A Los Angeles jury awarded $28 million to a motorcyclist whose leg was crushed by a city firetruck, the latest eye-popping sum carved out of city coffers for alleged reckless driving by a city employee.
Robert Danbom was heading northbound on Vermont Avenue in East Hollywood on Sept. 2, 2021, when a city firetruck traveling west appeared abruptly in his path.
Danbom, who had the green light, claimed in his lawsuit he had just a few seconds to react before an inevitable crash. His Harley-Davidson went flying as he fell under the wheels of the 65,000-pound truck, dislocating his shoulder and disfiguring his leg, which was later amputated below his knee.
“LAFD’s massive fire tender failed to follow basic safety standards in failing to stop, or even slow, the massive vehicle down before entering a very busy intersection,” the lawsuit alleged.
Filippo Marchino, an attorney with the X-Law Group who represented Danbom, said he believed the $28-million payout, awarded Aug. 13, was the largest verdict in California stemming from a below-the-knee amputation. But it didn’t need to be, he noted.
He would have happily taken half of what the jury gave him, he said.
“But there was zero engagement with the city attorney’s office,” he said. “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.”
According to the driver manual for city firefighters presented to the jury, “the first apparatus in a convoy shall stop at all red lights and stop signs.” Video from the scene shows the truck moving through the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vermont without stopping.
“If you sat through our trial, you’d be like, ‘These guys are high,’” said Marchino. “They kept saying ‘They stopped,’ and we had video saying they didn’t stop.”
The fire department and the city attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
According to a transcript of an interview from the scene, LAFD Apparatus Operator Vincent Leong said the truck stopped at the intersection and made sure nobody was approaching before proceeding.
“This is a blind intersection, you know, so I slowed down,” he said, according to the transcript, which was used as evidence at the trial. “I started creeping forward. … I didn’t see anybody.”
The amount the city pays each year in settlements and jury verdicts has skyrocketed, from $64 million about a decade ago to $289 million last year.
In 2025, a jury awarded nearly $49 million to a man in a coma after he was hit by a city garbage truck driver, who was accused of making an “unsafe right turn.” The year prior, a motorcyclist received $11 million after he was hit by a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power driver.
Hydee Feldstein Soto, who heads the city attorney’s office, has argued rising costs are the results of juries feeling increasingly antagonistic to local government. Some plaintiffs’ attorneys have countered that her leadership is to blame with too many cases with weak defenses brought to trial.
Feldstein Soto failed to advance out of the June primary, the first time an incumbent Los Angeles city attorney had been ousted before a general election in nearly 100 years.
Feldstein Soto has argued the city’s payouts were inflated by a “cascade of horrible” cases that were pending when she took office.
“I’ve protected the city at every turn,” she said earlier this year.
Marissa Roy, a deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice, is competing for the job with Los Angeles County prosecutor John McKinney in the November election.
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