EL&C Trial Attorneys

$2,250,000 Settlement for Bus Accident

THE HOME NEWS TRIBUNE

A bus company agreed to pay more than $2 million to a Plainfield woman whose husband died for injuries he received when the bus' roof was sheered off as it traveled underneath a railroad bridge, an attorney said.

Coach USA settled the case yesterday for $2,250,000, said Barry Eichen of EICHEN LEVINSON & CRUTCHLOW LLPCahn & Parra who represented the plaintiff.

Henry Bresticker, 87, suffered a badly fractured skull, lapsed into a coma about 2  hours after the crash, underwent surgery at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, and died at the hospital nine months later, said Eichen.

He said Bresticker and his wife, Lillian, 77, went to Atlantic City once a month, on average, and played golf three times a week.

On December 14, 1999, they took a trip to Atlantic City. A bus brought their group back to Middlesex Mall in South Plainfield, where a second bus then picked them up to bring them home.

But the bus driver deviated from his usual route, and around 8 p.m. on Clinton Avenue, near South Second Street in the city, he hit a railroad overpass that sheered off the top of the vehicle, said Eichen.

The trial had been scheduled to start Monday in Middlesex County. The attorney for the bus company could not be reached for comment.

By Michelle Sahn