$1.25M Settlement Reached for Young Boy’s Death

A $1.25 million settlement approved Monday by Lackawanna County Judge Trish Corbett ended a lawsuit stemming from the death of a 7-year-old boy who was run over by a bus at a Wyoming County camp.

The money came from two insurance companies:

• Travelers Property Casualty, which represented First Reform Episcopal Church of New York City. The church had rented Camp Lackawanna from the Lackawanna Presbytery so New York City youngsters could spend a week enjoying the outdoors in a religious setting.
• Pacific Employers, which represented the driver of the bus and Suburban Transit Co. of New Brunswick, NJ, and Coach USA Inc., Houston, which rented the vehicle to the church.

The suit says two buses rented by the church arrived at Camp Lackawanna several hours late. The first, which carried Joseph, arrived around 7:30 p.m. The children were taken into a lodge to wait for the other.

The second bus arrived more than an hour later. The lawsuit says it pulled up in the rear of the lodge. The driver was told to take the bus around to the front, the suit says While he was making the turn, the suit said, a large number of kids, including Joseph, ran to the side of the vehicle, and the victim was hit.

Much of the delay came as lawyers for the boy’s family and the other defendants tried to bring the Presbytery, which owns the camp, into the suit. President Judge James Walsh rejected their attempts, pointing out that the agreement between the owner and the New York church specifically stated the church would supervise the children.