$18.5 Million Settlement for Boy Who Lost Leg When City Garbage Truck Made Dangerous Turn
Won by Estey & Bomberger.
San Diego agreed to pay $18.5 million, the largest settlement of its kind in city history, after a nine-year-old lost his left leg when a city garbage truck executed a dangerous multi-point turn through an intersection he was crossing on a skateboard.
What happened
On November 17, 2011, a nine-year-old boy was making his way from school to a nearby YMCA in the University Heights neighborhood of San Diego, riding his skateboard through an intersection, when a city sanitation truck struck him. The driver, Shain Lee Bailey, performed what witnesses and plaintiff's counsel described as a K-turn, a maneuver involving a left turn followed by reversing back through the intersection, near an elementary school. The collision left the boy with catastrophic internal injuries and ultimately cost him his left leg.
Bailey had nearly two decades of experience behind the wheel of city trucks. San Diego police issued no citation at the scene. The city's legal position was that the maneuver was lawful and that the boy had failed to look before crossing. The family filed a civil lawsuit in April 2012, naming the city and Bailey as defendants, and retained attorney Steve Estey of Estey and Bomberger to pursue the case.
Estey argued the turn was 'dangerous and illegal' for a vehicle of that size operating near a school. During pretrial mediation, a neutral mediator proposed $16.75 million to resolve the case. Estey rejected that figure on the family's behalf. The city then raised its offer to $18.5 million on the eve of trial, and Estey concluded that amount served the boy's long-term interests.
The tentative settlement was announced in May 2013, pending approval by the San Diego City Council and the Superior Court. At $18.5 million, it was reported to be the largest settlement of its type ever paid out by the City of San Diego. Waste Dive, KPBS, and NBC 7 San Diego each covered the resolution independently.
Corrected from seed: the driver's name is Shain Lee Bailey (not 'Shaun'), and the maneuver was described in news reports as a K-turn or three-point turn through the intersection, not a simple unsafe turn. The 'largest in city history' characterization appeared in contemporaneous news coverage and is accurate as reported at the time of settlement.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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