On October 15, 2013, the New Jersey Transit Corporation agreed to pay $3,500 to an Atlantic City woman who said that a bus driver screamed and directed obscenities and anti-Semitic slurs at her.

In her suit, Bunny Shore said that on December 14, 2009, she boarded an Atlantic City bound bus in Philadelphia when an unidentified bus driver yelled at her to to get off bus and buy a ticket from the machine.”  The driver allegedly yelled that “degenerate gamblers are all the same” and “those Jews are all alike, liar, thief, degenerate.”  She said that the incident caused her to suffer severe emotional distress, post traumatic stress disorder and depressive disorder.

The case is captioned Shore v. New Jersey Transit, Atlantic County Superior Court Docket No. ATL-L-10325-11 and Shore’s attorney was Thomas F. Reynolds of Northfield.  Case documents are on-line here.

None of Shore’s allegations have been proven or disproven in court. The settlement agreement resolution expressly states that the $3,500  payment does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing by New Jersey Transit or any of its officials. All that is known for sure is that New Jersey Transit or its insurer, for whatever reason, decided that it would rather pay Shore $3,500  than take the matter to trial. Perhaps the defendants’ decision to settle was done to save further legal expense and the costs of trying what were in fact exaggerated or meritless claims. Or, perhaps the claims were true and the defendants wanted to avoid being embarrassed at trial. This is the problem when cases settle before trial–it is impossible to know the truth of what really happened.

Chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Open Government Advocacy Project. Please send all comments to [email protected]