A Rochester motorcyclist was awarded an $18.5 million settlement in Lewis County Superior Court Wednesday in a lawsuit filed after he was critically injured in an April 2015 crash in a construction zone on Interstate 5 in Centralia.

The settlement is likely the largest settlement of its kind from the Washington State Department of Transportation in Lewis County’s history, said attorney Kirk Bernard, of Bernard Law Group, PLLC in Seattle, representing Scott Bliss.

“It’s an extraordinary amount of money,” said Superior Court Judge James Lawler Wednesday, before he approved the settlement. “Of course, there were extraordinary injuries and that makes sense.”

The lawsuit, filed in June 2015, also named WSDOT’s contractor, Scarsella Bros. Inc, and the dump truck driver, Wesley Snelson.

Bernard spoke about

A mother whose oldest son was killed in motorcyle accident on April 1 has filed a wrongful death suit. Deborah Nazari, 41, of Shiloh has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Patricia Schantz.

Schantz, 48, is now demanding a jury trial.

Douglas Landers, 23, of O’Fallon was killed in the motorcycle accident on Carlyle Avenue (Illinois 161) near Shiloh Station Road outside of Belleville. Schantz, who was driving a Nissan Armada, was not injured in the head-on crash that occurred at approximately 6 a.m.

On April 28, Nazari was appointed by St. Clair County 20th Judicial Circuit Court executor of her son’s estate, and filed a lawsuit against Schantz. Nazari is being represented by Belleville attorney Bruce R. Cook, of Cook, Ysursa, Bartholomew, Brauer