‘Washington has run out of cash’: Curley analyzes the state’s $614 million misconduct payout crisis

Washington’s payouts and legal costs for government misconduct have grown to an all-time high, notching $614 million in the past fiscal year, continuing to play a role in hampering the state’s financial well-being.

The snapshot was from the recently concluded fiscal year, showing growth of roughly $57 million compared to last year, roughly quintupling what the state paid four years earlier in 2021, according to The Seattle Times.

KIRO host John Curley explained on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio why Washington is so deep in the red on these payouts, to the point where the state has run out of cash and had to pull from the general fund.

“Washington is interesting when it comes to being insured. We are self-insured. What some states will do is they’ll have an insurance policy. What we decided is we’re going to fund it ourselves,” Curley said. “We get the money from you, and then we put it in there, and then some agency screws up, kid dies. Here’s what happens in Washington. It’s different from other states. We don’t have any caps, so you can have the prosecutor go in there and say, ‘This kid died. It’s a tragic thing.  Two years old, had his whole life ahead,’ and they could say, ‘We want $10 million. In some states, the jury goes, ‘Yes, $10 million,’ and the judge will go, ‘$500,000.’ Not the state of Washington. No way.”

Curley details how the payouts have drained state funds

Curley continued to explain how the lack of damage caps has left the state hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole.

“Man, the amount of money because finding fault, the state of Washington is now $963 million behind,” Curley said. “We’ve got a deficit, so they’ve taken it out of the general fund because we’ve been getting our asses sued and losing every single one of these cases, big, big cases. When people go to court, they sue for $20 million, $10 million, $5 million, and Washington has run out of cash.

“They are having to borrow from the general fund because they’ve been sued up to the total of $963 million, and now they come to the general fund to bail them out,” he continued. “The juries in the state of Washington tend to be more educated, and they tend to be more liberal, and because of that, they also tend to be far more generous, and they really want to take out on somebody. The plaintiff will paint a really nasty story, and they take it hook, line, and sinker, and then give giant awards, and the attorneys love to cash in on it.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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