Gabriel Goncalves suffered two skull fractures following this accident in which his school bus crashed into a tree in Wolcott in June 2015. A jury recently awarded him $23,050,000. Courtesy photo

A Waterbury Superior Court jury has awarded $23,050,000 to a boy who suffered two skull fractures after the school bus he was a passenger in struck a tree in Wolcott in 2015.

The case hinged on whether the boy's aggressive behavior following the accident was due to his moderate to severe autism or the bus collision. The plaintiff's attorneys—father-and-son team Michael and Jeremy D'Amico—expressed outrage at what they claim was the defense's attempt to paint plaintiff Gabriel Goncalves as an autistic boy with little or no future before the crash.

"It almost seemed like I was moving back in time, and that we turned the clock back 50 or 75 years to where there were biases and prejudices in society about what children with autism looked like, and whether they should be put away some place," said Michael D'Amico, a member at D'Amico & Pettinicchi in Watertown. "It was wrong, so very wrong. It was sad that the defense looked at Gabriel that way before the crash."

The jury's Nov. 25 verdict, Michael D'Amico said, was a vindication.

"Gabriel wasn't viewed by the jury as a child with no future before the crash," he said. "The defense painted him as a child with autism with no future before the crash, but children with autism can be employed and can live independently and semi-independently."

Representing bus driver Mark Hudobenko and Worhunsky Corp., the bus company, was Darien solo practitioner G. Randall Avery, who declined Monday to comment on the case.

Representing defendant Utica Mutual Insurance Co. in the underinsured portion of the claim was attorney Michele Wojcik of Cheshire-based Nuzzo & Roberts. Wojcik did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

In court papers, the defense maintained the bus driver was neither negligent nor careless.

But the jury found the bus driver 74% responsible for the crash, and attributed the other 26% to the driver of a car involved in the incident.

D'Amico said he was also able to counter the defense's claim that Goncalves' behavioral decline was related to his preexisting autism and puberty. Following the crash, the boy would sometimes show aggressive and impulsive behavior, according to his Nov. 21 amended complaint.

D'Amico said he believes he was able to show through numerous medical experts that Goncalves' behavior was due to the effects of the accident. Those experts, D'Amico said, included a neuropsychologist, a pediatric neurologist and a pediatric and behavioral psychologist. All testified at trial that the crash was the key factor in the boy's behavioral changes.

In addition, D'Amico said, several fact witnesses testified to the changes after the crash, including Gabriel's parents, brother and behavioral aides who had worked with the boy before and after the crash.

According to D'Amico and the complaint, the bus driver claimed a green car was swerving in and out of lanes causing him to crash the school bus. The bus crashed into a tree on the right passenger side, just where Goncalves was sitting. There were five people on the bus, but the boy was the most severely injured, D'Amico said. The green car was never located, and while witnesses to the crash claimed they never saw a green car, one of the other students on the bus said he'd seen it.

According to an air-bag control module, Hudobenko, the bus driver, was traveling between 43 and 45 miles per hour at the time of the crash. The speed limit was 35 miles per hour. The police did not cite Hudobenko, D'Amico said.

The jury verdict could be appealed, but D'Amico said he saw no "appealable issues of any consequence on the defense side."

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