SF UTU 1741 Mechanics' lawsuit against Laidlaw Transit for safety cover-up of school busses reinstated

SF UTU 1741 Mechanics' lawsuit against Laidlaw Transit for safety cover-up of school busses reinstated
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mechanics-lawsuit-against-Laidlaw-...

Bob Egelko
Updated 6:45 am, Thursday, March 13, 2014

A state appeals court has reinstated a suit by two former San Francisco school bus mechanics who accused a transportation company of supplying the city with unsafe school buses.
The mechanics said Laidlaw Transit's 200 buses, which have carried San Francisco's schoolchildren for more than 20 years, sometimes had thin brake linings and inadequate tire treads and were not inspected as often as the law requires.
Although the California Highway Patrol gave the buses passing grades during annual inspections and the school district accepted the vehicles without objections, the mechanics provided evidence of possible safety violations between 2006 and 2011 that should go to a jury, the First District Court of Appeal said Tuesday.
If jurors decide that the company knowingly misrepresented the safety of its buses to the school district, they could award tens of millions of dollars in damages. Under a state whistle-blower law, the mechanics, former Laidlaw employees William Padilla and Manuel Contreras, and their law firm, the Environmental Law Foundation, would be eligible for 25 to 50 percent of the damages, and the district would get the rest.
The foundation's lawyer, James Wheaton, said the suit has already accomplished its major purpose of improving the buses by alerting the district, which has insisted on better performance from Laidlaw. The company's current contract expires in June.
"We've gotten the big thing we wanted, which was better buses, but we don't want to let the company off the hook," Wheaton said. "They're going to have to pay for all those false claims."
Laidlaw's parent company, First Student Inc., declined to comment on the ruling.
The suit said the company's own records showed 200 inspections between 2006 and 2011 that found bus brake linings less than a quarter-inch thick, the minimum required by state and federal law for cities with hills like San Francisco's. Some of the buses were returned to service without repairs, the suit said.
The records also showed that some buses had tire treads that were thinner than the minimums required by state law or the company's more stringent policy, but were kept in service, the suit said.
The suit also said Laidlaw, as far back as 2001, had disregarded a state law that requires the company to conduct maintenance inspections every 45 days after delivery. After the suit was filed, school district officials told the company in November 2011 to remove all buses from service that hadn't been inspected within 45 days, and Laidlaw replied that it had already done so, the court said.
In opposing the suit, the company noted that the Highway Patrol had given the San Francisco buses a passing grade in each of its annual inspections, and that the school district had renewed the contract in 2010 and declined to take part in the lawsuit. Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith dismissed the suit, saying the evidence showed no "material" violations of the company's obligations.
But the appeals court said the CHP was unaware of Laidlaw's contractual maintenance requirements with San Francisco, and the district accepted the company's assurances that it was complying. The undisputed evidence about the buses' brakes, tires and missed inspections raises factual questions about contract fraud that a jury must decide, Justice Mark Simons said in the 3-0 ruling.
The ruling can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/PqabgD.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com