Monroe Woman Gets $2.75M In Highway Crash From WA State

Monroe Woman Gets $2.75M In Highway Crash From WA State

Introduction

Washington state has agreed to pay $2.75 million to a woman who was critically injured in a rollover accident on Highway 522 involving a state Department of Transportation vehicle.

On March 5, 2018, a mother from Monroe was travelling east on the highway near Maltby in her Jeep Cherokee with her young son in the back seat. When a Washington State Department of Transportation truck performed an unlawful U-turn, she didn't have time to halt, according to her complaint. Her car took off into the air and turned over twice.

Her kid was unharmed, but the lady sustained terrible injuries, including traumatic brain damage, according to the lawsuit. 

She filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Transportation in 2019. In court documents in September, the state admitted blame for the collision. The lawsuit was quickly resolved for $2.75 million. A WSDOT representative verified the settlement in an email but declined to say further.

The two-lane route between Paradise Lake Road in Maltby and the Snohomish River Bridge is notorious for major accidents. A couple in one automobile and an infant in another were killed in a head-on collision in 2014, sparking a lawsuit that labelled the route "inherently unsafe." The state agreed to a $3 million settlement without admitting fault in that case.

Prosecutors accused a woman in August of vehicular murder in a highway collision that killed one and critically wounded another in 2020. This year's big transportation package authorized by the state Legislature contains millions of dollars to expand Highway 522 in that region.