SEPTA, drivers sued over car accident – Knockout Settlement

SEPTA, drivers sued over car accident
by Julie Shaw

A man who was critically injured last year after getting hit by a car right after stepping off a SEPTA bus in Frankford is suing the transit agency and the drivers of the bus and car.

Peter P. Barnett, litigation manager in Gelb’s office, said yesterday that Lemar, who struggles to talk is confined to his “wheelchair for life,” “can’t walk” and “can never work again.”

He said Lemar, who had been on his way home after visiting a friend, had stepped out the back door of the bus when the car came “whizzing past.”

Lemar was unconscious after getting hit and has no memory of what happened.  Authorities initially did not know who he was, listing him as a “john Doe.”

Lemar spent about two months in Temple University Hospital, then about six weeks at MossRehab, Barnett said.

The suit, which seeks a jury trial and more than $50,000, says Lemar “has and will incur enormous medical bills in excess of one million dollars.”

Lemar did not have work-related health insurance, Barnett said.  Medicaid has so far paid the approved charges, he said.

The suit contends that SEPTA drivers have a “regular, ongoing pattern”  of discharging passengers in an unsafe manner.

It also says Lemar was eligible to receive $5,000 from a SEPTA medical-payments coverage plan.  It says “SEPTA has intentionally, wrongfully and with malice refused” to pay him that amount.

Richard Maloney, SEPTA spokesman, said yesterday he could not comment on the lawsuit because it was an open case.  With regard to a medical-payments plan for injured passengers, he would say only that SEPTA “has a claims process” and “every case is individualized.”

He would not say whether Vanelas still works for SEPTA.

Neither Vanelas nor Martinez, 29, who lived on Gilham Street near Charles in Mayfair, but who is not believed to live on Rising Sun Avenue in the Burholme section of Northeast Philadelphia, has been criminally charged.

Police Sgt. Lawrence Ritchie of the Accident Investigation Division said yesterday that the case was still open and that it was “possible” Martinez might eventually face charges.  He said the bus driver was “not going to get charged.”

Martinez’s car-insurance policy was not in effect at the time of the accident, according to a letter by the American Independent Insurance Co.

Efforts to reach Martinez and Vanelas by phone yesterday were unsuccessful.