Milton settles the Chang case, unanimously
The Chang case is over, and the last thing said about it was not about money. Milton's City Council voted unanimously Monday night to approve the $10 million settlement, agenda item 26-247, in a special called meeting at City Hall. Nine years and nine months after Joshua Chang died on Batesville Road, the largest legal threat in the city's history ends by consent rather than by verdict.
The terms are the ones we reported Friday. Milton pays $3,333,333.33 out of fund balance. GIRMA, the insurance pool that covers the city, pays $6,666,666.67. There is no admission of wrongdoing by anyone. Against that, the city had put its potential exposure at about $44.09 million, the $32.55 million judgment plus roughly $11.54 million in interest accruing since 2023. One resident spoke during the public comment period. The vote that followed was unanimous.
Then, during council discussion, Councilmember Carol Cookerly raised something the settlement documents do not mention: naming something in Milton after Joshua Chang. A bridge, or a right of way. No location was named and the idea is early. It is not a condition of the agreement and it holds nothing up.
Which is what makes it worth reporting. The vote was the expected end of a legal process. The naming is a council member saying out loud, in open session, that closing the financial file is not the same as closing the human one.
Joshua Chang would be 31 this year. He was a Yale senior on full scholarship, a Woodstock High salutatorian, an engineer who once built a bicycle out of bamboo, driving home to Canton for Thanksgiving. For nine years his name has appeared in this city's business almost entirely inside a case caption. A road sign would be a different kind of appearance. We will follow where it goes.
The agreement takes effect once every party signs, after which the parties jointly ask the Court of Appeals to take no further action. You can watch the full meeting on the city's YouTube channel, and our complete account of the case is here.
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