OUR VIEW: City should not appeal jury’s award in bus suit

• OUR VIEW

OUR VIEW

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A pair of Kansas tourists was awarded $57,756 Wednesday by a Davison County jury for injuries and other effects the tourists suffered after being knocked down by a Mitchell city bus in 2009.

The tourists, Rex and Mary Russell, were strolling legally through a crosswalk on their way to the Corn Palace when a Palace Transit driver made a left turn, didn’t see them, and knocked them down.

Though the injuries evidently weren’t what some would call severe, physical damage was inflicted. Apparently, there were also some long-lasting impacts from the accident, including to the couple’s mental well-being and to their retirement travel plans.

Did they deserve to be awarded $57,756? We don’t know. We figure they deserved something, and if a jury of our peers here in Davison County looked at all the evidence and thought $57,756 was fair, that’s good enough for us.

Even with the the awarding of the money, there are no winners here. It was a bad thing that happened to the Russells, and it’s been a long fight for them to win this lawsuit. The whole thing has been bad publicity for the city of Mitchell and the Corn Palace.

The city has a right to appeal the verdict, and Mayor Lou Sebert said Wednesday he needed time to ponder the city’s next move. Thursday, he was leaning against an appeal.

We hope he gives up the fight. An appeal would drag this out further, causing more pain and aggravation for everyone.

These were people who, through no fault of their own, got knocked down and injured by a city-owned bus while they were walking across a city street toward a city-owned tourist attraction.

They probably deserved some kind of payment from the city, and now they’ve got it.

Let’s move on.

Tags: palace transit, opinion, updates, editorials, lawsuit