IOWA CITY — Iowa will pay $400,000 to the family of a troubled 16-year-old boy who escaped a social worker’s car and committed suicide by walking into oncoming interstate traffic, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.



The State Appeals Board approved the payment Monday to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of Denver Parvin, of Cedar Rapids, and released settlement documents in response to a request by the AP.



On March 8, 2010, a Department of Human Services social worker was driving Parvin in a state vehicle from his home to be placed at a youth shelter in Independence in accordance with a juvenile court order. Parvin threatened to jump out, prompting the driver to pull over on the side of Interstate 380 near Urbana, about 20 miles north of Cedar Rapids, and call 911 for help completing the trip.



The DHS worker told the 911 dispatcher that Parvin got out of the car and was walking south alongside the northbound interstate, went underneath an overpass and stopped in a ditch before walking out into traffic. As deputies were arriving minutes later to try to corral him, Parvin was struck by a car and killed. An autopsy later ruled the cause of death suicide. The driver of the car that hit him, a 36-year-old man from Nashua, was not injured.



Parvin’s lawsuit, filed in Linn County in May on behalf of his mother and father, contended the DHS employee did not follow department policy for transporting potentially dangerous persons when he failed to move him in a law enforcement vehicle. It said that DHS was aware that Parvin had made threats to harm himself and previously escaped other employees.