A Fire Truck Ran a Red Light & Crushed His Leg; Jury Awarded Him $28 Million

What the Evidence Showed

The case turned on a direct conflict between video footage and the firefighter's own account. LAFD apparatus operator Vincent Leong told investigators at the scene that he had stopped at the intersection and checked for oncoming traffic before proceeding: "This is a blind intersection, you know, so I slowed down. I started creeping forward... I didn't see anybody." That statement was entered into evidence and used at trial.

Video from the scene told a different story, showing the truck moving through the intersection without stopping. The department's own driver manual, presented to the jury, states plainly that "the first apparatus in a convoy shall stop at all red lights and stop signs." Danbom's attorney, Filippo Marchino of the X-Law Group, didn't mince words about the gap between the driver's account and the footage: "If you sat through our trial, you'd be like, 'These guys are high.' They kept saying 'They stopped,' and we had video saying they didn't stop."

The Verdict

The jury returned its $28 million verdict on August 13. Marchino said he believes it's the largest verdict in California stemming from a below-the-knee amputation, but he was clear that the number didn't have to reach that high. "I would have happily taken half of what the jury gave him," he said, pointing to what he described as the city's total unwillingness to engage. "There was zero engagement with the city attorney's office. These people don't realize it's not their money, it's the city's money, it's the taxpayers' money. It's offensive because cases like ours could have been settled for significantly less than what the verdict is."

The LAFD and the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office did not respond to requests for comment.

Why This Case Matters Beyond One Intersection

This verdict fits into a broader and increasingly expensive pattern for Los Angeles: multi-million-dollar jury awards stemming from crashes involving city vehicles and city employees, particularly when the city declines to negotiate before trial. When a public entity chooses to litigate rather than settle a case with strong contradicting video evidence, it isn't just risking the outcome of that one case, it's setting up exactly the kind of runaway verdict that happened here. 

Juries tend to respond unfavorably when the evidence clearly contradicts an official account, and emergency vehicles carry an elevated duty of care specifically because their size and the deference other drivers give them at intersections make the consequences of an error especially severe.

The Legal Principle at the Heart of This Case

Emergency vehicles are generally permitted certain exceptions to traffic laws when responding with lights and sirens, but that permission isn't unlimited. Fire departments and other emergency responders are still required to exercise due caution, particularly at intersections, and internal safety policies like LAFD's own driver manual requirement to stop before proceeding exist precisely because blind intersections and heavy apparatus create serious risk even during an emergency response. When a department's own written policy is presented as evidence that its employee violated it, that's about as clear a negligence case as exists in municipal liability law.

For Danbom, no verdict undoes the loss of a limb. But the size of this award reflects both the severity of his injury and the strength of the evidence against the city, a combination that made a costly trial outcome largely avoidable.

If you've been injured by a city vehicle, an emergency responder, or any government-operated vehicle, the independent attorneys we connect you with understand the unique legal landscape of municipal liability claims and can help you pursue full accountability.

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