Opinion ID: 800570
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: TFD and the February 14, 1989 Accident

Text: In 1989, TFD, which ceased business operations in 2007, was a private interstate common carrier based in Mount Vernon, New York, authorized to provide commercial transportation of passengers in any of the contiguous States of the United States. Some 85 percent of its revenues came from operating school buses pursuant to contracts with nearby school districts in New York State, principally for public schools in Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, and Yonkers. TFD owned 90-odd vehicles, including yellow school buses, other buses, cars, and minivans. The yellow school buses were also used for other purposes, such as private charters that represented approximately five percent of TFD's business. During 1989, Michael A. Thomas (Thomas or Michael Thomas) was employed by TFD as a bus driver. In the 1988-89 school year, Thomas was regularly scheduled by TFD to transport students to and from Emerson Junior High School (Emerson or Emerson J.H.S.) in Yonkers, picking them up every morning from three or four specified locations in Yonkers, and returning them to those locations each afternoon after picking them up from Emerson. On the afternoon of February 14, 1989, Thomas drove a TFD yellow school bus with seating capacity for 44 adult passengers, which TFD called bus 287, to Emerson Junior High School and picked up students to transport them to the usual drop-off locations. At approximately 2:51 p.m., before reaching the first drop-off location, bus 287 collided with the vehicle operated by Mr. Lyons, which was stopped at a red light. As a result of the accident, Mr. Lyons sustained injuries that prompted plaintiffs to commence personal injury litigation against Thomas and TFD. Following, inter alia, a default by TFD in 1992 and a jury trial in 1999 on issues of damages, plaintiffs eventually obtained, to the extent pertinent here, the August 2006 Negligence Action Judgment against TFD, which awarded them a total of $2,470,000, plus interest from 1992. That judgment remains essentially unsatisfied.