The Disney World bus driver who had his legs crushed in the 2010 bus accident near Epcot, won nearly $1 million dollars. The verdict was recently decided by an Orange County jury. “It means the world to him,” lawyer Sean Domnick said of his client, Jean Valentin. “This will help provide a foundation for his future.”
Valentin, 47, was a Disney bus driver for 10 years. He was critically injured March 23, 2010, when his bus slammed into the back of an empty tour bus that had stopped on Epcot Center Drive. The Florida Highway Patrol ticketed Valentin for careless driving, but Domnick persuaded jurors that the other driver, Deborah Martin, should not have stopped in the middle of the road.
“It was crazy for her to stop in a moving lane of traffic for no good reason,” he said.
Martin, who was outside the bus at the time of the collision and not injured, testified she stopped in the road because she had detected a possible mechanical problem with the vehicle.
The crash occurred about 2:30 p.m. near a parking toll plaza at the theme park. Seven passengers also were injured in the crash, none seriously. An FHP spokeswoman said the bus was traveling about 35 mph at the time of the crash.
The jury deliberated for 3 days after listening to 7 days of testimony. They awarded Valentin $970,000 for his injuries. They also found him partly responsible for the crash.
He is a married father of two teenage boys and has has been unable to work since the crash. He moved to the U.S. from Haiti about 20 years ago.
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I have to agree with you. Had I been on the jury, I don’t know that I would have awarded him anything.
I’m surprised… it sounds like the driver was careless and was not paying attention.
The other bus didn’t suddenly slam on brakes, and he couldn’t stop fast enough… it was stopped with hazard lights on – the other driver was not even in the bus so she hadn’t JUST stopped either. Scary to think he was just driving on ‘autopilot’ and didn’t see a BUS stopped ahead of him.