Truck Crash Injures St. Ignatius Hockey Team; Driver’s Record and Knowledge of Company Executives May Become Critical Issue
At least 16 members of the St. Ignatius Prep High School junior varsity hockey team were injured Saturday, November 12, 2022, when a semi-truck driver slammed into their school bus after the team played in Culver, Indiana, near South Bend. The media reports that the truck driver from New York is being held in police custody pending chemical testing of his blood. DUI-related felony charges are reportedly pending.
“Tragically, companies today face a shortage of competent and responsible truck drivers,” said Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner of Clifford Law Offices which has handled similar trucking cases across the country. “Tragically, innocent motorists fall victim to companies that fill the roadways with incompetent and reckless truck drivers. It remains to be seen if that is an issue in this tragic crash.”
Clifford Law Offices obtained an $18.15 million trucking verdict in 2021 in a truck crash in a southern suburb near the Indiana border and previously settled a case in 2020 regarding a truck driver who had known alcohol and drug abuse issues yet was allowed to continue to work by the company. That case settled for a confidential amount.
The truck struck the school bus carrying 26 people on board, mostly 15-year-old student-athletes, as it was making a northbound turn onto Center Street along U.S. Route 30 in Warsaw, Indiana. St. Ignatius is a private college prep school run by Jesuit Catholics; several lawyers at Clifford Law Offices attended that school years ago.
For further information or to speak to a lawyer at Clifford Law Office, contact the firm’s Communications Partner Pamela Sakowicz Menaker at 847-721-0909 (cell).