HUDSON, WIS. - The first lawsuit stemming from a fatal crash involving a Chippewa Falls High School band bus has been postponed following the death of a prospective expert witness.
The suit had been filed by the family of Branden Atherton, a University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire student killed in the crash. The trial was scheduled to start in Chippewa next month.
But it was put off indefinitely last week after the death in January of Dr. Arthur Ginsburg, a key defense witness. The defense convinced Rusk County Judge Frederick Henderson it needed more time to arrange for a replacement.
The postponement will likely affect the other pending civil cases filed after the crash that killed five people and injured dozens of others.
The crash occurred in 2005 when the band bus slammed into the underside of a semitrailer truck. Michael Kozlowski's rig had overturned north of Osseo in Eau Claire County.
Kozlowski was acquitted of any criminal wrongdoing in an April 2007 trial.
Ginsburg's testimony was key in that trial. An expert in visibility analysis with a Ph.D. in biophysics, he testified that band bus driver Paul Rasmus should have been able to see the truck from 1,000 feet away and should have seen from 600 feet away that the lanes of the highway were blocked.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
