Two Killed When SUV Strikes Metro Bus in Chatsworth: How California Law Works When a Public Transit Crash Injures Passengers

Two people were killed and six others were injured when an SUV collided with a Metro bus at Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue in Chatsworth on Tuesday afternoon. As reported by CBS Los Angeles, the crash occurred just after 5 p.m.; the Los Angeles Fire Department said one person was found dead on the bus and a second person, who was ejected from the bus, also died, while six others were taken to hospitals, two in critical condition. According to a Metro statement, the Line 166 bus was traveling eastbound on Nordhoff when it was struck by a vehicle heading southbound on De Soto. The LAPD said the SUV’s driver will be arrested on suspicion of murder upon release from the hospital; any charges are allegations, and the driver is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The cause remains under investigation.

A crash involving a public bus is legally different from an ordinary two-car collision — for the injured passengers, for the families of those killed, and in the deadlines that apply. This article explains how.

What Rights Do Bus Passengers Have After a Crash?

California law treats public transit passengers with special care. A bus operator like Metro is a common carrier, which means it owes its passengers a heightened duty — the utmost care and diligence for their safe carriage, a stricter standard than the ordinary care owed between drivers. That does not mean the transit agency is automatically at fault when its bus is struck; on the reported facts here, the striking vehicle is the focus of the investigation. But it does mean injured passengers’ claims are evaluated against every party’s conduct, and passengers themselves are almost never at fault for a collision. Depending on what the investigation establishes, injured passengers and the families of those killed may have claims against the SUV’s driver, and potentially against other parties the evidence implicates. Bus crashes also produce unusually strong evidence: transit buses typically carry multiple cameras and onboard data systems, which can capture the collision itself.

The Deadline Most People Miss: Claims Involving a Public Entity

Here is the point that matters most and is least known. Metro is a public entity. Any claim against a public entity in California — whatever the theory — generally must begin with a formal written claim presented within six months of the incident under the Government Claims Act (Government Code § 911.2), before any lawsuit can be filed. That applies if any injured passenger or family ultimately pursues a claim involving the transit agency, and it can also apply if a dangerous condition of the intersection is alleged, since roadways and signals are publicly maintained. Six months arrives quickly for people recovering from critical injuries or grieving a loss, and missing the government claim step can end a claim before it starts. Claims against the SUV driver follow the ordinary track — for most California personal injury and wrongful death claims, two years under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1 — and an overview of how filing a lawsuit works helps put both timelines in context. Because different deadlines run at once against different parties, anyone affected should confirm which apply to them with an attorney rather than assume.

How Do the Murder Investigation and the Civil Claims Relate?

They run on separate tracks. The criminal case — here, the LAPD’s stated intent to arrest the SUV driver on suspicion of murder — is brought by the government to punish conduct; it does not compensate the injured or the families. Civil claims belong to them, proceed independently, and are decided on a lower standard of proof: a preponderance of the evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Evidence from the criminal investigation — vehicle data, bus camera footage, reconstruction findings — often matters greatly on the civil side, and conduct showing conscious disregard for others’ safety can open the door to remedies beyond ordinary compensation. But the civil deadlines, including the six-month government claim window, keep running while any prosecution proceeds, which can take years. Waiting for the criminal case to resolve before protecting civil rights is one of the most consequential mistakes families in this situation can make.

What Should Injured Passengers and Families Know Now?

The practical steps are familiar but carry extra weight in a transit crash. Seek and follow through on medical care, since serious injuries — especially for those ejected or extricated — evolve over days and weeks, and careful documentation matters. Keep every record: the incident and report numbers, hospital records, and all correspondence. Bus camera footage and vehicle data are held by the agencies and insurers involved, and preservation requests are time-sensitive. And be measured when dealing with insurance companies in the early days — multiple insurers and a public entity’s claims process are involved at once, and early statements follow a claim. The official accident report, once complete, will be the foundation for everything that follows.

Our condolences to the families of the two people who lost their lives, and our wishes for the recovery of those injured.

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