Some lawyers faced ethics charges in their rush to file suit after the accident. Dozens of lawyers hurried to Alton, reportedly even approaching families in the morgue and in hospitals. The soft-drink truck was owned by Valley Coca-Cola, a division of the soft drink giant. The bus manufacturer was sued on the grounds that the standard rear emergency door should have been supplemented with an exit on the left side of the bus which would have permitted most or all of the children to escape (this crash had occurred only months after another bus disaster in Kentucky in which the number of emergency exits played a role in fatalities). The community of Alton was sued because the pit was not thoroughly barricaded.