AC Transit must pay $15.3 million to injured rider

The state Supreme Court rejected AC Transit’s appeal of a jury’s $15.3 million damage award to a Richmond woman whose spine was fractured after a bus careened over a speed bump at 30 mph, twice the speed limit.

Maria Francisco, then 21, was riding with her 4-year-old daughter, her mother and a cousin to buy gifts at a shopping mall in August 2011 when the bus hit the speed bump in a school zone in San Pablo. She was thrown 2 feet in the air, then landed while the seat was accelerating upward — an impact, according to

a ruling in the case, equal to having her spine hit with a sledgehammer.

In agony, she was confronted by the bus driver, Dollie Gilmore, who told her — according to the same court ruling — that she was a “faker” and that if she needed an ambulance, she would have to pay for it. Gilmore later testified that she was not trying to berate Francisco, but was just expressing her frustration at “fakers” in general.

Francisco was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with a severe burst spine fracture that had torn her ligaments and bone apart. After spinal surgery, she developed a potentially life-threatening infection and underwent another operation.

She needed a third operation in 2013 to relieve pain caused by the initial surgery, but doctors said they were unable to fully repair her spine.

“Due to the severe spinal fractures, she will have chronic pain and disability for the rest of her life,” Spencer Lucas, one of Francisco’s lawyers, said Wednesday. “She’s done the best she can with physical therapy and pain management” and is relieved to finally be able to receive the damage award, he said.

After a trial in 2014, an Alameda County Superior Court jury awarded Francisco $14.3 million for lost earnings, medical expenses and pain and suffering, and $1 million for emotional distress. Lucas said the still-unpaid damages, plus interest, now total $20.1 million.

AC Transit appealed the verdict, arguing that the damages were excessive and that both Francisco’s trial lawyer and the judge, Gail Brewster Bereola, had committed misconduct.

The appeal cited the lawyer’s comment during closing arguments that AC Transit directors would be “clicking Champagne glasses” if jurors gave them a “discount” on damages. Bereola acted improperly, the transit agency argued, when Francisco started telling the agency’s lawyer during lengthy testimony that she couldn’t remember what happened. The judge stepped in, said Francisco was “obviously in discomfort” and called a brief recess.

In a ruling in August that upheld the verdict, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said the lawyer’s comments, though “gratuitous,” would not have prejudiced the jury. The court also said Bereola had not intervened on Francisco’s side by expressing concern about her condition.

AC Transit appealed to the state Supreme Court, which denied review Wednesday. Representatives of the transit agency did not respond to requests for comment.

The case is Francisco vs. AC Transit, No. S251638.