Jack Fireman leads woman to record settlement.

A young woman whose leg was crushed by a bus and a 75-year-old women also hit by a bus won the two largest settlements against the TTC since amalgamation, transit commission records show.

The two lawsuits accounted for 15% of the $11,589,182 in lawsuit settlements, interest, expenses, and costs paid out since 1998 by the TTC, according to information gathered through a Freedom of Information request by the Toronto Sun.

The young women had a “bad crush” injury after the bus ran over her leg in 1998, TTC general counsel Brian Leck said.

She got $920,000 from the TTC, Leck said yesterday.

The 75-year-old women settled with the TTC for between $500,000 and $600,000, said her lawyer, Jack Fireman. But the TTC reports spending $820,000 on the case.

Fireman said the women suffered brain damage and would need access to ongoing medical treatment.

Despite winning the large award for the incident in 2000, Fireman said the TTC is not loose with their claims. “They’re pretty tough,” he said.

That opinion is shared by plaintiff lawyers who discuss cases on their own legal chat line, Fireman said.

The TTC tries to be fair and just, but Leck said it is “very concerned about anything that looks like it’s exaggerated or fabricated.”

The TTC will use every tool possible to ensure a claim is valid, including independent medical exams and background checks, he said.

The TTC reported that in settling more than 350 cases since amalgamation, it did not spend a single penny on external legal fees. All claims were handled by the TTC’s legal department.

The total cost includes everything from settlement, to payments, to rehabilitation centres, to costs for copies of court documents and arbitration services.

In the same time period, Toronto Police spent more than $30 million settling legal claims. The City of Toronto has spent almost $49 million settling 20,000 cases.