Lange v Washington State Department of Corrections
Jun 13, 2013
OUTCOME: $9 Million Settlement by Washington State Department of Corrections in Zamora Case
A recent $9 million settlement resulted from the series of shootings by a mentally-ill felon that caused six deaths and multiple injuries across Skagit County, Washington State in 2008.
Bellingham a...ttorney Dean Brett of Brett Murphy, assisted by Gene Moses, represented four of the nine plaintiffs in this tragic and complicated case (Snohomish County Superior Court Cause #11-2-08078-0).
Isaac Zamora was a mentally ill felon with a criminal record, under the supervision of the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC).
The case encompassed five years of investigation including nearly 100 depositions and thousands of pages of documents. Following extensive mediations and negotiations during which the DOC acknowledged no wrong doing, the Department of Corrections settled the case for $9 million, according to the settlement agreement.
Personal injury
French v. Parker et. al.
N/A
OUTCOME: 5.5 Million Dollar Jury Verdict
Hailey French was severely injured in a head-on collision with a drunk driver who had been released from a prior drunk driving arrest by a state trooper one hour and 39 minutes previously. Instead of b...ooking the drunk driver into jail or impounding her car, the trooper drove her home, gave her back her keys, and told her not to drive again "until she sobered up." Instead the drunk driver called a taxi, returned to her car, got back on the road, and crossed the center line, hitting Hailey French head-on. Since the drunk driver herself had only $25,000 in policy limits, Plaintiff's counsel, Dean Brett of Brett and Coats, was forced to find other sources of liability coverage through the State Patrol and the Whatcom County District Court Probation Department. State Patrol's Duty: Through a series of Motions for Summary Judgment, Plaintiff established an exception to the Public Duty Doctrine as it applied to the Washington State Patrol. Under the "special relationship" or "take charge" exception to the Public Duty Doctrine under Restatement (2nd) of Torts §315 and 319, the Court held that after taking the drunk driver into custody for being in physical control of a vehicle while intoxicated, the State Patrol trooper had a duty to exercise reasonable care to control the drunk driver to prevent reasonably foreseeable harm to others from her dangerous propensities. The standard of care for the state trooper was then established through the testimony of D.P. Van Blaricom, the retired Bellevue Chief of Police, who testified that the trooper unreasonably failed to prevent the drunk driver from having access to her vehicle. While law enforcement officers have wide discretion, in this situation they must separate the driver from the car in one of four ways: by impounding the car, by turning the car over to a sober, responsible adult, by turning the driver over to a sober, responsible adult, or by holding the driver in jail until she is sober. The standard of care was also supported by the testimony of Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo and the two other officers who participated in the initial stop, one from the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office and one from the Bellingham Police Department. The forseeability of the drunk driver's actions after having her keys returned to her while still in an intoxicated state was illuminated by the testimony of Dr. Dary Fiorentino, a nationally renowned expert on alcohol and its affect on driving. The claim against the Whatcom County District Court Probation Department arose from the fact that the drunk driver had been under a court order to drive only a car equipped with an alcohol interlock device, but the probation department had failed to follow-up on the judge's court-ordered requirement. Probation Department's Duty: The drunk driver had been placed on deferred prosecution eight months before the crash, with a court order providing that she could only drive a vehicle with an alcohol interlock device. The court had required the Whatcom County District Court Probation Department to monitor the interlock condition. Unfortunately, the Probation Department failed to do so, claiming that they only monitored the interlock requirement when a judge specifically wrote "verify interlock" on the bottom of a Judgment and Sentence. Extensive discovery determined that in over 2000 Judgment and Sentence forms received by the Probation Department between 2002 and 2007, only one judge had ever written "verify install" on the bottom of a Judgment and Sentence. The 5.5 million dollar verdict is the largest jury verdict ever recovered in Skagit County.
