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: Negotiated settlement, so no appeal applies. Seattle Public Schools pays $500,000 of the $16 million directly, and the Washington Schools Risk Management Pool covers the remainder.
Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna2024 · King County Superior Court, Seattle, WARead the full story → - $16 millionVerdictReduced from $40.7 millionPaidPremises Liability
Seattle Cyclist Awarded $16 Million After Brain Injury at UW Speed Bump
A King County jury found that a speed bump the University of Washington had known for years was dangerous to cyclists caused a 2020 crash that left finance executive Jonathan Spencer with a severe traumatic brain injury. The jury set total damages at $40.7 million and assigned 60 percent of the fault to Spencer and 40 percent to the university, leaving the state liable for about $16.3 million. Five earlier cyclist crashes at the same speed bump, including one that had already produced a jury verdict against the university, had put UW on notice before Spencer's crash. UW removed the speed bump two years after Spencer was hurt. Todd Gardner represented Spencer at trial.
After trial: Reduced and paid. The $16.3 million is the university's share of the jury's $40.7 million damages finding, cut after the jury assigned 60 percent of fault to Spencer.
- $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: Settled at mediation for $1.75 million before any ruling on the merits, so no court decided the excessive-force question. The city's insurance risk pool paid in full in late September 2018, with no admission of wrongdoing.
Budge & Heipt, PLLC2018 · U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, SeattleRead the full story →
76 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 King County jury awarded $165 million to eight former Sky Valley Education Center employees, including the estate of one deceased plaintiff, after finding Pharmacia LLC liable for selling PCB-containing fluorescent light ballasts without adequate warning.
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.
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 returned a $150 million verdict against two crane subcontractors whose safety failures caused the April 2019 South Lake Union crane collapse, which killed four people and injured three others.
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 Pierce County jury awarded William Tisdale $91 million after he was beaten with an aluminum baseball bat outside an APRO-owned Union 76 convenience store in Parkland, Washington, leaving him with multiple skull fractures and permanent cognitive damage.
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.
The City of Seattle and its five insurers paid $65.75 million to Brooke Taylor, a 38-year-old Susman Godfrey partner who suffered a catastrophic traumatic brain injury when a Seattle Fire Department aid unit went through a red light at Fourth Avenue and Seneca Street in April 2016 and struck her Porsche, spinning it into a signal box and a tree. Todd Gardner of Swanson Gardner Meyers negotiated the settlement, approved in King County Superior Court in late December 2018 and reported as the largest personal injury settlement in city history and likely the largest in Washington state.
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.
A tower crane being disassembled in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood collapsed onto a city street in high wind on April 27, 2019, crushing an Uber carrying 19-year-old Seattle Pacific University student Sarah Wong and killing her. A King County jury found Northwest Tower Crane Service 45 percent at fault and Omega Morgan Sarens 30 percent at fault, and set the damages for Wong's death at more than $72 million as part of a verdict topping $150 million for five victims of the collapse. Because the remaining 25 percent of the fault went to Morrow Equipment, which had settled and was not a trial defendant, the two trial defendants were jointly and severally liable only for their combined 75 percent share, which left the Wong family $54.15 million under the judgment. Todd Gardner represented the Wong family at trial. Omega Morgan appealed on four grounds, and the Washington Court of Appeals affirmed in 2023.
A King County jury awarded $50 million to Rhea and Brock Wuth after Valley Medical Center failed to send LabCorp the family genetic report needed to screen for a known chromosome translocation and LabCorp ran only a routine karyotype without asking for it, leaving the couple's son to be born with the unbalanced translocation the testing was meant to detect. The verdict was affirmed on appeal in 2015.
A Pierce County jury awarded $44.7 million to an EMT and volunteer firefighter left with permanent injuries after an SUV driver turned left through an uncontrolled intersection and into his path, a verdict Washington courts later upheld in full.
A Snohomish County jury awarded Paramjit Singh and his family $40.1 million after an Edwards Lifesciences cardiac monitoring device overheated during bypass surgery and destroyed his heart, forcing a transplant, because the manufacturer had concealed a known software defect for years.
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 Kitsap County jury found Clallam County 95 percent at fault when a sheriff's deputy's AR-15 discharged during a mandatory rifle qualification in March 2020, leaving him an amputee below the right knee. The September 17, 2026 verdict totaled $30,176,905 before fault was applied, and after the court applied the county's 95 percent share and other adjustments, the county was ordered to pay almost $28 million. The award includes $5 million to the deputy's wife for loss of consortium.
Washington state paid $28 million to a young woman left quadriplegic after her car struck an unguarded overpass pillar on I-5 near DuPont, where WSDOT had funding and a plan to install a protective barrier but never completed the work.
Javier Tapia was 42 when a blood clot went unaddressed for weeks during his 2018 incarceration at the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Washington, leading to gangrene and the amputation of his leg below the knee. Tapia sued Pierce County and its jail medical contractor, NaphCare, Inc., alleging deliberate indifference to his medical needs under the Fourteenth Amendment. Pierce County settled separately for $1 million and was dismissed before trial. In April 2025, after a jury trial in Seattle, a federal jury found NaphCare liable and awarded Tapia $5 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages, a total of $25 million. The district court denied NaphCare's post-trial motions, and NaphCare has appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Michael Trujillo, a 62-year-old electrician from Colorado, was diagnosed with ALS in 2017 and sought treatment at Seattle Stem Cell Center after seeing the clinic's online marketing. In April 2019 a physician at the clinic gave him a spinal injection without imaging guidance while he was taking a blood thinner, causing catastrophic bleeding and brain herniation, and he was pronounced dead the next day. A King County jury returned a unanimous $24 million verdict for his estate, his widow and their five adult children, finding that negligence in his care caused his death. The clinic's owner, Dr. Tami Meraglia, said she intends to appeal.
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.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.