S.F. Plaintiff Awarded $22M After Bus Crash
By Cheryl MillerRECORDER STAFF WRITER
A San Francisco jury awarded $22.8 million in damages this week to a woman who suffered permanent brain damage when she was struck by a tour bus on Nob Hill in 2005.
The award handed down on Tuesday includes $10.3 million for Xiu Jin "Celia" Shi's future pain and suffering and $6.4 million to help provide round-the-clock assistance.
Shi's attorney., Randall Scarlett, principal of the Scarlett Law Group in San Francisco, said the 51-year-old bookstore employee was crossing California Street at Taylor Street when she was hit by a Coach USA tour bus making an illegal left turn. Shi suffered severe brain injuries that, after four surgeries and nine months in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, left her with permanent frontal-lobe damage, Scarlett said.
Shi has trouble concentrating, communicating and performing basic daily functions, her attorney said.
Attorneys for Coach USA, Brett Burlison and Kenneth Ward or Archer Norris, did not dispute liability or causation in the case. And the judge declined to instruct the jury to consider Shi's comparative fault in the accident. Lawyers for both sides said.
Instead, the case and preceding settlement talks turned on whether Shi's injuries required round-the-clock care for the rest of her life.
Coach USA contented that Shi needs 24-hour assistance "right now and potentially the next year," Burlison said, "but that she should be weaned from that later," perhaps down to three or four hours a day.
Scarlett said settlement talks resulted in Coach USA offering $7.7 million while Shi and her guardian held firm at $15 million. Burlison declined to comment on issues raised during settlement discussions.
"The big item here was never whether she needed 7/24 care," Scarlett contented. "The issue was, what is the jury going to place on the value of a human mind."
After getting laid off from a full-time drafting job, Shi earned $15 to $20 an hour as a part-time data entry worker. She also worked as a translator and assistant to a master of Qigong, a physical and meditative practice thought to have medical benefits. Shi immigrated to the United States from China in 1991 and is now a U.S. citizen, Scarlett said.
While Shi expected to return to full-time-work before she was injured, Scarlett said he tried to make the jury understand that his client led a fulfilling olife despite her meager income at the time of the accident.
"I argued strenuously that we have to have more value as humans than what we earn," Scarlett said.
Testimony by a host of brain-injury and other experts lasted 10 days, and the jury returned with its verdict in less than two days.
"You just had really bad injuries involved," Burlison said. "She's had four surgeries, and she's going to have a fifth."
Burlison and Coach USA has not decided whether to appeal.
The case is Xiu Jin Shi v. Coach USA, Inc.