The family of State Trooper Michael Pahira Jr. is suing the truck driver charged in his death. The federal wrongful death suit also names the two freight companies that put his rig on Interstate 81.
The suit alleges driver Michael Bon denied ever having a seizure on his federal medical qualification form. Bon’s criminal defense attorney has since blamed a seizure for the July 1 crash that killed the Ashland Trooper.
The suit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, names Bon, 34, of Brockton, Massachusetts, the Alabama carrier that put him on the road, Augustin Freight Services LLC of Albertville, and the Texas freight broker that hired that carrier, SNK Logistics LLC of Houston. Patricia Pahira, the Trooper’s mother, brings the case individually and as administrator of her son’s estate.
The family is represented by Morgan & Morgan, which announced the filing Wednesday. The suit demands a jury trial and seeks damages in excess of $150,000, including punitive damages, on six counts.
“A family and community have lost a beloved son, uncle, and friend in Michael Pahira Jr., a valued public servant who dedicated his career to keeping roads safe for our families,” firm founder John Morgan and attorney Clancy Boylan say in a statement.
To be qualified to drive a commercial vehicle, a driver must complete a Medical Examination Report Form, the complaint notes. Question 2 asks whether the applicant has “or have you ever had” seizures or epilepsy. Bon checked “No”, the suit alleges.
The lawsuit also alleges a blood test taken from Bon after the crash showed THC in his system, and that he “consciously chose to operate the Freightliner in a fatigued condition.”
Pahira, a State Police Motor Carrier Enforcement Inspector, was inspecting a commercial truck on I-81 southbound in Butler Township around 7 a.m. on July 1, according to the lawsuit. His attorneys allege he parked his State Police F350 fully off the roadway with its emergency lights activated, and that the truck he was inspecting was fully off the roadway as well.
The inspection ran roughly 40 minutes. “During those forty minutes, no harm came to Michael from the countless cars and commercial vehicles that drove by,” the suit reads.
Citing sworn testimony at Bon’s preliminary hearing in August, the lawsuit alleges the patrol vehicle and its emergency lights would have been visible from 1.1 to 1.2 miles away, and visible to Bon for a minimum of 49 seconds.
Bon instead left his lane, crossed the fog line and clipped the side mirror of Pahira’s F350, the suit alleges. His 2019 Freightliner then struck the rear of the truck under inspection “with tremendous force,” hit Pahira and dragged him until the rig stopped. The impact set Bon’s cab on fire.
A driver operating an XPO tractor-trailer saw Pahira trapped under Bon’s cab and pulled over, but the heat from the fire was too much to approach, according to the complaint. He called 911. While that driver was on the phone, he watched Bon get out of the truck wearing only socks, then go back into the burning cab for his shoes and put them on, the suit alleges. The witness said Bon “looked like he had just woken up.”
The complaint notes that Bon “never said anything about a seizure or an epileptic condition” at the scene.
A worker from a nearby construction site saw the smoke and came to the highway, where he found Pahira pinned beneath the burning Freightliner with his arm broken and bone protruding through the skin, the suit alleges. The worker asked whether he could pull him out. “The deceased Plaintiff, still alive, simply said legs,” the complaint reads. Pahira pointed toward the shoulder of the road.
The worker grabbed him by the shirt, which began to come off. He grabbed the protective vest instead, and it started to tear as an explosion went off. A second explosion followed as he kept pulling. The worker, “determined not to let Michael Pahira Jr. burn to death,” freed him and dragged him to the shoulder, according to the suit. State Police arrived and began chest compressions, EMS took over, and Pahira was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The complaint alleges Augustin Freight Services has only four drivers and a documented safety record that should have kept it off the road. In the two years before the crash, the carrier posted a vehicle out of service rate of 40 percent, nearly twice the national average, the suit alleges. In just over a year, it accumulated 82 unsafe driving violation points, including failure to use a seat belt, failure to obey a traffic control device, speeding 15 or more miles per hour over the limit, operating a commercial vehicle while using a cell phone and a lane restriction violation, along with a log falsification violation and 144 maintenance violation points.
That record is publicly available through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s online Safety Measurement System, and SNK Logistics knew or should have known about it before hiring Augustin Freight Services to haul the shipment, the lawsuit alleges.
“This case highlights systemic safety failures that plague the trucking industry. Federal regulations require carriers to certify compliance with driver qualification standards, but those certifications are meaningless unless the companies enforce them,” Morgan and Boylan say. “Critically, SNK Logistics chose to hire AFS despite allegedly having knowledge of, or reasonable access to, AFS’s safety issues through publicly available information. When companies prioritize profits over people, those decisions can lead to fatal consequences.”
Bon, a Haitian citizen, was issued a non-domiciled commercial driver’s license by Massachusetts, according to the complaint. The six counts include negligence and recklessness against Bon, vicarious liability against both companies, negligent hiring and supervision, and claims under Pennsylvania’s Wrongful Death Act and Survival Act.
Pahira is survived by his parents, Michael and Patti Pahira of Ashland, his sister, Jen Buggy, and her husband, Damian, and his nieces, Brielle and Brynn. The complaint describes him as a 6-foot-4 Trooper who “served this Commonwealth every day,” and says the outpouring since his death has come from friends, fellow Troopers “and even from the commercial drivers he inspected and ticketed over the years.”
Bon faces separate criminal charges in Schuylkill County, including felony counts of vehicular homicide and aggravated assault by vehicle and misdemeanor counts of involuntary manslaughter and recklessly endangering another person, along with summary traffic offenses. Magisterial District Judge Edward Tarantelli held all charges for the Schuylkill County Court of Common Pleas following an Aug. 26 preliminary hearing in Pottsville.
Bon remains held at Schuylkill County Prison in lieu of $700,000 bail. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a detainer on him, alleging he is in the country illegally.
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