The Pennsylvania Superior Court has refused Greyhound Lines' request to toss a $5 million verdict stemming from a case in which 23 passengers were injured when a bus collided with a tractor trailer.

A three-judge Superior Court Panel consisting of Judges Anne Lazarus and Deborah Kunselman and Senior Judge James Gardner Colins held that the jury verdict was appropriate.

Additionally, the court held that excluding testimony by a witness that the truck driver had admitted to smoking marijuana and was high at the time of the accident was proper, since the alleged statement to the passenger by itself was not admissible.

Colins wrote in the court's opinion, ”Although the truck driver's statements to [witness Matthew] Welch are admissions and Welch's lack of personal knowledge concerning the truck driver's drug consumption therefore does not make them inadmissible, the statements were at best ambiguous and indefinite about the truck driver's condition at the time of the accident. As such, they were insufficient to show intoxication or unfitness to drive at the time of the accident, absent other evidence that he was impaired at the time of the accident. Because there was no such additional evidence, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding Welch's testimony.”

Punitive damages based on bus driver fatigue were also deemed appropriate by the Superior Court, which rejected Greyhound's argument that it was entitled to judgment not withstanding the verdict “because plaintiffs allegedly did not show that the bus driver and Greyhound had subjective knowledge that the bus driver was too fatigued to drive on the night of the accident and did not show that Greyhound knew that its fatigue prevention program was inadequate.”

Colins said that the evidence showed that the bus driver was aware of her own condition.

“This evidence was sufficient for the jury to find that the bus driver was subjectively aware for an extended period before the accident that she was too fatigued to safely drive and that she was in danger of falling asleep at the wheel if she continued to drive,” Colins said. “There was also evidence that the bus driver knew that if she felt fatigued, she was to pull the bus over at a safe location, such as a rest area, and take a rest or call Greyhound for a replacement driver.”

Jon Ostroff of Ostroff Injury Law in Plymouth Meeting represents the plaintiffs and did not respond to a request for comment.

Christina Marshall of Miller Canfield in Detroit represents Greyhound and did not respond to a request for comment.

(Copies of the 29-page opinion in Livingston v. Greyhound Lines, PICS No. 19-0553, are available at http://at.law.com/PICS.)