The family of an autistic teenager who died after choking on food at a high school cafeteria has secured a $2 million settlement agreement that will change the way Palm Beach County schools operate — and could encourage other districts to do the same.

It’s a result that might demonstrate the difference an open-minded and creative approach could make in litigation, as plaintiffs attorneys Sia Baker-Barnes and Salesia V. Smith-Gordon employed a strategy that let them negotiate outside of state sovereign immunity damages caps.