SB settles on fatality
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• Strathclyde Buses has been ordered to pay agreed damages of £99,116.50 to the widow and four children of a man killed when he fell from a moving bus.
Jean Maxwell sued the company after her husband Joseph, a 26-year-old baker, was killed in November 1986 while on his way to work in the early morning.
Giving judgement in Edinburgh's Court of Session, Lord Milligan said he concluded that the bus was moving when the doors were opened and Maxwell, who was waiting to get off at the next bus stop, was thrown out on to the roadway, suffering severe head injuries from which he later died.
Rejecting the bus driver's version of the accident, Lord Milligan said that he did not accept his evidence that he had pulled into the bus stop in Col ston Road, Glasgow, and stopped the bus before opening the doors. The driver said that Maxwell had then got off, that he had seen him stumble and fall, and that he believed he had slipped on mud, leaves or other rubbish at the roadside.
The evidence of a witness, who said immediately after the accident: "It looks like he has fallen off the bus," had been convincing.
He concluded that it was the movement of the bus that had caused Maxwell to fall rather than him having stepped off the bus voluntarily.