Rick Scott signs bill for $1 million JTA settlement in accident

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority can now pay $1 million as compensation for a city worker's death.

Cesar Solomon, 52, was killed three years ago when a JTA bus knocked him 20 feet to the ground as he was working from a bucket truck to repair a traffic light at Commonwealth and Melson avenues. He worked for the city as a signal traffic repairer.

On Tuesday Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation that will allow JTA to pay the $1 million. The state has a $200,000 statutory cap on damages, but JTA agreed to pay $1 million , and Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville and Rep. Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville, filed legislation to allow the family and its attorneys to collect more than the cap allows.

The legislation easily passed the House and Senate before getting Scott's signature.

"It was the right thing to do," said attorney Steve Pajcic, who represented the Solomon family. "It was a terrible tragedy that occurred because of the senseless negligence on the part of the bus driver."

According to police, the bus driver never slowed down, despite flashing lights, an orange cone and a flagman surrounding the truck Solomon was on. The flagman ended up jumping out of the way of the bus.

The driver was fired two weeks later.

Scott also signed:

- A bill filed by Rep. Ronald "Doc" Renuart, R-Ponte Vedra Beach, that does not allow a divorced parent's military deployment to be the sole factor when a court is deciding child custody.

- A bill filed by Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, creating a pilot program allowing for relaxed concurrency requirements for developers in two areas of Nassau County. The changes mean that developers may not be required to pay for upgrades to roads and other infrastructure needed to complete projects.

- A bill by Rep. Lake Ray, R-Jacksonville, removes certain reporting requirements for state attorneys, including that they file an annual report regarding defendants who do not receive a minimum mandatory sentence based on the state's "10-20-Life" statute.

Times-Union writer Matt Dixon contributed to this report.

The newspaper consistently misreports or distorts the "cap." A single individual or his survivors may only receive $100,000. It's $200,000 per occurrence, meaning that if another individual had been killed, each estate could have gotten $100,000 each. If 3 people had been killed in the same occurrence, the three would have to share $200,000. That being said, the state has always been inconsistent about when it will pass a special bill to waive the cap for a particular claim. And it isn't done by decision of the governor alone. It has to be passed by the legislature as a special claims bill.