Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed After Special Needs Student Dies in Overheated Bus, Says Litigation Funding Corporation

Southfield, MI (Law Firm Newswire) May 3, 2016 – Armando Ramirez thought all of the students on his bus had disembarked. He was wrong and later found the body of Hun Joon “Paul” Lee at the back of a locked, intensely hot school bus.

Nineteen-year-old Paul Lee was autistic and required special care to get him to school and back home each day. The regular bus driver was out the day of Lee’s death and a replacement, Armando Ramirez, took over and was driving a split shift that day. “Perhaps that explains why Lee was forgotten at the back of the bus,” said Daren Monroe, a representative for Litigation Funding Corporation, Michigan.

Lee was left alone in a school bus with closed windows and temperatures soaring to near 90 degrees the day of his death on September 11. Lee was not able to communicate verbally and needed special care and attention.

Lee regularly rode the bus to a special education program and usually got off the bus at his destination at about 8:30 a.m. Had he been alive at the end of the school day, he would have boarded the same school bus to head home at about 4 p.m.

When Lee did not arrive home, his mother called the school, a call that would eventually lead to the discovery of Lee’s body by the replacement driver. Ramirez thought he had gotten off the bus in the morning and did not do a walk through at the end of his shift in accordance with company policy. “The driver was arrested and charged with a felony count of dependent adult abuse, which carries up to nine years in prison on a conviction,” said Monroe.

Court documents allege the driver failed to adhere to stated bus company policy to check the bus prior to locking it and leaving it, failed to confirm Lee did get to school safely, failed to help him off the bus and failed to pay attention to Lee’s needs during the trip.

Although a wrongful death lawsuit will not bring Lee back, it will send a message to others parents to be watchful of their special needs children when they are entrusted to the care of others and tell other transportation companies that their drivers must be more alert and follow stated company policies.

The funeral and burial expenses for their son would have been an enormous financial obligation in addition to their usual monthly payments. Typically there is a fairly long wait to get a lawsuit such as this to settlement or to court and the family would have many bills to pay along the way. The best solution to take care of all such sudden expenses would be to research the benefits of a lawsuit loan, otherwise referred to a pre-settlement funding or litigation funding.

Learn more at http://www.litigationfundingcorp.com