Jaahnavi Kandula's Family Sues City for $110 Million Plus $11,000, In Direct Reference to Officer's Callous Comments
Kandula, a 23-year-old student, was struck and killed by Seattle police officer Kevin Dave last year.
By Andrew Engelson
Attorneys for the family of Jaahnavi Kandula, who was struck and killed in a South Lake Union crosswalk by a Seattle Police Department officer traveling 74 miles an hour, filed a lawsuit this afternoon against the city of Seattle and SPD officer Kevin Dave for more than $110 million. In the claim, filed in King County Superior Court today, attorneys wrote that Kandula “experienced terror, severe emotional distress, and severe pain and suffering before dying.”
The sizable figure —$110 million, plus $11,000—is a direct reference to the callous comments made by SPD officer Daniel Auderer shortly after the fatal collision.
Auderer, the vice chairman of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, had been called to the scene to investigate Dave for signs of intoxication. Caught on body cam video in conversation with police union leader Mike Solan, Auderer joked and laughed about Kandula’s death, saying, “Just write a check. $11,000. She was 26, anyway. She had limited value.”
Interim Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr fired Auderer in July. In response, he filed a $20 million tort claim against the city for “wrongful termination.”
“It is absolutely abhorrent to get on the phone and laugh about anyone's death,” attorney Vonda Sargent told PubliCola. “He’s suing for $20 million, so I guess he thinks the value of his life is far greater than the value of Jaahnavi’s.”
The figure, if awarded by a jury, would represent the largest personal injury claim ever against the city of Seattle. The highest award paid out by the city was in 2016, when the city and its insurers paid $65.7 million to the family of an attorney who was struck and severely injured by a Seattle fire truck.
PubliCola reached out to the mayor’s office and SPD on Friday afternoon and will update this article with their response.
Kandula, a 23-year-old engineering student from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, was crossing Dexter Avenue at Thomas Street when she was killed on the evening of January 23, 2023. The legal complaint was filed by Kandula’s mother and father, Vijaya Laksmi Gundapuneedi and Sreekanth Kandula, who both live in India.
“It is absolutely tragic. I don't think that they'll ever get over it,” Sargent said of Kandula’s parents. “Your first-born child is gone forever. Parents are not supposed to bury their children.”
The claim notes that “[a]s a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ negligent conduct, Plaintiff Kandula sustained extreme pain and suffering after being slammed into by Defendant Dave’s speeding patrol vehicle traveling up to 70 MPH,” the lawsuit says. The claim also notes that Kandula’s parents “continue to endure severe emotional distress as a result of their daughter’s death.”
In March, Sargent and attorney Susan Mindenbergs, working for family members representing Kandula’s estate, filed a tort claim—also for $110 million plus $11,000—with the Seattle City Attorney’s office. According to the claim, the family sought damages for wrongful death, “loss of familial consortium” (emotional, non-economic losses due to the loss of a family member), and negligent planning and construction of the crosswalk and street infrastructure at Dexter and Thomas, where Kandula was struck.
Dave struck and killed Kandula while driving to assist the Seattle Fire Department, which was responding to a call from a South Lake Union resident who said he was “freaking out” after taking cocaine. Though Dave turned on his signal lights, the filing notes that Dave only “chirped” his siren while going through red lights and “failed to activate his patrol vehicle siren before approaching the intersection of Dexter Avenue North and Thomas Street.”
Sargent said that officer Dave had no reason to exceed 70 mph on this particular call. “It was unnecessary,” she said, “because the urgency of it had already passed.”
She also said Dave’s high speed wasn’t necessary. “The difference in speed with him going 35 or 40 miles per hour and 74—the time he’s ‘making up’ is negligible,” Sargent said. “It's not as though doing 74 miles an hour is going to get you there 15 minutes sooner.”
The lawsuit also says that Dave “was driving with one hand on the steering wheel” just prior to hitting Kandula.
The lawsuit notes that Dave was driving at least 70 mph in a 25 mph zone and that the force of the collision "caused Plaintiff Kandula to fly 136.99 feet before crashing into the roadway.” According to data from the Transport Research Laboratory, the fatality rate for crashes at 70 mph is close to 100 percent.
Though a SPD police report on the collision noted that a “pedestrian’s expectations when crossing a street are that they will likely encounter traffic traveling at speeds near the posted speed limit,” Dave chose to drive nearly three times that limit. As PubliCola previously reported, Seattle Police Department’s emergency vehicle operations policies are extremely vague and give officers wide latitude in how and when they may break traffic laws when responding to a call, advising them to speed and run lights “only when the need outweighs the risk.”
The Kandula family’s lawsuit also notes that Dave did not have a valid Washington State drivers license, another detail PubliCola first reported.
Sargent said SPD was negligent on many levels, from hiring Dave to having vague guidelines for when police can speed to unsafe street design. “The people who are responsible for the care and safety of the citizenry should have at least the base level of care for the citizenry. That means being cautious when you drive. Having the requirements, all the qualifications for driving, like a license. And knowing that if you're screaming up and down city streets that you're likely to hit someone.”
In its complaint, attorneys for Kandula’s family allege that SPD “negligently hired Defendant Dave whose employment record included being terminated from the Tucson Police Department for numerous incidents of poor performance, bad judgment, and misconduct.”
The lawsuit directly refers to many details PubliCola has uncovered over the past year and a half about the collision and Dave’s history, including his firing by the Tucson Police Department and his “checkered history” there before SPD hired him in 2019.
TPD fired Dave in 2013 after numerous investigations, including one involving a “preventable collision” for which he was suspended right before being fired.
“He should have never been hired,” Sargent said. “You can't take just all comers. Everyone is not suited or fit to be a law enforcement officer.” Sargent said that the fact SPD knew about Dave’s troubled history and hired him anyway points to a systemic problem rather than the misconduct of one officer.
As we reported earlier this year, an SPD sergeant contacted Tucson police while investigating an incident in which Dave was seen “apparently filming the facilities” at an SPD training center in August 2020. The Tucson police told SPD about Dave’s history, including a troubling incident that occurred shortly after he was fired, when an officer pulled him over for speeding, Dave was pulled over by a Tucson police officer for speeding.
According to a TPD report on that incident, Dave was “unable to stand still, he was talking very fast, and his pupils were dilated.” The officer filing the report suspected Dave appeared to be “possibly on some type of narcotic.”
In February, King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion declined to file felony charges against Dave, and City Attorney Ann Davison issued him a negligent driving traffic ticket with a $5,000 fine. Last month, PubliCola reported that Dave and his attorney are challenging that ticket in municipal court.
The lawsuit also refers extensively to Seattle Department of Transportation’s planning and construction of pedestrian infrastructure and street design at and near the site of the collision. It notes that SDOT has delayed planned improvements at the intersection, as we noted in our initial report on the collision.
“There are issues with that particular intersection,” Sargent said. “And then we learned that citizens were calling in about that intersection.”
The claim quotes from an SDOT customer service summary dated February 2023, that observed, “An Indian student died at the intersection of Dexter and Thomas on Jan 23rd. She was apparently hit by a police cruiser 4 weeks ago [at] the same intersection I requested to install new stop signs to avoid such accidents from happening.”
In addition, the lawsuit quotes from SPD detective Brett Schoenberg’s internal report on the incident, which stated “The speed at which Ofc. Dave was traveling did not allow Kandula or him sufficient time to detect, address and avoid a hazard that presented itself.”
The claim also notes that when investigating whether Dave was intoxicated, Auderer did not order a breathalyzer or blood test but only did a visual assessment of Dave.
Sargent said Kandula’s family plans to set up a foundation in Jaahnavi’s memory if a jury makes an award.
“I think most people can understand on some level, this sort of loss,” Sargent said. “You send your child to a foreign country to educate herself, to make herself better, to help the family, and she's taken from you,” Sargent said.
“And then when she's taken from you, it's turned into an international joke. You have people laughing and guffawing about the loss of your daughter,” Sargent said.
“The family wants justice. They want some accountability. Because it should have never happened.”