On May 26, 2010, the plaintiffs’ decedent, then 83, was aboard a crowded Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus, standing near the front and holding on to a proper hand-hold, when a sudden lurching motion caused her to fall. She sustained several major to her spinal cord, and was hospitalized from the date of the accident until her death two months later. The decedent’s estate and her surviving four adult children brought separate suits against the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the negligence of the bus driver, its employee. The matter was ultimately joined for mediation. Plaintiffs’ counsel alleged that the MTA employee was negligent for failing to properly operate the bus, such that she had to violently slam on her brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of her when it came to a stop. The defendant admitted liability., The decedent was hospitalized from the date of the accident until her death two months later. She lived separately from her four adult children, but they claimed that they all lived nearby and had a very close relationship with their mother. The decedent was widowed two months prior to the subject accident when her husband passed and, consequently, the surviving children lost both of their parents within a matter of months of each other. Defense counsel sought to narrow the plaintiffs’ damages to exclude any reference to the decedent’s pre-death related to the accident, including the decedent being rendered a quadriplegic with displaced fractures of her cervical spine at C2, C3, C4, C5 and C6, and mild compression fractures of her thoracic spine at T1, T2 and T4. She was also treated for respiratory failure and placed on a ventilator, and had treatment for her accident-related hypertension, pneumonia, small bowel obstruction, hypovolemic shock, anemia, bradycardia, depression, malnutrition, pressure ulcers and edema. Thus, defense counsel contended that the decedent’s medical specials were $515,000.