By: Kytja Weir
Examiner Staff Writer
June 9, 2010
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| (Examiner file) |
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Driver in fatal taxi crash also rehired
A Metrobus driver fired after a deadly crash into a taxi and another canned for slugging a cop dressed as McGruff the Crime Dog are back at Metro, The Washington Examiner has learned.
Both men won their jobs back plus months of retroactive pay, the result of an arbitration decision between the bus drivers union and the transit agency. One driver is getting paid to sit at home while the agency determines where to place him. The other is expected to return to driving a Metrobus later this month.
"Neither of these incidents should have ever happened," Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said. The agency stands behind its decisions to fire the drivers, but Farbstein said Metro does not believe it has legal grounds to overturn the arbitrators' rulings.
Still, the agency and the union are at odds over whether the driver involved in the deadly wreck should be allowed to return behind the wheel. The union is fighting for him to get his job back, as specified in the binding arbitration ruling.
"The decision was very definitive," said Jackie Jeter, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689. "The authority does not have authority to do whatever they want to do."
The case dates to Sept. 26, 2008, when Bartlett Tabor, 55, his wife, and their two children, ages 9 and 10, were riding in a minivan taxi to a hotel near Washington Dulles International Airport to catch their return flight the next day to their home in Alamo, Calif. The taxi and a Metrobus crashed at the intersection of Virginia Avenue and 19th Street NW.
Tabor, a finance executive, later died.
The family sued Metro for $100 million and the transit agency settled the case in January in a confidential agreement. Metro also terminated the Metrobus driver, Ronald Taylor, who had been driving for the agency for less than six months before the crash.
"He failed to use his defensive driving techniques," Farbstein said. "We believe he ran a red light and we define that as a major preventable accident. Unfortunately, the arbitrator saw it differently."
Taylor was not charged with any crimes or citations, and the arbitration panel did not find enough evidence that he ran the red light. The arbitrators awarded him full back pay.
Jeter called the hearing fair and said Metro officials must abide by the ruling. "If they wanted Mr. Taylor to remain terminated, they should have put on a stronger case," Jeter said.
Taylor finished retraining last week after being reinstated in May, Farbstein said. He is currently on paid leave. "We're very concerned," Farbstein said. "We feel strongly that termination was the right decision."
Tabor's widow declined to comment when reached at her California home. Taylor could not be reached.
Meanwhile, another bus driver will be allowed back behind the wheel despite a criminal conviction. Shawn Brim was fired after he pulled over his bus on Feb. 28, 2009, and punched an off-duty cop dressed as McGruff the Crime Dog.
Metro fired him for violating its workplace violence policy. He was later found guilty of simple assault, D.C. Superior Court records show, and given a 15-day suspended sentence and six months probation.
But more than a year after the slugfest, the arbitration panel voted that he should be reinstated to Metro and given back pay except for a 30-day suspension.
Brim did not return a call for comment Tuesday. Jeter said his actions had been intended as a joke and had nothing to do with his driving ability.
"Yes, he made a stupid mistake," Jeter said. "Should he have lost the job he had been on for eight years because of a silly mistake?"
Brim started his retraining last week, according to Farbstein, and is expected to be driving a Metrobus later this month.
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