 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Yellow Cab can dodge lawsuit
By JEFF TESTERMAN, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- Attorney Steve Yerrid was in a judge's chambers Monday morning preparing to try a case he believed held great promise. Yerrid was suing Yellow Cab Co. of Tampa, the county's second biggest cab company. His client, 47-year-old John Michael Craig, had been a passenger in a yellow cab that crashed into another car in 1999. Craig later required spinal surgery to insert a metal plate in his neck. He hasn't worked since the accident. Yerrid figured damages might be substantial. Then, attorneys for Yellow Cab made a surprise announcement that changed everything. The cab company Monday morning filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Act, a legal maneuver that automatically postponed Craig's trial indefinitely and left Yerrid steaming. "We were ready to pick a jury," said Yerrid. "And it was represented to us that because this case could be catastrophic for Yellow Cab, they had sought bankruptcy protection." Yellow Cab carries personal liability insurance of $100,000 per person. Yerrid said he believed jurors might have returned a verdict in favor of his client, with damages "far in excess" of $100,000. For Yerrid, Monday's events raised questions not only about the bankruptcy strategy but also about the regulation of taxicabs and what he sees as absurdly low requirements for insurance coverage. Yerrid said he would like to see cabs required to carry $1-million in personal liability insurance. But Greg Cox, executive director of the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission, which oversees cab companies, says boosting liability coverage isn't the easy solution it seems. "With taxicabs, if you raise it up too much, you run the risk of putting every taxicab company out of business," said Cox. "To knee-jerk and raise it to $1-million would not be a service to the public if there were no more cabs." Hillsborough County already requires some of the best insurance coverage anywhere, according to John Madiedo, whose Professional Insurance Center writes the coverage for 25,000 cabs in 39 states. The county's requirement, $100,000 per person liability and $300,000 total coverage, is as high as any in the state, Madiedo said. In Miami, the minimum required of taxicabs is $25,000/$100,000. Cab companies pay $6,142 a year for the minimum coverage Hillsborough mandates. For a company such as Yellow Cab, with 204 permitted cabs, that works out to an annual tab of $1.25-million. Raising rates to half of Yerrid's goal, a package of $500,000 total coverage, would take the annual premium to $7,367, Madiedo said. That's a 20 percent increase. Craig's case now awaits Yellow Cab's financial reorganization plan, which will wind its way through bankruptcy court. Craig was injured, according to court records, when his driver, Ethiopian-born Sergomichael G'Giorgis, made an improper left turn in Carrollwood and collided with a car driven by Victor Manual Campos, a Guatemalan immigrant who works as a busboy at the Columbia Restaurant. G'Giorgis was saved from injury by a driver's side airbag. Craig, wearing a seat belt and seated in the front, said his head "was buzzing," and he felt he was about to pass out. Craig declined transportation to the hospital in an ambulance that arrived, saying he was worried about file boxes related to his home renovation business being left in the cab. Craig said he later passed out in his office and was taken to the hospital. Surgery was later performed to fuse cervical vertebrae, according to the civil complaint. Was his case a slam-dunk that would have left Yellow Cab writing a monster check for damages? Now, no one can say. Winston Churchill II, the attorney for Yellow Cab in the civil suit, declined to comment.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
|
