Muni Bus Strikes Car / Wrongful Death

In Surviving Family v. MUNI (San Francisco Sup. Ct.), our MUNI attorneys negotiated a $750,000 settlement on behalf of the surviving husband and adult children of a 76-year-old woman who died after being rear-ended by a MUNI bus. The decedent and her husband had traveled to San Francisco from the Peninsula to attend a medical appointment. They arrived early and decided to grab food from a restaurant on Stanyan Street in the Upper Haight. Her husband slowed to allow a pedestrian to cross in front of their vehicle as they entered the restaurant’s parking lot. Rather than stop and wait for the vehicle to complete its turn, the MUNI bus driver maintained a speed of 20 mph while attempting a thread-the-needle passing maneuver. He miscalculated the turn and struck the back of the SUV. The decedent struck her head on the vehicle’s interior. She initially felt okay but her condition quickly deteriorated. Her husband rushed her to the hospital where imaging studies revealed a large brain hemorrhage. She passed away the following day.