A wrongful-death lawsuit has been filed against the owners of the Cat Tracker bus and the man who was driving last year when a Shawnee man was killed on the way to a Kansas-Kansas State football game.

Samantha Green, widow of John Green, filed the suit Wednesday on behalf of herself and her daughter, who was not yet born at the time of the Nov. 18 accident.

John Green was riding atop the Kansas State University fan bus when he hit his head on a Lawrence overpass on the way to a game against the Jayhawks. Another man was seriously injured, while six other passengers ducked to avoid the 15-foot-high overpass.

Green claims the operators of the bus – which is not affiliated with Kansas State – were negligent when they allowed eight passengers to ride on the vehicle’s upper deck. The retrofitted bus was a fixture at Kansas State football games.

The lawsuit claims that the driver authorized passengers to ride atop the bus, and that there were no warning signs or barricades telling passengers not to climb the steps to the balcony while the vehicle was moving.

According to the suit, the owners and the driver, “while allowing and authorizing occupancy of the upper deck while the bus was in motion, nevertheless failed to provide for appropriate adequate and safe seating on the upper deck.”

But one of the owners of the bus, Manhattan lawyer Robert Pottroff, said after the crash that there was a strict rule on the bus that nobody could stand on the roof deck while it was in motion.

Named as defendants in the suit are Pottroff, co-owner Larry McBee of Springfield, Mo., and driver Brent Simonsson of Wamego.

Simonsson did not have a commercial driver’s license required to drive the bus and had been cited in the past for driving under the influence of alcohol. Lawrence police determined that alcohol was not a factor in the accident.

The Douglas County district attorney’s office is reviewing the lawsuit.