Oakland pays $15,000 to settle lawsuit over Jean Quan crash

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan takes questions from the media at City Hall in Oakland, Calif. on Monday, June 9, 2014, a day after she was involved in a traffic collision in West Oakland. The other driver who was involved said that Quan was talking on her cell phone and ran a red light. Quan said Monday that she was not talking on her cell phone and that she will let the police report determine if she ran the red light. less Oakland Mayor Jean Quan takes questions from the media at City Hall in Oakland, Calif. on Monday, June 9, 2014, a day after she was involved in a traffic collision in West Oakland. The other driver who was ... more Photo: Tim Hussin, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Tim Hussin, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Oakland pays $15,000 to settle lawsuit over Jean Quan crash 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

The city of Oakland has agreed to pay $15,000 to a motorist who claimed she was injured last year after she was involved in a collision with a vehicle driven by then-Mayor Jean Quan.

During a special closed session Tuesday, the Oakland City Council settled a lawsuit brought by Lakisha Renee Lovely, who said Quan failed to stop or slow down at a red light while driving her city-leased Lexus through a busy intersection at 26th and Market streets in West Oakland on June 8, 2014.

A representative from the city attorney’s office announced the terms of the settlement at the council meeting. Lovely sued both Quan and the city of Oakland for injuries to her head, back and neck, and for lost wages caused by the accident, said Oakland Supervising Attorney Doryanna Moreno.

In the court complaint, Lovely said that Quan was talking on a cell phone while speeding through the intersection. She said the former mayor put her and a 14-year-old passenger in her Nissan “at high risk of injury or death.”

Quan’s actions “show a conscious disregard of the rights and safety of others, and is contemptible, vile and despicable,” the complaint read.

The ex-mayor was not available for comment Wednesday. In court filings, she said she wasn’t culpable for Lovely’s injuries.

“I thought I had the green light,” Quan said in a police report. Cell phone records show she made several calls around the time of the accident, at 5:30 p.m., though Quan said in the police report that she was not on the phone when she crashed.

The crash happened roughly a week after Quan was featured on KRON-TV’s popular “People Behaving Badly” segment, when viewers submitted photos of the mayor talking on her cell phone while driving.

Lovely invoked those photos in her complaint, saying that Quan “had been seen using a cell phone while driving, and admitted to the public that using a cell phone is dangerous to others.”

Lovely could not be reached for comment, and her attorney, Charles Kelly, declined to comment.

Though Quan insisted that she had not been on the phone at the time of the crash, she pledged to have staff members drive her from then on.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan