Recent Recoveries
- $2,000,000Car crash — litigation settlement
- $1,750,000Slip & fall — litigation settlement
- $1,000,00018-wheeler — litigation settlement
- $850,000Tractor-trailer — litigation settlement
- $650,000Commercial collision — litigation settlement
- $650,000Trucking accident — litigation settlement
- $550,000On-the-job injury — litigation settlement
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. Every case is decided on its own facts.
Dallas moves several hundred thousand people a day on buses. DART routes across the county, school districts running fleets larger than most transit systems, charter coaches on the interstates, hotel and airport shuttles, church buses on a Sunday.
When one of them hurts somebody, the response is quick and it is well practised. There is an incident report the same shift, a claims department that has done this before, and video that will be gone before you have finished your first course of physiotherapy.
And there is a deadline nobody mentions. Against a public operator you may have six months to give written notice, or less. Almost every serious mistake made in these cases is made in the first fortnight, by somebody who believed they had two years.
Free case review
You talk to the lawyer who would try it, not to an intake screener.
No fee unless we win
Nothing up front. The fee comes out of the recovery, or there is none.
We find the owner first
Who owns the bus decides your deadline and your ceiling. We establish it on the first call.
Where It Starts
The question that decides your deadline
It is not how badly you were hurt. It is who owns the bus — because three of the four answers make this a claim against the government, and that changes when you have to act, how much can be recovered, and from whom.
Almost everybody who rings us about a bus assumes they have two years, because that is what they have heard about injury claims in Texas. For a great many bus claims that is the wrong number by a factor of four.
DART, a city and a school district are all governmental units. Suing one means giving written notice of the claim within six months of the day it happened — and where a city’s own charter sets a shorter period, Texas law expressly allows it to. There are North Texas cities where the window is a matter of weeks.
Nothing about the bus tells you which of the four you are dealing with. Routes are contracted out, liveries belong to operators rather than owners, and the name on the side of the vehicle is frequently not the entity that owes you anything. It takes us an afternoon to establish and it is the first thing we do.
People ring us five months after a transit crash thinking they are early. On a claim against a city they can already be too late, and nobody sent them a letter saying so.
Aaron Genthe · Founder
- 01
Who owns the bus decides everything
DART, a city, a school district or a private charter company. The first three are governmental units and are sued under the Texas Tort Claims Act, with a written notice deadline and a statutory ceiling.
- 02
A carrier owes you more than a driver does
Texas holds a common carrier to the care of a very cautious, competent and prudent person — a higher standard than the ordinary care a motorist owes. It applies to the bus you were riding, not to the car that hit it.
- 03
The deadline that ends these cases is not two years
A claim against a governmental unit generally requires written notice within six months, and a city’s own charter may lawfully require it sooner. Two years is when you must have filed suit. It is the last of your deadlines, not the first.
The Four Owners
Which bus hit you, or carried you
Everything below turns on this and it is a fact about the operator rather than about your accident.
A transit authority — DART, Trinity Metro, DCTA
A regional transportation authority created under Chapter 452 of the Transportation Code. It is a governmental unit, it is sued under the Tort Claims Act, and as a unit of local government its liability is limited to $100,000 for each person and $300,000 for each occurrence.
A city bus, or any city vehicle
A municipality is also a governmental unit, but it sits in a different tier: $250,000 for each person and $500,000 for each occurrence under §101.023.
A school bus
Texas school districts are almost entirely outside the Tort Claims Act. Section 101.051 says the chapter does not apply to a school district or a junior college district except as to motor vehicles — and a bus crash is the exception.
A charter, tour, shuttle or church bus
A private company, sued for ordinary negligence like any other business. No notice deadline and no cap. Two years to file, and the recovery is whatever the case is worth.
How It Happens
The eight ways bus claims arise
Not a list of injuries. Each of these points at a different defendant and is proved with different documents, which is the only useful reason to set them out apart.
- 01Hit by a bus while drivingWide turns, blind spots down the right side, lane changes into traffic the mirrors do not cover. The vehicle’s own telematics usually settle what the drivers disagree about.
- 02Struck as a pedestrian at a stopPulling in and pulling away are where these happen, and a bus stop is the one place a driver is entitled to expect people on foot.
- 03Hurt as a passenger on boardHard braking, a swerve, a collision. Transit buses have no seat belts and standing passengers by design, so an impact that would bruise a driver throws a rider the length of the aisle.
- 04Boarding, alighting and the doorsThe kneeling step that did not lower, the gap at the kerb, the door that closed on an arm, the bus that pulled off while somebody was still on the stairs.
- 05School bus loading zonesThe stop arm, the crossing gate and the danger zone around the vehicle. Most children hurt by school buses in this country are hurt outside them rather than inside.
- 06Driver fatigue and hours of serviceA regulated carrier keeps records of duty status for six months. Where a driver was over hours, that file is the case — and it is destroyed on schedule.
- 07Maintenance and mechanical failureBrakes, tyres, steering, doors and wheelchair lifts. A carrier is required to inspect and to keep the records, so the question is nearly always what the file shows rather than what the driver remembers.
- 08Cyclists and riders brought downRight hooks at a stop, a bus pulling across a bike lane, a rider in the blind spot along the nearside. The mirrors on a transit bus do not cover the whole of it and the operators know that.
The Clock
Every deadline you have, on one axis
The two-year filing deadline is the only one most people have heard of, and on a bus claim it is the last of them to expire.
The crash
Day zero
On-board and platform video
No rule requires it kept
A city charter’s own notice period, where one applies
As little as 90 days
Written notice to a governmental unit — §101.101
Six months
Records of duty status, where the carrier is regulated
Six months
Filing suit — the ordinary Texas limitations period
Two years
Evidence
Five of the six things are held by the defendant
A bus records more about a collision than any private vehicle on the road — video inside and out, position, speed, door state, braking, the fare log.
- 01
The on-board video
Modern buses run several cameras, inside and out. Nothing requires the footage to be kept, and routine overwriting is measured in weeks.
- 02
The platform and stop cameras
A second angle, held by a different body — the authority, the city, or the shop the stop sits outside — on a different schedule.
- 03
The vehicle’s own data
Location, speed, door state, braking and the fare log. It is recorded for operations rather than for litigation, and it is purged for the same reason.
- 04
The driver’s file
Licence and endorsement, training, prior incidents, hours worked and any post-accident testing. It exists in one place and it is not yours.
- 05
Maintenance and inspection records
What was found, what was deferred and what was signed off. On a mechanical failure this is the whole claim.
- 06
The other passengers
The best witnesses on a bus case were sitting on the bus, and nobody took their names. Fare and pass data is how they are found, while it still exists.
Liability
Who can be held responsible
A bus route runs on more companies than it looks like. The entity whose name is on the vehicle is often not the employer, not the maintainer and not the one that pays.
The driver, and whoever employs them
An employer answers for its driver’s negligence in the course of the work. That is ordinarily the end of the enquiry — except that on a bus route the employer and the entity whose name is on the vehicle are frequently two different companies.
The authority or district that owns the route
Route design, stop placement, scheduling that leaves no recovery time, a maintenance programme that defers what it should not. These are the operator’s own decisions rather than the driver’s.
A maintenance contractor or a manufacturer
Fleet maintenance is usually outsourced, and the contractor is a private company with its own policy and none of the immunity.
Another motorist
Very often the bus did not cause it. A driver who turned across it, ran the light or stopped dead in front of it is an ordinary defendant with an ordinary auto policy and no cap of any kind.
The owner of the ground the stop sits on
Where the injury was the surface rather than the vehicle — a broken kerb, an unlit shelter, a flooded pull-in — it is a premises claim against whoever controlled that ground, which may be the city, the authority or the business behind it.
Case Value
What your claim can actually include
“What is my case worth?” is the first question on nearly every call, and no honest answer comes before the treatment is understood.
What the paper proves
Economic loss. Documented, added up, and the part a first offer is usually built to cover.
Medical bills to date
Ambulance, emergency department, imaging, surgery, follow-up and the physiotherapy nobody counts.
Future medical care
Valued by the people treating you rather than estimated. On a serious injury it is routinely the largest single figure.
Lost earnings
What you did not earn while you were off, including the shifts and the overtime you can show you would have worked.
Lost earning capacity
What the injury takes out of the rest of your working life. A different question from lost wages and frequently a much larger one.
Out of pocket
Prescriptions, equipment, adaptations, travel to appointments, and the help you had to pay somebody else to do.
What has to be argued
Non-economic loss. Real, compensable, and the half a first offer tends to ignore entirely.
Physical pain
Past and future, and on a crush or a degloving injury the future is the greater part of it.
Mental anguish
Common after a bus crash and routinely under-treated. Riders describe an unwillingness to get back on one that outlasts the orthopaedic injury.
Physical impairment
What you can no longer do. Separate from pain and separate from income, and it is proved by the people who knew you before.
Disfigurement
Scarring and its permanence, which juries value and adjusters rarely mention.
Loss of consortium
The claim belonging to a spouse, and in some circumstances to a parent or child, for what the injury took out of the relationship.
The Caps
What a statutory cap actually means
People hear “capped at $100,000” and stop reading. It is worth another two minutes, because the cap is narrower than it sounds and it is not the only money in most of these cases.
The cap is on the defendant, not on your injury
Section 101.023 limits what a governmental unit pays. It does not limit what a negligent motorist pays, or a maintenance contractor that is not performing the authority’s own function, or a component manufacturer.
Per person and per occurrence are two different ceilings
The per-occurrence figure is shared out among everybody hurt in the same event. On a bus that is not a theoretical problem — forty people can be aboard, and a $300,000 occurrence limit divided among them is not a remedy.
A cap is not a discount on proof
It caps the payment, not the case. Liability, causation and the medicine all still have to be established to the same standard, and a governmental defendant tends to litigate harder precisely because its exposure is fixed and known.
Bring your own auto policy to the first call
Where the available money is capped below what you actually lost, the next question is what your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage will do. It is the single most commonly overlooked source in a capped case and it costs nothing to check.
Texas Law
The five rules that decide a bus claim
Even where the crash was plainly somebody’s fault, Texas law shapes what you recover. These five decide most of it, and the first is the one that ends cases outright.
Notice comes before limitations, and it is much shorter
Two years is the ordinary Texas deadline to file an injury suit. Against a governmental unit it is preceded by a written notice requirement — six months under §101.101, or less where a city’s charter says so — and missing it ends the claim however good it was.
Immunity is waived only for particular facts
Section 101.021 waives immunity for injury caused by an employee’s negligent operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle, where that employee would be personally liable.
A common carrier owes a high degree of care
Texas holds a carrier of passengers to the care that would be used by a very cautious, competent and prudent person — not the ordinary care that governs everybody else on the road.
Proportionate responsibility, and the 51% bar
Texas reduces your recovery by your own share of the fault and bars it entirely above 50%.
Where somebody died
Texas runs two claims after a fatal crash: a wrongful death claim belonging to the surviving spouse, children and parents, and a survival claim belonging to the estate for what the person suffered before they died.
The Process
What happens when you call us
If you have never worked with a lawyer before you may feel overwhelmed, or a little suspicious.
- 01
Free case review
You call or message. We ask what happened, which bus it was, what it said on the side and whether anybody has contacted you.
- 02
We establish who owns it
Operator, authority, district or charter company — and whether the service was contracted out. It decides your deadline, so it happens the same day rather than at leisure.
- 03
Notice goes out, and so do preservation letters
The statutory notice where a governmental unit is involved, and letters for the video, the telematics, the driver file and the maintenance records before any of them are overwritten.
- 04
We build it and we negotiate
Future care, lost earning capacity and impairment valued properly, every policy identified including your own, and suit filed against everyone responsible if the numbers will not move.
- 05
You get paid
We go through the settlement line by line, including anything a health plan or a carrier is owed and what we got that reduced. Nobody leaves here wondering what just happened.
Client Reviews
What our clients say about us
None of these was left after a bus crash — they are people this firm represented after somebody else’s negligence hurt them, published as they wrote it.
Rated five out of five stars
“10/10 experience working with Genthe Law Firm. They are professional, punctual and always kept me informed. Breana was my case manager and she was amazing and sweet.”
Kala Gray
Rated five out of five stars
“Throughout this entire process, Bre was very affirming, communicative and supportive. I greatly appreciate her service and communication!!”
Cherrise Harris
Rated five out of five stars
“A big thank you for all your hard work and dedicated to my case… Very friendly associates and took care of me and my case with passion.”
Marsha White
Your Attorney
The lawyer who works your case
This page has promised you a real attorney rather than a call centre several times over. It is only fair to say who that is.
Founder · Trial Attorney
Aaron Genthe
A Texas A&M graduate who went into personal injury straight out of law school, Aaron spent years as a litigator at one of the larger firms in Dallas — long enough to build a reputation as an aggressive and effective attorney, and long enough to watch how easily a client becomes a file number at a firm that size.
He started Genthe Law Firm so that the person you speak to about your injury is the person who tries it. Claims against governmental units are the ones where that matters most: they turn on a letter that has to go out in the first weeks, and a call centre does not send it.
- Practising since
- 2015
- Cases handled
- Hundreds, in Dallas and across Texas
- Education
- Texas A&M graduate
- Fee
- Contingency — nothing unless you recover
Questions
Bus accident FAQs
The questions passengers, parents and other drivers ask on the first call, answered the way we answer them on the phone.
How long do I have to bring a claim after a bus accident in Texas?
It depends entirely on who owns the bus. Against a private charter or tour company it is the ordinary two years.
Can I sue DART?
Yes, within limits. DART is a regional transportation authority and a governmental unit, so the claim runs under the Texas Tort Claims Act: written notice within six months, and liability capped at $100,000 for each person and $300,000 for each occurrence.
My child was hurt by a school bus. Is the district not immune?
To almost everything else, yes — but not to this. Section 101.051 of the Tort Claims Act excludes school districts from the chapter except as to motor vehicles, and a bus is a motor vehicle. It is one of the narrow set of claims that reaches a Texas ISD.
The bus was not at fault — a car caused it. What then?
Then your claim is against that driver, and none of the governmental rules apply to it. No notice deadline, no statutory cap, two years to file, and an ordinary auto policy behind it.
There were no seat belts on the bus. Does that hurt my claim?
No. Transit buses are built without them deliberately, and standing passengers are part of the design. You cannot be blamed for not wearing what was not provided.
Also Handled Here
If your injury was something else
The neighbouring claims this firm litigates most often, including the ones a bus reaches from the road.
- 01Truck AccidentsThe other regulated commercial vehicle
- 02Car AccidentsStruck by a bus while driving
- 03Pedestrian AccidentsHit at a stop or in a loading zone
- 04Bicycle AccidentsRiders caught in the nearside blind spot
- 05Traumatic Brain InjuryHead injury thrown against a bulkhead
- 06Wrongful DeathClaims brought by a surviving family
- 07Uber & RideshareThe other way of being somebody else’s passenger
- 08Slip & FallThe step, the kerb and the shelter
Read more on transit and school bus claims
- Who Is Liable in a Texas School Bus Accident?The loading zone, the stop arm and the district
- Bus Accidents in Dallas and Across TexasThe firm’s longer note on transit claims
- How Much Can You Sue a School for Negligence?Why a district is immune to almost everything else
- What is Vicarious Liability in Texas?Why the operator answers for the driver
- Texas Truck Accident LawsHours of service and the records that prove them
- When Should You Hire an Accident Reconstructionist?How a mechanical failure is proved
