Beverly Kinney Crosswalk Death: $10 Million Metro Settlement and Mandatory Driver Training
Won by Cooper Elliott.
Cincinnati's Metro transit agency paid $10 million to the estate of Beverly Kinney, an 87-year-old struck and killed in a marked crosswalk by a bus driver with a suspended license, and agreed to overhaul its driver training.
What happened
On the morning of January 11, 2024, a Cincinnati Metro bus turned from Dana Avenue onto Duck Creek Road in the Hyde Park area. Beverly Kinney, 87, was crossing in a marked crosswalk. The bus struck her, and she died of her injuries. The driver, Deon Willis, was operating with a suspended license status that day, according to the police crash report.
Kinney had spent decades as a public school teacher and remained a steady volunteer and donor to Cincinnati nonprofits well into her 80s. Willis had been hired by the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA), which runs Metro, in February 2018. When he applied, his record already showed three crashes and six license suspensions, and the family's lawsuit alleged he was involved in at least five more crashes during his years with the agency, including the one that killed Kinney. He later pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide as a misdemeanor and was sentenced in August 2024 to probation, a five-year license suspension, and 1,000 hours of community service.
The Kinney family, represented by Cooper Elliott, filed a wrongful death suit in Hamilton County against SORTA and Willis. The case turned on what the agency knew about its driver: the suspended license status flagged in the crash report and the pattern of earlier collisions documented in his employment records. The family argued that Metro should never have kept him behind the wheel of a city bus.
SORTA agreed to pay $10 million, and the parties finalized the agreement on July 24, 2025. Because the matter resolved by settlement rather than a jury verdict, the figure was not subject to remittitur or reduction on appeal. The deal also required operational changes the family pushed for. SORTA agreed to bring in an independent auditor to review its driver training program, to seek federal funding for cameras pointed at drivers, and to post federally required safety data on its website for at least five years.
Beginning in 2026, Metro drivers must complete recurring in-person training on the agency's turn procedure. That training includes footage of the crash that killed Kinney and testimonials from her family. The settlement added rider complaint tools, including a QR code and phone line on buses, and three years of free bus advertising for nonprofits Kinney supported. Both sides agreed not to make disparaging public comments about the other.
"To Metro's credit, they have agreed to some unprecedented reforms," the family's attorney, Kaela King, said after the announcement. The family placed most of the money in the Beverly Seeman Kinney Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, directing it toward groups working in social justice, the environment, arts and culture, human services, and education.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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