District and Bus Driver Cleared in Boy’s Death

A jury cleared a bus driver and school officials of any liability Thursday in the death of a 7-year-old boy who was killed by a pickup truck after stepping off a school bus at the wrong stop.

Capistrano Unified School District officials had long contended no one was to blame for the April 22, 1994, death of Tommy Lanni, who was riding the bus for the first time after his family moved to Laguna Niguel.

“There are no winners in this case because the bottom line is that there is a little boy who is no longer with us due to this accident,” Supt. James A. Fleming said Thursday. “We are pleased the jury recognized that there was no negligence on the part of the bus driver or others associated with our schools.”

Thomas and Barbara Lanni said they were stunned by the verdict--reached by jurors on a 9-3 vote after about a day of deliberations--but will not stop fighting for tougher school-bus safety laws as they have done since the accident.

“We put our son in custody of the school district, and they brought him back to us dead,” Thomas Lanni said. “How they cannot be held responsible for that . . . is beyond me.”

During the two-week Superior Court trial, the South County district’s bus policy was as much on trial as the events leading to the boy’s death.

The Lannis filed suit in July 1994 for wrongful death, alleging the bus driver acted improperly by neither flashing his warning lights nor escorting the first-grader across the street.

The family’s lawyer, Steven R. Young, told jurors that Barbara Lanni talked with the bus driver that morning, telling him, “ ‘This is his first day on the bus. Can you take care of him?’ ”

“Apparently it’s OK to put a kid off at the wrong stop,” Young said.

The couple also alleged district officials failed to design an adequate plan that would prevent students from getting off a bus at a wrong stop and that would provide assistance for students to cross the street.

A school-bus driver is required by state law to activate flashing red lights when children will be crossing the street.

The bus driver, Jack Rueweler, did not use the flashing lights because he didn’t believe any of the students getting off the stop on Aliso Niguel Road would be crossing the street, school officials said, adding that no one will ever know why Tommy Lanni got off one stop earlier than he should have and why he tried to cross the street.

The district’s attorney, Don H. Zell, told jurors the bus driver and administrators were following safety laws and that the district had taken proper steps to design routes that eliminate as many street crossings as possible.

Authorities have cleared the 38-year-old driver, who no longer works for the district, and the pickup driver of any criminal wrongdoing in the accident.