LITTLE VALLEY — The estate of a Little Valley woman who died after her motorcycle crashed into a stray cow will receive a $1.9 million settlement.
The agreement between the estate of Jennifer S. Bumpus and owner of the cow was approved last month by Allegany County Surrogate Court Judge Terrence Parker, according to Brian O’Connell Jr., an Olean attorney who represented Bumpus’ family. The proceeds of the settlement will go to Bumpus’ young child and will be payable over the child’s lifetime.
“We’re very satisfied with the settlement,” O’Connell told the Olean Times Herald. “There was a lot of things built into the settlement to provide for the minor child for the loss of his mother. Certainly it can never replace his parent, but it certainly will be helpful for the child going forward.”
Bumpus, 35, was riding her 2005 Honda motorcycle the night of Oct. 12, 2015, on Route 242 in Napoli when she struck a cow in the road. Another motorcyclist who was riding with Bumpus, Derrek W. Livermore, then 23, of Conewango, struck Bumpus’ motorcycle and came to rest on the road shoulder.
Bumpus was pronounced dead at the scene, while Livermore was transported via Mercy Flight to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hamot in Erie, Pa., and released shortly after. The cow, a Red Angus that wandered from a nearby farm, also died.
O’Connell said his law firm hired an accident reconstructionist to prove Bumpus could not have avoided the cow given the speed she was traveling, the nighttime visibility and the cow hide’s non-reflectivity. He even purchased a Red Angus hide from a Hershey, Pa., farm to determine its reflectivity when shined with a headlight.
“This tragic accident essentially became a physics problem,” O’Connell said. “So we were able to demonstrate with physics, essentially, the speed at which she was traveling and the point of no return as to where she just could not escape no matter what she saw or could have done.”
The farm owner was negligent for allowing the cow to get into the roadway, O’Connell said.
“The fact the cow was able to leave the place it had been out to pasture and was able to unfortunately get in the roadway at night was a major danger to unsuspecting drivers,” he said. “It’s just very unfortunate that it happened to be something like a cow that was preventable, unlike a deer or a bear that is a wild animal that can just be out there at any given moment.”
The farm owner’s Buffalo-based attorney, Keith Bond, declined to comment.
After the family filed a wrongful death action, settlement talks took place over about six months.
O’Connell noted the farmer is insured and the insurance carrier will pay the proceeds for the settlement.
“I was very pleased with the farm owner’s representatives because we all had a job to do here and that was to try to compensate this young child that lost his mother,” he added.
(Contact reporter Tom Dinki at tdinki@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @tomdinki)
