Richard Kreimer, the homeless man who made headlines in 1991 when he won $230,000 from officials of the Morristown, N.J. public library, who had ejected him for his strongly offensive body odor and for repeatedly staring at patrons, has now obtained a settlement in his lawsuit against a New Jersey bus company whose drivers allegedly refused to let him board their vehicles for similar reasons (see Mar. 17, 2005). Kreimer says that as a condition of receiving money he is bound not to discuss the terms of the settlement. He still has individual lawsuits pending against the two bus drivers involved, as well as a separate federal lawsuit pending “against NJ Transit, the city of Summit, and others, alleging he was wrongly ejected from train stations because he is homeless.” Although a court later overturned the ruling on which the 1991 settlement had been based, it proved impossible to reclaim the $230,000 settlement paid him, which according to AP was spent about half on lawyers’ fees and half on Kreimer’s living expenses. (Wayne Parry, “Homeless man settles lawsuit against bus company”, AP/NJ.com, Feb. 17; New Jersey for Change, Feb. 18)(& welcome Fark readers — and apologies for the practice of Hosting Matters, which, we just now learned, blocks referrers from that popular site because it doesn’t want to process the burst of traffic. If you get a blocking message, try “refresh/reload” or go to our main page and scroll down).

Filed under: New Jersey, personal responsibility, Richard Kreimer