BILLINGS— The City of Billings is a facing a lawsuit following a 2024 crash involving a city MET Transit bus, where a teenage motorcyclist was killed.
A bus driver turned left from Grand Avenue onto 15th Street West on a flashing yellow arrow light. The bus collided into 17-year-old Aidan Woolf, who was driving his motorcycle through a green light on Grand Avenue. Woolf died at the scene.
Watch the report:
Related: Family and friends speak out after fatal Billings bus-motorcycle collision
His mother, Shannon Woolf, filed a lawsuit against the city Monday after the city’s insurance company refused to accept her claim in October. Attorneys from Heenan and Cook Injury Law are representing her.
“We were pretty shocked when the insurance company came back and said, ‘The city didn't do anything wrong. It was all Aidan's fault, and so we're not gonna offer you any money to resolve this claim,’” said Billings-based attorney John Heenan. “I hope that they'll apologize to her in writing and say… ‘we were wrong.’”
“Wrongful death cases are always hard, but especially when it's a parent who loses a child, that's just, it's devastating,” he added.
MTN emailed a left a voicemail with city attorney Gina Dahl on Friday, seeking comment, but she has not responded.
For family friend Alyssa Angell, the past two years have been full of grief.
“There's just so many things you ask yourself. Why? Why was the bus driver not paying attention?” said Angell.
A memorial continues to sit at the intersection of 15th Street West and Grand Avenue, where friends and family leave gifts and flowers to honor Aidan’s memory.
“He was always smiling. Just happy all the time, happy-go-lucky,” said Angell. “Everybody stops by the memorial all the time… if something's looking old, we try and just change it out.”
Angell said Aidan’s friends from Salt Lake City drove to visit the memorial this week. Aidan had moved to Billings six weeks before the fatal collision.
“They didn't get any closure either. Your friend just moved and then not even a year later passes away. So, they'd been planning on it for a couple of months, and they finally made it down, which was really great,” she said.
Angell said, even with the lawsuit, finding closure feels impossible.
“There will never be, I feel like, closure. There will never be that. Nobody's ever going to get him back,” she said.
