The mother of a Penn State student who died in a 1999 bus crash that left two dead and 106 injured filed a lawsuit last month against Altoona-based Blue & White Lines Inc., the bus company that chartered the club-sponsored trip.

The lawsuit alleges the bus company was negligent in the crash that killed Linda Orndorff's 23-year-old daughter, Denise, said Orndorff's attorney, John Purcell.

The four-bus pileup, which also involved two cars and a pickup truck, occurred on Nov. 21, 1999, as six buses were returning to State College from a day of sight-seeing in New York City sponsored by the Association of Residence Hall Students. The buses crashed in dense fog on Interstate 80 near White Haven in Carbon County. Orndorff was riding with her daughter in the front of the bus when the accident occurred.

Blue & White Lines bus driver Robert C. Burge, 50, also died in the crash. Of the convoy carrying 280 students, 106 were injured.

"The complaint is that the buses were being driven too fast and were too close together and were generally negligent," Purcell explained.

In April 2000, the U.S. Department of Transportation fined Blue & White Lines $90,000 after federal and state investigators discovered the company violated several safety regulations on its buses. They found mechanical defects such as damaged axle parts, worn tires, unsecured brake hoses and brakes that were not aligned.

Orndorff is seeking an unspecified amount of money in damages from the bus company's insurance coverage, Purcell said.

The bus company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late November 1999, following the accident. The company went out of business in August 2000.

"Blue & White Lines is being liquidated," Purcell said. "But they had insurance coverage. We're seeking that insurance coverage."

Orndorff, who is from Ohiopyle in Fayette County, filed the lawsuit in Greensburg in adjacent Westmoreland County because the bus company conducted business there, Purcell said.

In addition, Orndorff plans to file a lawsuit against a now-bankrupt Maryland bus company that also provided a bus for the trip, he said. Orndorff's case is not the only lawsuit being filed against Blue & White Lines as a result of the crash.

"A number are popping up across the state," he said. Purcell expects that additional students and their families will seek compensation from the company this year.

Blue & White Lines' bankruptcy attorney did not return calls seeking comment.

Orndorff, a transfer student from Penn State Fayette, lived in Atherton Hall and was a senior majoring in biology under the ecology option and minoring in statistics and wildlife and fisheries sciences. She was hoping to graduate at the end of Spring Semester 2000.

She was a member of the Biology Club, the Golden Key National Honor Society and the Statistics Club.