East Hollywood Motorcyclist Who Lost Leg to LAFD Truck Wins $28 Million

A Los Angeles jury has awarded $28 million to a motorcyclist who lost his leg after a Los Angeles Fire Department truck slammed into him at a busy East Hollywood intersection nearly five years ago. Robert Danbom was riding his Harley-Davidson northbound on Vermont Avenue with a green light on September 2, 2021, when a city firetruck heading west struck him at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vermont.

The crash left Danbom with a dislocated shoulder and a leg so badly disfigured that he later underwent a below-the-knee amputation, according to details reported by the Los Angeles Times. Danbom sued the City of Los Angeles over the crash, and the jury delivered its verdict on August 13, awarding him the full $28 million he sought. His attorney, Filippo Marchino of The X-Law Group, said it is the largest California jury verdict reported for a below-the-knee amputation case.

At the center of the case was a dispute over whether the firetruck, driven by LAFD apparatus operator Vincent Leong, ever stopped before entering the intersection. Video from the crash scene shows the truck moving through the intersection without stopping, and the lawsuit alleged the 65,000-pound fire tender failed to stop or slow before entering the busy crossing. Leong said in an interview transcript that the truck did stop at the intersection before proceeding — a direct conflict with what the Times reports the video shows. Marchino said the defense claimed the truck stopped despite the video evidence to the contrary.

What the Rules Require of Emergency Drivers

California Vehicle Code Sections 21055 and 21056 exempt emergency vehicles responding to calls from standard traffic laws, including red lights, but the statutes still require drivers to operate with due regard for the safety of other motorists and pedestrians, according to the Scranton Law Firm's overview of emergency vehicle liability law. The city's own firefighters' driver manual requires the first apparatus in a convoy to stop at all red lights and stop signs, a standard plaintiffs pointed to in arguing that Leong's truck should have come to a full stop before crossing Vermont Avenue.

The city garbage truck driver was accused separately of making an unsafe right turn, though the core of Danbom's case centered on the firetruck collision itself. Marchino, who represented Danbom, has a track record of securing large recoveries against public and private defendants, including a $60.38 million judgment tied to the 2013 Venice Boardwalk tragedy and a $78.75 million class-action settlement against Delta Air Lines in August 2025 over an emergency jet fuel drop, according to Courthouse News.

A Long Road Through the Courts

Danbom formally filed his civil suit against the city in Los Angeles County Superior Court on August 26, 2022, under case number 22STCV28056, according to court records published by Rulings.law. The city fought the case from the outset, filing a demurrer in November 2022 that sought to have the lawsuit dismissed as time-barred. The court ultimately evaluated evidence that an earlier prelitigation government claim, submitted by a former law firm representing Danbom, had been unauthorized and legally void — allowing the case to proceed toward the trial that concluded nearly four years after it was filed.

The Los Angeles City Council's Budget and Finance Committee held closed executive sessions in August 2025 to consult with city attorneys on potential settlement strategies for the litigation, according to city council records, showing officials were weighing their exposure a full year before the jury's verdict. Marchino said he would have accepted half of the jury's eventual award, and he blamed the City Attorney's Office for the size of the final verdict, saying the case could have been settled for significantly less. The Los Angeles Fire Department and the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office did not respond to requests for comment, per the Times report.

A City Drowning in Legal Payouts

The Danbom verdict lands amid a broader financial reckoning for Los Angeles. City legal payouts have climbed from about $64 million a decade ago to $289 million last year, the Times reported. A separate financial report from City Controller Kenneth Mejia in February found the city spent $287 million on liability claims in fiscal year 2024–25 — exceeding its $87 million legal budget by 228% — and that General Fund reserves fell from $648 million to $402 million over two years, according to the Southern California Record.

Traffic collisions involving city vehicles have been a consistent driver of those costs. A five-year breakdown of payouts showed vehicle collisions accounted for 18% of all liability dollars, tied with civil rights claims and trailing only dangerous infrastructure conditions at 32%, per the same Times analysis. Collision claims involving LAPD vehicles alone have exceeded $115 million across 1,289 processed claims between fiscal year 2020 and late 2025, according to the City Controller's claims dashboard. Other recent cases echo Danbom's: a Los Angeles jury awarded nearly $49 million in 2025 to a man left in a coma, and a motorcyclist received $11 million in 2024 after being hit by a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power driver.

Political Fallout and a City Under Fire

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo warned city leaders in March 2025 that uncontrolled legal liability costs were contributing to a projected $400 million municipal budget shortfall for fiscal year 2025–26, prompting consideration of hiring freezes and departmental spending cuts, according to MyNewsLA.com. Outgoing City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto has argued that rising payout costs stem from juries becoming increasingly antagonistic toward local government. Feldstein Soto failed to advance out of the June 2026 primary.

The American Tort Reform Association ranked Los Angeles the top “Judicial Hellhole” in the country in July, pointing to a concentration of “nuclear verdicts” exceeding $10 million in personal injury and auto accident trials. For Danbom, the legal and fiscal debate is secondary to the outcome of a crash that cost him his leg — a jury has now decided the city bears responsibility, and the case adds another entry to a growing ledger of high-dollar judgments straining Los Angeles' finances.