Girl paralyzed in school-bus accident settles with insurer

Attorneys for a 5-year-old girl who was rendered quadriplegic in an accident with a school bus have settled with the bus driver’s insurer for $7.3 million.

The settlement, which obtained judicial approval on Dec. 11, was unusual in that it resulted from the work of two St. Louis attorneys who represented the plaintiff, Sariah Gettys, through “joint next friends.” Jim Cantalin of Brown & Crouppen represented the girl through her grandmother, Janet Johnson, while Ben Sansone of Sansone & Lauber did so through her father, Sean Gettys.

The case arose from a traffic collision that occurred on Feb. 14. Court records show that at approximately 8:17 a.m. that day, Shamika Johnson was driving with her daughter, Sariah, in a 2016 Nissan Versa. They were headed southbound on New Halls Ferry Road, approaching Parker Spur. A Ferguson-Florissant R-II School District bus driven by Robert Bryant made an improper left turn onto New Halls Ferry. The Nissan ran into the side of the bus.

According to a Florissant Police Department report cited in Sansone’s amended petition, Sariah “was not in a booster or child restraint and only had the lap belt [in the front seat] on her at the time of the crash. The front passenger-side airbag did not deploy. A booster seat was located in the vehicle behind the driver seat, unused.”

The injuries to Sariah’s head, brain and neck, Sansone said, resulted in complete tetraplegia with upper motor-neuron injury to the cervical region and upper limbs, in addition to a lumbar lower motor-neuron injury involving the bowel, bladder and lower limbs. She was then 4 years old.

After Sansone filed his petition in May through Sariah’s father, he said he discovered that the mother’s side of the family already has been working with Cantalin. Ultimately, St. Louis County Judge Maura McShane named Sariah’s grandmother — not her mother, who had been driving the car — as co-next friend. Sansone later named the mother as a defendant, alleging negligent supervision.

Under Missouri law, public employees such as Bryant, the bus driver, enjoy a sovereign-immunity limit of $421,000 in 2018 for any one person in a single accident or occurrence. Bryant’s insurer, the Missouri United School Insurance Council, nevertheless offered the full policy limit of $7.8 million.

“They immediately recognized this is a tragic case, and they stepped up to the plate,” Sansone said.

The plaintiff’s lawyers agreed to negotiate on how to apportion it to three policy claimants: Shamika, Sariah and another child who had been injured inside the bus. That child received $7,500. Shamika, the mother, received $522,216, and Sariah received the balance of $7,270,283.78

Sariah’s two attorneys said the awards for both her and her mother will go into trusts — each to be managed by a professional trustee — so that she remains eligible for Medicaid coverage. In theory, that federal program will cover the lion’s share of Sariah’s life-care plan, which an expert estimated will cost more than $22 million.

Sansone called it “a great outcome” given that the mother had no insurance at the time of the accident, but now, between Medicaid, her father’s insurance coverage and her special-needs trust, Sariah will be covered for the rest of her life.

Cantalin said he had mixed feelings about the settlement.

“There’s no amount of money that can compensate for her injuries,” he said. “This is not one that I’m happy about. But under the circumstances, the family learned to move forward, and one could say it’s in the best interests of Sariah.”

Matthew Noce, an attorney for Bryant, said in an email: “The School District has a policy not to comment on settlements involving minors. With that said, the School District, its insurance carriers and Robert Bryant have asked me to extend our well wishes to Sariah and her family and wish them nothing but the best moving forward.”