Family Of City Worker Killed Files Lawsuit
POSTED: Monday, June 9, 2008
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The family of a city worker killed when a Jacksonville Transportation Authority bus hit the bucket truck in which he was working announced Monday it is filing a lawsuit.
Cesar Solomon died on March 25 after a JTA bus struck his bucket truck as he working on a traffic light on the Westside.
Police said the driver of the bus, Gwendolyn Mordecai, failed to see a flagman or the traffic engineering truck in the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and Melson Street and struck the truck, knocking the 52-year-old technician out of the bucket.
Solomon is survived by a wife, a son and a 19-year-old daughter.
"I wake up in the morning knowing that I'm not going to see him again. There's nothing we can do to get him back. No money will pay for that, but our lives are put on hold and we went from my parents' income to just my mom's income. She can't work that much because she's trying to handle everything," said Solomon's daughter, Angeli Rose Solomon.
Monday afternoon, attorney Steve Pajcic discussed the lawsuit filed against Mordecai and Jax Transit Management Incorporated, the part of JTA that operates the buses. Pajcic said JTA would eventually be included in the lawsuit.
The attorney said it is a multimillion dollar lawsuit being filed; however, a state law states government agencies can't be forced to pay more than $200,000.
Pajcic said he would try to circumvent the cap.
Mordecai was cited for careless driving in connection with the fatal wreck. It was the driver's eighth accident as a JTA driver since the early 1990s, according to Pajcic.
The transportation authority acknowledged the driver's record but said not all of the crashes were her fault.
Mordecai was fired for gross negligence in April.
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