Estate Wins $6 Million After IndyGo Bus Kills 63-Year-Old at Bus Stop
After trial: After the statutory cap; $6 million jury award.
Won by Ken Nunn Law Office.
A Marion County jury awarded $6 million to the estate of Michael Rex Fergerson, who died after an IndyGo bus driver pulled away from a stop too early and ran over him; the Indiana Supreme Court reinstated the verdict in 2025 after the Court of Appeals had reversed it.
What happened
On the afternoon of September 29, 2018, Michael Rex Fergerson, 63, was waiting at an IndyGo stop near 38th Street and Lafayette Road in Indianapolis. When a bus arrived, Fergerson rose to board. The driver pulled away before Fergerson reached the door. He reached toward the moving bus, was spun around, and fell beneath the rear wheels. His leg was severed in the collision. He died from blunt force trauma injuries thirteen days later, on October 12, 2018.
The estate, represented by personal representative Norma Jean Bush, sued Indianapolis Public Transportation Corporation, which operates IndyGo. The defense centered on Fergerson's intoxication, his blood alcohol content measured between 0.256 and 0.283 at the time of the incident. IndyGo argued that his condition made him solely responsible for the fall.
At trial, Ken Nunn Law Office attorney Bradford Smith countered that the driver rushed the departure to reach the end of the route for a scheduled break, operated in a blind-spot-heavy area without adequate caution, and failed to confirm all waiting passengers were safely clear before pulling away. The jury agreed. On April 20, 2023, jurors returned a verdict of $6 million: $661,283 for medical expenses and $5,338,716 for loss of love and affection. The award was reduced to $700,000 by the statutory damages cap applicable to Indiana governmental entities.
IndyGo appealed, and the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed the verdict in July 2024, finding Fergerson contributorily negligent as a matter of law. The estate sought review from the Indiana Supreme Court.
In September 2025, in a 3-2 decision, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the $6 million jury verdict. Chief Justice Rush, writing for the majority, concluded that the jury's findings on contributory negligence were not unreasonable given the evidence about the driver's conduct. The judgment remains subject to the $700,000 statutory cap.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Ken Nunn Law Office
All Ken Nunn Law Office proven verdicts →A Tippecanoe County jury awarded $157 million to the widow of Timothy Simonton, a 42-year-old Indiana man who died in October 2005 after the locking pins on an Ol' Man tree stand failed and left him hanging from a tree during a deer-scouting outing.
A federal jury in Indianapolis awarded $5.6 million to Ronald Hargis and his wife, Amy, after Ronald lost four fingers and underwent a dozen surgeries when his left hand was drawn into the intake rollers of a conveyor at Flutes Inc. The jury found the conveyor's designer, AJ Engineering, liable for leaving the rollers unguarded. The trial court denied the company's post-trial motions in August 2012.
A 17-year-old Indianapolis cyclist was hit and then run over a second time by a Durham School Services bus, leaving him with a fractured ankle and spine, a lacerated spleen and a degloving foot injury. A Marion County jury in October 2012 found total damages of $5.2 million and assigned him 25 percent of the fault, producing a judgment of about $3.9 million. The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed in 2014.
Related premises liability verdicts
Anapol Weiss shareholder Kristen Gibbons Feden helped secure $1.6 billion in default verdicts for 104 women sexually abused as children by former Long Island pediatrician Stuart Copperman, one of the largest cumulative civil awards against a single individual in U.S. history.
A Dallas jury awarded $1.1 billion against a trust fund heir who beat a 2-year-old into a permanent vegetative state in 2021, a verdict the firm calls the largest child-assault award in U.S. history.
A Clayton County jury awarded $1 billion to a woman who was raped at age 14 by an armed security guard her employer hired without verifying he was licensed to carry a weapon.
Joseph Bruno and Bruno & Bruno served as lead plaintiffs' counsel in a landmark class action brought by more than 8,000 Gentilly residents exposed to a butadiene tank-car fire in 1987, securing a jury verdict that included $2.5 billion in punitive damages against CSX Transportation alone, later reduced to $850 million on appeal and affirmed by Louisiana's Fourth Circuit.