State, victim's family settle for $6.5 million

The state of Washington on Thursday settled a long-running lawsuit for $6.5 million filed by the family of a woman killed by an unsupervised felon.

A Tacoma jury in 2000 awarded Paula Joyce's family $22.4 million, the largest award ever against the state. The state Supreme Court overturned the award last fall because of a faulty jury instruction; both sides reached a settlement before a new trial was scheduled.

The Department of Corrections (DOC) settled the case to avoid the risk of another large jury award, said DOC spokesman Gary Larson. "This puts closure on this sad and unfortunate case and allows both the Joyce family and the state to move forward from here," he said.

Joyce, then 34, was killed in Tacoma in 1997 when her car was hit by a felon who was high on drugs and driving a stolen car. The felon, Vernon Valdez Stewart, had been convicted of a new crime and was hospitalized for psychiatric conditions while under state supervision, but the DOC failed to log all but three of an estimated 100 supervision violations. Joyce's death helped prompt better oversight of 26,000 offenders on active DOC supervision.

The Supreme Court ruling that overturned Joyce's award also determined the DOC could be held liable in such cases if it failed "a duty to prevent foreseeable injury."

Attorney General Rob McKenna cited that ruling last month in his push to limit the state's liability. "In a post-Joyce world, we're going to get pummeled," he said.

Jack Connelly, the Joyce family's lawyer and incoming president of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association, noted that all but $50,000 of the $6.5 million settlement will be paid by insurers.

"This settlement is just and fair for the Joyce family," he said in a statement. "The insurance companies involved threatened to drag this out for another eight years. The family felt closure was important."

At the time of her death, Joyce was a physical therapist, the mother of four and part of a well-known Tacoma family. As part of the settlement, her husband, Steve, gets to offer DOC his suggestions for improving supervision of felons.

"He certainly has reasons to be concerned about the issue, and we're pleased to sit down with him and hear from him," Larson said.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com