Jury awards more than $13 million to ultramarathon athlete injured in fall on a Seattle sidewalk

June 22, 2024

A jury awarded $13.1 million to an ultramarathon athlete who was severely injured when she fell on a Seattle sidewalk in 2021.

Lesley Mettler Auld, 53, said that she will never run again and struggles to walk after the fall on a sidewalk in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. The professional fitness coach has completed numerous ultramarathons, which are races longer than the standard marathon distance of 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers), her lawyers said.

She fell on a stretch of sidewalk “perennially covered in water and algae”, according to her lawsuit. Other residents testified in court they had also fallen there. Mettler Auld severely damaged her quadriceps and required multiple surgeries. abc news