By JAMES FINK
jfink@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1611

The justices in the state Appellate Division have unanimously upheld that the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority was not liable in a 2007 bus accident that claimed the life of a Buffalo man.

On Feb. 18, they dismissed a pair of appeals filed by attorneys representing the estate of Jeremy Henderson, who was killed when he was struck by an NFTA bus in September 2007. He reportedly crossed Bailey Avenue, midblock, without looking at traffic and was struck by a southbound bus. Suits were filed against the NFTA as a result of the accident. The appellate division ruling was revealed during Monday's meeting of the NFTA board of commissioners.

The case was originally tried last year before a jury in New York State Supreme Court. After two hours of deliberation, the jury decided that NFTA was not liable. Subsequently. state Supreme Court Justice Paula Feroleto, who presided over the trial, denied a motion by the legal team representing Henderson's estate to set aside the jury's verdict.

In a memo submitted to the NFTA commissioners, Vicky-Marie Brunette, the authority's acting general counsel, applauded the ruling.

"The 4th Department agreed with our position that, based upon the entirety of the record adduced at the trial of this matter, there was fair and credible evidence to support the jury's unanimous determination that the bus operator was not negligent and, further, that there was a valid line of reasoning for the jury to follow and permissible inferences for the jury to make which led them to the conclusion they reached," Brunette wrote in her memo.