The City of Sacramento has paid $10 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that a city animal control officer ran a red light and crashed into a woman’s vehicle near El Camino Avenue and Lexington Street in North Sacramento in January 2022. The settlement, signed in February, names Alexcia Ceja and two minors as plaintiffs and lists both the city and Senior Animal Control Officer Jennifer Channell as defendants.
According to the Sacramento Bee, which obtained the settlement agreement through a California Public Records Act request, the lawsuit was filed in Sacramento Superior Court in 2023 and alleged that Channell ran a red light and crashed into Ceja’s vehicle. The Bee reports the $10 million figure is the largest known settlement the city has signed since 2023.
City spokesperson Jennifer Singer declined to comment on the settlement itself and would not say whether the city disciplined Channell over the crash, per the same account. Singer did confirm that Channell remains employed as a city senior animal control officer. Channell referred questions about the settlement to city spokesperson Ryan Hinderman, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the outlet notes.
A Corridor Already Flagged for Danger
The crash site sits on a stretch of El Camino Avenue that the City of Sacramento has designated as one of the top five corridors citywide for fatal and serious traffic crashes under its Vision Zero Action Plan. That plan identifies High Injury Network corridors for targeted infrastructure and safety retrofits, and El Camino Avenue’s inclusion on that list underscores that the intersection where Channell and Ceja collided was already recognized by city officials as a high-risk location.
How California Law Puts Cities on the Hook
Public entities in California carry direct statutory liability for crashes caused by employees driving in the scope of their jobs. Under California Vehicle Code Section 17001, as detailed by Impact Attorneys, a public entity is liable for death, injury, or property damage proximately caused by an officer or employee’s negligent operation of a motor vehicle on the job — a notable departure from the broader immunity that shields governments in many other tort scenarios…