Clark County Jury Awards $38.8 Million Against Republic Services After Garbage Truck Kills 11-Year-Old in Crosswalk

On the morning of February 8, 2017, an 11-year-old girl was walking with a friend near the corner of South Sandhill Road and East Viking Road in Las Vegas. The two had the walk signal and the right of way. As they crossed, a Republic Services garbage truck driven by Julio Cortez-Solano turned right through the marked crosswalk without coming to a full stop. The truck struck the girl, and she died.

Her family sued Republic Silver State Disposal, the company that runs Republic Services routes in the Las Vegas area. The wrongful death case, filed in 2018 as A-18-782026-C, went to trial in Nevada's Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County before District Judge Jacqueline Bluth.

Sean Claggett and William Sykes of Claggett & Sykes tried the case over roughly two weeks in August 2021. Their theory was that Republic put a driver with a checkered safety record behind the wheel of the truck. They played video showing the truck rolling through the crosswalk instead of stopping, and they walked the jury through the driver's history, which included write-ups in the years before the crash and a firing followed by a rehire. Republic's lawyers argued the truck was already in the crosswalk when the girl stepped off the curb, and they suggested a figure of about $10.25 million plus funeral costs would be enough. The family asked the jury for $65 million.

The numbers had been far apart long before closing arguments. Republic first offered $250,000 to settle, then raised that to $1 million shortly before trial. On August 24, 2021, after more than a day of deliberation, the jury returned $38.8 million: $26 million for the family's past grief, sorrow, and loss of companionship, $12 million for future grief and loss, $750,000 for the child's own suffering, and $15,000 for funeral and related costs. The jury declined to award punitive damages.

The same verdict assigned 27 percent of the responsibility for the collision to the child. Under Nevada's comparative negligence rule, that finding cuts the family's recovery by roughly $10.5 million off the gross award.