Largest Washington Personal Injury Recoveries Confirmed Paid
Personal injury results in Washington where the record shows the money was paid, or the defendant is an insurer or institution that pays, ranked by amount.
Browse personal injury lawyers in Washington →- $16 millionSettlementPaidSexual Abuse
Seattle Public Schools Pays $16 Million Over Garfield Coach Abuse
Seattle Public Schools agreed to pay $16 million in October 2024 to settle a lawsuit from a former Garfield High School student who said two coaches sexually abused her over several years while the district failed to intervene. The suit named volunteer coach Walter Jones, who had been barred from district employment yet was allowed to coach anyway, and assistant coach Marvin Hall, who continued an abusive relationship with her into her college years. It is the largest tort settlement in the district's history, funded mostly through the district's insurance pool. Both coaches were separately prosecuted in King County Superior Court: Hall pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct with a minor in 2025, and Jones's child rape trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial in December 2025. Paul Sewell and Tomas Gahan of Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna represented the former student.
After trial: This is a negotiated settlement, not a court judgment, so no appeal applies to the civil claim. Seattle Public Schools pays $500,000 of the $16 million directly, with the remainder covered by the Washington Schools Risk Management Pool, the district's insurer.
Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna2024 · King County Superior Court, Seattle, WARead the full story → - $1.75 millionSettlementPaidCivil Rights
Family of Man Shot by Lynnwood Police Settles Federal Suit for $1.75 Million
On January 30, 2017, Lynnwood police officer Zachary Yates fired ten shots at 36-year-old Jeremy Dowell, a Mountlake Terrace man with mental health issues who was carrying a knife on Highway 99, and killed him. Investigators concluded the shooting was within legal standards and prosecutors declined to charge Yates, but twelve witnesses later signed sworn declarations contradicting the official account, ten of them saying Yates kept firing at a stumbling or already fallen Dowell. Dowell's estate and his parents sued Yates individually for excessive force in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in May 2018. The parties settled on August 31, 2018, and Lynnwood's insurance risk pool paid $1.75 million in late September under the city's obligation to defend the officer, with no admission of wrongdoing.
After trial: The case settled at mediation before any ruling on the merits, so no court decided whether the shooting was excessive force. Lynnwood's insurance risk pool paid the $1.75 million in full in late September 2018 under the city's duty to defend Officer Yates, with no admission of wrongdoing by the officer or the city, which was not itself a defendant.
Budge & Heipt, PLLC2018 · U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, SeattleRead the full story →
54 results, largest first
A King County jury awarded $857 million in December 2023 to seven people, five former students and two parent volunteers, who said they were sickened by PCBs leaking from light fixtures at the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington. The verdict included $73 million in compensatory damages and $784 million in punitive damages against Monsanto and its successor Pharmacia. In April 2024 a King County judge cut the punitive award to $365 million under Missouri's statutory cap on punitive damages, reducing the total to $438 million. Monsanto appealed, and Bayer said in February 2026 that Monsanto had settled the remaining Sky Valley jury verdicts on confidential terms, so what was ultimately paid is not public.
A King County jury awarded $275 million to thirteen Sky Valley Education Center students and families who suffered neurological injuries from PCB-contaminated light fixtures manufactured by Monsanto.
A King County jury awarded three Monroe, Washington teachers $185 million after finding that PCBs manufactured by Monsanto leached from fluorescent light ballasts at their school and caused permanent neurological injuries.
A Pierce County jury awarded $130 million against the State of Washington and a South Hill daycare over the death of a 2-year-old girl who died of blunt force trauma in March 2022 after the state's child welfare agency returned her to a home where her abuser remained present and daycare staff failed to report visible injuries they had seen. After a five-week trial the jury found the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families 90% at fault and Love and Laughter Learning Centers, Inc. 10% at fault. Of that total, $52 million was awarded individually to the girl's estate, with the remainder split among four other family beneficiaries, and the jury returned a further $10 million against the mother and her boyfriend. News accounts described it as the largest verdict of its kind in Washington state history. Ray Dearie of Dearie Law Group represented the family.
Lambert Zainey represented three former Hanford nuclear site managers who blew the whistle on contractors Bechtel and URS for charging the federal government for deficient nuclear-quality materials and funding illegal lobbying, securing a $125 million False Claims Act settlement in 2016.
A King County jury awarded $123 million to 40 plaintiffs after five international students were killed and dozens injured when a Ride the Ducks amphibious vehicle suffered a catastrophic axle fracture on Seattle's Aurora Bridge in 2015.
A King County jury awarded $100 million to four plaintiffs who suffered neurological, hormonal, and cancer-related illnesses after years of exposure to PCBs from defective fluorescent light fixtures at a Monroe, Washington school.
A King County jury returned an $82 million verdict against Monsanto in December 2022 for a family exposed to PCBs at the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington, awarding $20.5 million in compensatory damages and $61.5 million in punitive damages to one member of the family. The firm described it as the largest verdict against Monsanto for an individual plaintiff in any PCB case.
A King County jury awarded $72 million to two former Sky Valley Education Center students who developed chronic neurological injuries after years of PCB exposure from aging fluorescent light fixtures manufactured by Monsanto.
A Thurston County jury awarded $57 million to roughly 22,000 live-in home-care providers after finding that Washington's Department of Social and Health Services unlawfully cut their pay through an automatic 15 percent reduction in authorized care hours.
Two men who suffered severe blast, burn, and traumatic brain injuries when a KOMO news helicopter fell onto their vehicles during morning rush hour in March 2014 received a $40 million settlement five weeks into trial.
A King County jury awarded $38 million to Thyce Colyn, a commuter cyclist who suffered permanent brain damage and a shattered pelvis after a Standard Parking valet driver struck him while cutting illegally across 8th Avenue in downtown Seattle.
A federal jury in Spokane awarded $26.75 million to the estate of Cindy Lou Hill, a 55-year-old woman who died of a perforated intestine in the Spokane County Jail after NaphCare staff attributed her symptoms to heroin withdrawal, though the Ninth Circuit vacated the $24 million punitive portion in 2025 and the case was dismissed on remand.
A Kitsap County jury returned a $23.9 million verdict on December 20, 2019 against Jefferson County Public Hospital District, doing business as Jefferson Healthcare, after staff monitored the mother's heartbeat instead of the baby's for roughly three hours before delivery. The Court of Appeals affirmed on January 4, 2022, and the judgment was paid.
King County paid its largest personal injury settlement on record after a 38-year-old mother of two was mauled by two dogs the county had repeatedly been warned about but failed to remove.
A King County jury awarded $21 million to Dr. Benjamin Danielson, the Black former medical director of Odessa Brown Children's Clinic, after finding Seattle Children's Hospital liable for systemic racial discrimination and a hostile work environment.
A Pierce County jury awarded Cristina Anderson $21 million in August 2023 after she was struck in a downtown Sumner crosswalk and suffered a traumatic brain injury. The driver carried $25,000 in liability coverage and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after the verdict, and the fight over who pays the rest is still in the courts.
August de los Reyes, head of design for Microsoft's Xbox, was left permanently paralyzed from the chest down after Overlake Hospital staff failed to diagnose his spinal fracture across four emergency visits, and Luvera Law Firm secured a $20 million settlement that also required the hospital to partner with him on patient-safety reform.
Scott Bliss suffered catastrophic brain injury when a Scarsella Bros. dump truck made an illegal U-turn on an I-5 WSDOT construction ramp in Centralia, yielding what is believed to be the largest WSDOT settlement in Lewis County history.
A federal jury found that GEO Group violated Washington State minimum wage law by paying immigration detainees $1 per day to cook, clean, and maintain its Tacoma detention facility, awarding more than $17 million in back wages to a class of roughly 10,000 people.
Washington State agreed to pay $16.95 million to 12 former residents of the J Bar D Boys Ranch who were sexually and physically abused as children while in state custody during the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the settlement reached mid-trial after four weeks of testimony.
A King County jury awarded $16.9 million to the family of David Oltman, killed when PenAir Flight 3296 overran the runway at Tom Madsen Airport in Unalaska, Alaska, after a maintenance contractor cross-wired the aircraft's antiskid brake system.
A federal jury in Tacoma awarded $16.75 million to three plaintiffs in the first trial to conclude from the December 2017 Amtrak Cascades derailment near DuPont, Washington, that killed three people and injured more than 60 others.
A Pierce County jury awarded $16.7 million to the family of a pregnant Puyallup woman who died of H1N1 influenza after Summit View Clinic failed to tell her that Tamiflu was available to treat the infection. Ashton Dennis of Washington Law Center served as co-counsel for the family alongside Connelly Law Offices.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.