Second, third parties, like employers, can stop crashes before they happen, simply by insisting on some basic safety protocols.

An employer liability claim in New York basically has two parts:

• Employee: Although it’s unclear at this point, the van driver in the above story might have been an unpaid volunteer. Such individuals are employees for negligence purposes, because the employer, or sponsoring entity, controls their actions. The volunteer had to take passengers to Niagara Falls, not to the Saratoga monument.
• Scope of Employment: Modern New York law also defines this respondeat superior prong very broadly. Once upon a time, the scope of employment was limited to something like a regular delivery driver on his/her regular route. Nowadays, any act which benefits the employer in any way is within the scope of employment. 

Other employer liability theories, which often come up in assault or other intentional tort claims, include negligent supervision and negligent hiring.

Injury victims are usually entitled to substantial compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury attorney in New York, contact the Pianko Law Group, PLLC. We do not charge upfront legal fees in these matters.