The mother of a 19-year-old Atlanta woman struck and killed by a MARTA bus in late September has filed suit against the bus driver and the transit system.
Leroy Brown, 59, was driving the bus when it hit Brenda Travis as she tried to cross Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard at Lee Street just before 9 p.m. on Sept. 24, Atlanta police said.
According to a police incident report, Travis was in a crosswalk, but was distracted and on her cell phone when she was hit.
Brown, who the incident report said was "traveling at a speed that he should have been able to slow down and keep from striking the pedestrian," was charged with failure to yield to pedestrian and homicide by vehicle in the second degree, both misdemeanors.
On Tuesday, Travis’s mother, Ilada Travis, filed suit against Brown and MARTA in Fulton County Superior Court.
In the suit, she claims that Brown was driving recklessly and that MARTA “knew, or through the exercise of reasonable care, should have known, that defendant Brown was not qualified, competent and/or safe to operate the subject bus, and yet defendant hired and retained him for this purpose.”
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