Pierce County jurors have awarded $10.7 million to the relatives of five people from Arizona who died in a Highway 509 crash in Tacoma three years ago, according to The News Tribune.
Notably, the verdict found both drivers liable, but jurors rejected the plaintiffs' claims that the city or Washington state contributed to the crash by tolerating a hazardous road design, and should pay damages, The News Tribune reported.
The crash happened on a Sunday morning, July 16, 2023, in Tacoma's industrial tideflats where Highway 509 crosses Alexander Avenue East.
Lisa Esparza, age 19, was driving a rented Kia hatchback on Alexander Avenue and entered the intersection on a red light, going 36 to 41 mph, attorneys wrote.
At the same time, a BMW being test-driven by Vitaliy Papirnik went through a yellow light on northbound 509, and was going 50 to 66 mph during impact. Based on the car's data recorder, the BMW was traveling 80 mph shortly before, according to the city's trial brief.
Esparza died, as did five passengers in the Kia: Cerra Corner, Felix Begay, Javan Runnels, Calsie Sockyma and Erick Tsosie, all between ages 19 and 25. Begay and Tsosie, both Navajo, were attending an Amway convention at the Tacoma Dome, family members said at the time.
The BMW belonged to Rapid Motors, a now-defunct business owned by Papirnik and his wife, who were driving to church that day, according to their defense filing, which argued the Kia driver caused the crash.
The families and their estates were awarded differing amounts that ranged from $125,000 to $2 million, The News Tribune reported.
During the case, the plaintiffs filed records suggesting the Washington State Department of Transportation knew frequent high speeds posed a longstanding danger at the crossing. WSDOT considered changing it to a roundabout. Attorneys asserted the state should have installed advance warning lights to alert highway drivers before they reached a red light at Alexander.
But jurors concluded that the drivers or their estates were liable, not the government, according to The News Tribune. A man who rented the Kia and survived was also partially assigned fault, because he allowed Esparza to drive it in violation of rental-company rules.
Highway 509 has a posted speed limit of 50 mph and consists of two through lanes and a left turn lane each direction at that intersection, designed to state and city standards, WSDOT said. The state's trial brief conjectures the Kia driver had limited experience and was distracted by having seven people in the vehicle.
Safety activists often exhort state and local governments to restrain speeds, and therefore the lethal force during crashes, by reducing road lanes, installing speed humps, or putting in various signals.
As a legal principle, the state argued that government negligence (such as allowing defective pavement or obstructed sightlines) must be a demonstrated proximate cause" for WSDOT or Tacoma to be financially responsible. To assert that certain features, like advance warning flashers, might have averted the crash isn't proof enough, state attorneys wrote.
Attempts to reach the lawyers, and obtain the verdict from the court, were unsuccessful Friday afternoon.
The six lives lost were just some of the state's 809 traffic fatalities in 2023, the deadliest year of the past decade, according to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. Nationwide, there were 47,762 traffic fatalities that year, despite "Vision Zero initiatives by many states and cities.
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