Unless P could prove with certainty that with better brakes the bus could have avoided the accident, there should have been absolutely no recovery from the bus company.

Silly me. I thought the standard was preponderance of the evidence in civil cases.

If the bus had not properly maintained its brakes and properly trained its driver, and if such maintenance and training would have prevented this fatal collision, then yes, the bus company should be held liable for not providing maintenance for the bus and training for the driver.

One of the reasons that reasonable people make sure that their brakes are properly maintained is to avoid unusual occurrences on the road not initially caused by them.

One strange thing. People seem to think that just because X is negligent, Y cannot also be negligent.

That is, frankly, a stupid view.

The bus companies of the world should be aware that occasionally other vehicles end up in locations they are not ideally supposed to be. In this case, because a third party forced it to be there. And they should maintain their brakes and train their drivers to save lives in those sorts of situations.

are they to blame? in part. the bus and the driver should never have been on the road. but i do not feel they should be liable for all of it. the driver that bumped the vehicle and the bus should share 50-50.

Seriously, “brake problem” and “improper driver training,” like everything else in the plaintiff grab-bag, can be spun from nothing with the right “expert” to opine that things should have been done differently. I wonder if the whole seamy world of “experts” in court needs legislative reform, and that includes doctors, for both plaintiff and defendant side.

Seems to me that the bus driver should never have been found to be negligent/poorly trained. Doesn’t Oklahoma have a form of the sudden emergency doctrine? No matter how well trained someone is, dealing with a car crossing the median probably isn’t affected by how well trained someone is.