Murder victim Gabby Petito‘s family has filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Moab, Utah, police officers who responded to an altercation between her and her fiance on August 12, 2021, CBS News reported on Monday, August 8, 2022 (read story here).
She disappeared later that month, and her body was found at a Wyoming campground on September 19, 2021. It was subsequently established that her fiance, Brian Laundrie, strangled her. He committed suicide in November 2021.
During their interaction with the cops, Petito and Laundrie accused each other of assault, but neither wanted the other arrested. The police let them go separate ways.
The lawsuit claims the cops were negligent, and nitpicks their actions. “The Petito family attorneys also included [in their filing] stories from local newspapers that allege issues among the Moab Police Department. In one, several officers were accused of drinking with minors while on the job. None of the articles mention any of the officers named in the lawsuit,” CBS News says.
That’s irrelevant and won’t be admissible in a trial. Do I need to explain why? (1) Newspaper stories are not witnesses; they’re hearsay, can’t be cross-examined, and can contain reporting errors. (2) That story has nothing to do with the Petito-Laundrie incident. Holding someone liable requires specific acts of negligence, and showing a general pattern of slack policing doesn’t get you there. Even worse for the plaintiffs, that newspaper story doesn’t connect the drinking incident with the officers involved in the Petito-Laundrie incident.
And where’s the negligence? Arguing things could’ve been done better doesn’t establish negligence. In law, negligence is carelessly causing harm to someone else. A failure to act can be negligent in some circumstances, but only where a duty of care is owed.
But the really big hurdle in this case is a type of police immunity that says police don’t owe a duty of care to the general public. This means, for example, you can’t sue the police for not responding to a 911 call. They can be sued if a person in custody is hurt through their negligence; for example, if a handcuffed suspect is hit by a passing car. They can be sued for their own actions, e.g., false arrest. But the kind of faults and failures this lawsuit alleges, even if negligent on some level, aren’t actionable.
This police immunity has been criticized in law review articles and other legal commentary. There are legal thinkers who argue the rule should be changed. Bringing a high-profile case that garners a lot of public attention may be the best way to get appellate courts to revisit the rule and the reasoning behind it, although the facts of this case appear less than ideal for that purpose. Maybe that’s what the lawyers are trying to do here.
More likely the city’s insurers will offer a settlement to avoid the expenses of a trial and the risk of a large judgment, and the family will take it. Something is more than nothing, and maybe that’s all the lawyers are trying to get here.
By the way, they’re also suing the murderer’s parents. They want only $30,000 from them.