ASPEN — —The mother of a woman who was struck and killed by a public bus near Aspen on the morning of Jan. 1 has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority and one of its drivers.
Kansas resident Joanne Borell, the mother of Joanie Kocab, alleges that RFTA’s negligence was the “direct and proximate cause” of the death of her daughter, who was 29 years old at the time. The suit was filed late Tuesday in Pitkin County District Court.
On Wednesday, Bloch & Chapleau LLC, the Denver-based law firm representing Borell, issued a stattement about the suit and the death of Kocab.
“Ms. Kocab was struck from behind by the commuter bus on Highway 82 at such a rate of speed that her head shattered the bus’s windshield upon impact, and her body was dragged for some time as the bus driver was unaware that she had hit someone,” the statement says.
A two-week resident of Basalt, Kocab — who was raised in Kansas and earned her master’s degree in museum studies at the University of Kansas in 2008 — was killed as she was walking in the eastbound bus lane of Highway 82, just west of the intersection at Owl Creek Road.
On Feb. 15, the Pitkin County Coroner’s Office issued a report saying that Kocab’s blood-alcohol content at the time she died was 0.298 percent, more than three times Colorado’s legal threshold for driving under the influence.
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