Lawsuit for ’05 Bus Fire Blames Part Supplier
By Michael Grabell, The Dallas Morning News
Sep. 25–Lawyers for the victims of the Hurricane Rita bus fire have a new theory about what caused the 2005 inferno that killed 23 nursing home patients on their way to Dallas: a tiny wheel-bearings cap that they say was defective and leaked lubrication.
In court documents filed Friday and Monday, the lawyers accuse Swedish parts supplier SKF Group of providing a faulty part that ended up on the Global Limo bus that burst into flames Sept. 23, 2005, on Interstate 45 outside Wilmer.
The new allegations contradict the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board, which blamed the fire primarily on poor maintenance by the bus company Global Limo. The Justice Department even secured a criminal conviction against its owner, former NFL player Jim Maples, on the rare charge of failing to maintain a bus fleet.
Mr. Maples said Monday that he believes other factors led to the bus fire that put him out of business and in a halfway house as part of a one-year sentence.
“It wasn’t lack of maintenance on our part because I’ve got records showing what we did on that bus,” he said in his first extensive public comments since the bus fire. “I spent $21,000 in four months on that bus. … If I had known I was going to spend that kind of money in 113 days, I would have said I didn’t want the bus.”
According to investigators, a lack of lubrication in the wheel bearings created enough friction to ignite the tire. The fire then spread to the cabin, where oxygen canisters were stored and where 37 elderly patients fleeing the hurricane, many of them unable to walk, were sitting.
Nowhere in the NTSB’s 142-page accident report do investigators mention defective parts as a contributing factor.
But the plaintiff’s lawyers say that shouldn’t negate their claims.
“That’s why the public justice system works with private lawyers,” said Randy Sorrels, a lawyer for the families of six victims. “We have the resources … to dig deeper than a superficial examination by the government.”
Timothy Gifford, a spokesman for SKF, said he first learned of the allegations when a reporter called him Monday. He said he wouldn’t comment on pending lawsuits.
Monday was the day the statute of limitations for product liability claims related to the fire expired.
In the two years since the bus fire killed more people than the storm itself, Global Limo, the nursing home and two mechanics who repaired the bus before the fire have settled lawsuits with the victims. The total of those settlements is confidential, but the amount is well into the millions.
In addition, authorities have linked the death of a 24th patient, Gloria Putney, who survived the incident, to severe smoke inhalation suffered in the fire, her lawyer, Larry Wilson, said.
Mr. Maples is expected to be released from a halfway house next week and finish out the last six months of his sentence in home confinement.
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