$65.75 Million Record Settlement for Attorney Brain-Injured When Seattle Ambulance Ran a Red Light

On the afternoon of April 24, 2016, Brooke Taylor was driving her black Porsche 911 west on Seneca Street through downtown Seattle. She had a green light at Fourth Avenue. A Seattle Fire Department aid unit, running north with its lights and sirens on, entered the intersection against a red light at the same moment. The ambulance struck the Porsche at the driver's side rear quarter panel, spinning it counterclockwise across the sidewalk and into a traffic signal box and a tree.

Taylor was 38 years old and one of the most accomplished lawyers in the city. A partner in the Seattle office of Susman Godfrey, she was a nationally known commercial and intellectual property litigator whose clients included T-Mobile, Zillow, and REI. The crash ended that career in an instant. She suffered a traumatic brain injury so severe that her doctors initially believed she would not survive. She underwent extensive brain surgery, then spent months in out-of-state inpatient rehabilitation. She would never practice law again. She now requires care around the clock, and her family remodeled their home so she could live there.

Her family turned to Todd Gardner of Swanson Gardner Meyers, the Renton trial firm now known as Swanson Gardner Meyers Cohon PLLC. The claim against the city was straightforward in one sense: an emergency vehicle had gone through a red light and struck a driver proceeding lawfully on a green. What made the case unusual was the scale of the loss. Taylor's earning power as a top commercial litigator, together with the cost of a lifetime of round-the-clock care, drove the damages far beyond a typical injury claim. The Seattle Times later reported that her income history was a significant factor in the final number.

The two sides reached an agreement in principle in October 2018, and a King County Superior Court judge approved the settlement on December 27, 2018. The total was $65.75 million. The city itself paid $6.5 million, its out-of-pocket deductible, and its five insurers covered the rest under a combined $60 million in coverage. When the deal became public in January 2019, city officials confirmed it was the largest personal injury settlement in Seattle's history, and press coverage described it as likely the largest in the history of Washington state and among the largest ever paid to a single injury victim in the United States.

Gardner told reporters the settlement reflected "how remarkable Brooke Taylor was as an individual and an attorney." He was equally clear about what the family did not want. "She wasn't interested in punishing the city," he said. The money was for her care and for the income her injury took away, not retribution against the fire department whose medics respond to emergencies every day.

By the time the settlement was reported, the city and its insurers had already paid the Taylor family in full. The funds now support Brooke Taylor's daily care and the household her career once sustained.