A jury late last week said the city of Portland and a driver who caused a fatal motorcycle crash must pay a combined $5.1 million to the family of the dead motorcyclist — ruling that the city shouldn’t have allowed street parking to block the view of the driver, who pulled into the pathway of the motorcyclist because he didn’t see the motorcyclist coming.
Such intersections have long annoyed Portland drivers who attempt to cross busy thoroughfares from side streets — first stopping at stop signs, then inching forward bit by bit so they can see past cars that are parked so close to the corner that they obstruct the views of oncoming traffic.
On the flip side, allowing cars to park up to the edge of city blocks has helped relieve the city’s street parking shortage, with both residents and business owners urging the city to provide more, not less, parking.
Though a Portland spokesperson on Monday said city officials are exploring the policy implications of Friday’s verdict, an attorney for the dead motorcyclist’s family said he believes the verdict will force officials to increase the safety of intersections across the city. Scott Kocher, an attorney for Coe’s family, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he expects the city to restrict street parking at an untold number of corners — or else face the prospect of more lawsuits from seriously injured people.
“This is a known problem,” Kocher said. “The city has avoided this issue for decades. They have just buried their heads in the sand.”
Driver thought he was all clear, then went for it
At issue was the May 2019 afternoon that 46-year-old Elijah Coe was riding his motorcycle home from his job as executive chef at Vibrant Table, a Portland catering company. He was traveling east on East Burnside Street when the driver of a Saab, 33-year-old Eric Whitfield, made a left turn onto Burnside from a side street, Southeast 17th Avenue.
Whitfield also was on his way home from work, a job at an auto body repair shop.
Surveillance video from a nearby business captured Whitfield at a full stop before turning onto Burnside, the east-west arterial that cuts a miles-long line across the city. Whitfield said he thought he was all clear to go.
But by the time Whitfield saw Coe coming, it was too late. Coe managed to swerve to avoid the Saab but ended up crashing into an oncoming car.
The helmet Coe was wearing flew off, and he suffered fractures to his skull, spine and pelvis. He died five days later at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, leaving behind a wife and 17-year-old son.
The following year, his family filed suit — not only against the Saab’s driver, but against the city of Portland, as well. And so began a six-year legal battle, with the Coe family’s attorneys arguing that a parked Subaru Forester with its nose nudged up against an unmarked crosswalk allowed drivers waiting at the 17th Avenue stop sign only 63 to 108 feet of visibility. They argued that given the 30 mph speed limit, safety standards called for 200 feet of visibility.
The family’s attorneys also argued that the city had violated state law, which requires a 20-foot buffer zone between the marked or unmarked crosswalks and the first parked car.
In 2022, more than two years after Coe’s family filed suit, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Shelley Russell threw out the case, ruling that Coe’s family didn’t have grounds to hold the city liable. But in 2025, the Oregon Court of Appeals disagreed and said the lawsuit could go to trial.
Speed and faulty driving to blame, city says
During a two-week trial before Multnomah County Circuit Judge Cheryl Albrecht, attorneys for Coe’s family and Whitfield contended the city had created a dangerous intersection and done nothing to change it despite indications of trouble over the years.
But Caroline Turco, a chief deputy attorney for the city, argued that Coe and Whitfield were entirely to blame: Whitfield for turning into oncoming traffic and Coe for traveling faster than the 30 mph speed limit and failing to secure his helmet adequately.
The Coe family’s attorneys pointed to experts, including a Portland Police Bureau reconstructionist, who used surveillance videos from two nearby businesses to calculate Coe’s speed at between 30 mph and 35 mph. The city called an expert who said Coe was going 40 mph.
Since the crash, the city has lowered the speed limit along this stretch of Burnside to 20 mph, as well as on many other streets, as part of its citywide Vision Zero campaign to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries. But even before the crash, Turco told jurors, the city was working to improve safety on Burnside by reducing its speed limit from 35 mph to 30 mph.
“The city did not ignore this location,” Turco said. “The city sought to make it safe.”
Turco also said that although the city has created a one-car-length buffer zone at the corner where the Subaru impeded Whitfield’s view of Coe, it doesn’t have the money to install “No Parking” signs on every corner where parked cars block sightlines.
But Kocher, the attorney for Coe’s family, alleged that the city knew its parking practices were endangering lives. For instance, in 2010, a representative from a nearby daycare center emailed the city, saying it was very difficult for drivers pulling onto Burnside to tell if the path was clear, Kocher said.
“There are actually reports from people in the city of Portland saying, ‘Our street is not safe. Please do something,’” Kocher told jurors.
In the end, the jury found Coe wasn’t at fault for his death. But the city was 70% responsible, and Whitfield was 30% at fault.
Motorcyclist’s family to receive ‘fraction’ of the verdict
Although the city is on the hook for about $3.6 million of the $5.1 million verdict, state law designed to limit government liability will reduce the city’s payout to about $1.45 million.
Meanwhile, tort claim limits on wrongful death cases will cap the amount Whitfield owes to about $1.1 million.
But if he can’t pay, the city would be responsible for his portion, meaning that the most Coe’s family could receive from the verdict is $1.45 million.
Kocher said nearly $220,000 will go to Coe’s medical bills. He said much of the rest will go to paying for six years of appellate and trial lawyers, experts’ fees and other trial costs, and that will leave “a fraction” for the family. But he said from the beginning, improving safety citywide had been one of the lawsuit’s goals.
Heather Beasley, the lawyer representing Whitfield, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she, too, hopes the city takes notice of the verdict and increases drivers’ sightlines in what she believes are dangerous intersections.
During trial, Beasley had argued that if the city had prohibited the Subaru from parking close to the curb, it would have been “a game changer.”
“Mr. Coe would have seen Mr. Whitfield,” Beasley told jurors. “He could have seen, ‘Is he looking at me? Is he not looking at me? Is he going to go? Is he going to stay?’”
“They didn’t have that,” Beasley continued, “because of one parked car.”
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