Last week, a contrite Ronald Taylor explained to the children of Bartlett Tabor that he could not bring their father back, right before he was handed a 12-month prison sentence for negligent homicide. In September 2008, while driving an empty Metrobus back to the garage at Friendship Heights for his break, Taylor blew through a traffic signal that had been red for at least 17 seconds while exceeding the speed limit by nearly 17 miles per hour. He plowed into a taxicab, killing Tabor and seriously Tabor’s wife and the cabbie.

To the extent possible, justice has been done. Taylor pleaded guilty and was sentenced — he will serve an additional 18 months because his conviction violates his parole on an earlier, unrelated conviction. Metro paid Tabor’s family an undisclosed financial settlement. What remains, however, is the incredible fact that after Metro promptly fired Tabor from his job as a bus driver, it was forced by a labor arbitrator to reinstate him in May 2010, with a year and a half of back pay, on the grounds that it had not followed proper procedure in terminating him.