Jesse Scheckner
Decades after he suffered life-altering injuries in a roadway crash with a Pasco County Schools bus, Marcus Button is getting compensation for his pain and suffering.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has just signed legislation (SB 8) authorizing the school district to pay $1 million to Button and $200,000 to his mother, Robin, for injuries, hardship, and lost wages resulting from the 2006 collision.
The signing on Tuesday marks the culmination of 15 years’ worth of efforts to financially assist the buttons, beginning in 2010 when former Sen. Mike Fasano filed the original bill.
SB 8 and its House analog (HB 6507) — sponsored, respectively, by Tallahassee Republican Sen. Corey Simon and Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade — are claims bills, a special classification of legislation intended to compensate a person or entity for injury or loss due to the negligence or error of a public officer or agency.
Claims bills arise when appropriate damages exceed what is allowable under Florida’s sovereign immunity law, which protects government agencies from costly lawsuits by capping payouts today at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. For payments beyond those sums, legislative action is necessary.
Button is well-deserving of the help, Simon said ahead of his bill’s passage on April 15. The Pasco County School Board also supported the legislation.
“Experts estimate Marcus’ future care costs between $6 million and $10 million, and lifetime lost wages of $365,000 to $500,000,” Simon said. “The bill seeks to provide fair compensation to Marcus Button’s catastrophic, life-altering injuries and ongoing needs.”
Marcus Button was 16 on Sept. 22, 2006, when his friend was driving him to their high school. A school bus driver pulled out in front of Jessica Juettner’s car on State Road 54. It was later determined that bus driver John E. Kinne, whose only other passenger was a backup driver, failed to yield the right-of-way.
The car struck the bus between its wheels, slipping under the larger vehicle. Button, who was riding in the front seat and allegedly not wearing a seat belt, struck the windshield headfirst, sustaining facial and skull fractures, brain damage and vision loss.
Button had to relearn to walk, still suffers from pain, is mostly blind in his right eye and has no sense of smell, among other chronic issues. He also now speaks with a British accent due to foreign accent syndrome, a speech disorder associated with traumatic brain injury. He also endures visual and auditory hallucinations that contribute to chronic paranoia.
Button’s parents sued the Pasco County School Board in 2007 and ultimately won a $1.38 million settlement for Button and $289,000 for themselves. But Button and his mother have seen just $163,000 due to Florida’s statutory limits.
For the past two years, Simon and Andrade sponsored Button’s claims bill. They were the first to take up the cause since 2020, when former Senate Democratic Leader Audrey Gibson filed a comparable measure with no House companion.
It died without a hearing. Similarly, prior efforts by former Republican Sen. Miguel Díaz de la Portilla in 2012 and 2013, and former Republican Sen. Denise Grimsley in 2014, 2015, and 2017, also failed.
