$28 Million Settlement for Teenager Left Quadriplegic After WSDOT Failed to Install Funded Highway Barrier

In October 2013, Skylar Seward was 15 years old and a passenger in a car traveling southbound on Interstate 5 near DuPont, in Pierce County. The vehicle swerved left, left the roadway, and struck a concrete overpass pillar standing in the freeway median. The collision left her quadriplegic.

The pillar had no concrete barrier, guardrail, or wire fence between it and the travel lanes. What stood in its place was an earthen berm, a compacted mound of dirt. Rather than deflect an errant vehicle, the berm acted as a ramp, directing cars upward and into the pillar. After a fatal crash on Highway 522 in 2003 involving the same type of berm, WSDOT revised its design manual and stopped specifying earthen berms as protective barriers. The state Legislature then funded a six-year statewide replacement program in 2006.

The berm protecting the southbound DuPont pillar was never replaced. The state had replaced the barrier on the northbound side of the same median in 2012, the year before Seward's crash, but left the southbound side untouched. WSDOT had the funding, the engineering plan, and the explicit warning from a prior fatality. The work simply was not done.

Attorneys Keith Kessler and Brad Moore of Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore took the case to the eve of trial. Pierce County Superior Court proceedings were scheduled to begin the Monday after the settlement was announced. Facing trial, Washington state agreed to pay Seward $28 million to fund her lifetime care.

As part of the resolution, WSDOT committed to fixing the 26 earthen berms that remained unprotected across the state between 2019 and 2021. The $28 million figure was reported at the time of settlement as the largest personal injury recovery against the state government for a highway design defect in Washington history.