Officials of a defunct Utah wilderness program for troubled teens have agreed to pay $345,000 to the parents of a California girl who died 18 months ago while participating in the program.
Summit Quest will pay Robert and Catherine Sutton $345,000 in exchange for the Sutton's withdrawal of a lawsuit filed against the group in federal court.Michelle Sutton, 15, collapsed May 9, 1990, in the Arizona desert during her first week in the Summit Quest program. At the time of Michelle's death, Summit Quest was based in St. George.
The Suttons, who live in Pleasanton, Calif., filed a lawsuit in October 1990, against Summit Quest, Dixie Medical Center, and several doctors associated with the program.
Michelle Sutton collapsed after what the lawsuit called a "forced march" over and down Mount Dellembach in the Arizona desert. An autopsy revealed that the girl died of dehydration.
Depositions of the other four youths in the program were taken a week before Summit Quest agreed to settle out of court, said Thomas Burton, attorney for the Suttons.
The deposition of Andrea Dawes, Michelle's best friend, revealed that in the hours before she died, Michelle begged for water but was not allowed to have any.
"I remember she asked - she like whispered it to me. So I asked Ruth (a Summit Quest counselor) if I could give her some water and Ruth said `no.' And I wanted to give her some and she had none. It looked like she was dying for water. The look in her face was like `please!' " Dawes said in her deposition.
Rescuers did not reach Michelle's body and the Summit Quest group until 20 hours after Michelle's death. Program participants grouped around Michelle's body and lit fires to attract attention because they had no radios to summon help.
The $345,000 to be paid to the Suttons will be taken from a $500,000 insurance policy obtained by Summit Quest, Burton said.
"We think Michelle's life was worth a lot more than that," Burton said. "But based on past Utah court decisions, the state has not believed that teenagers were highly valued. So in that sense, it's a great victory. But in another sense we feel that more was owed."
The Suttons agreed to settle the case because Summit Quest was using funds from the insurance policy to cover their defense costs, Burton said. The Suttons only get $345,000 from the $500,000 policy because defense costs included costly depositions taken recently in several parts of the country.
"Even if we had gone to trial and won, there wouldn't have been any more money (available) and probably less," Burton said.
Catherine Sutton said the settlement is a public vindication of her daughter. Following Michelle's death, Summit Quest operator Gayle Palmer claimed Michelle had died of a drug overdose. When the first autopsy showed no drugs in Michelle's system, Palmer requested a second autopsy. The second autopsy, too, was clean.
Palmer's remarks about Michelle after the girl's death was "a cruelty that caused us unnecessary emotional pain," Catherine Sutton said.
"This is finally a statement that what happened to Michelle was definitely wrong and someone is accepting responsibility and liability. I feel that them giving us that amount of money is an acceptance of responsibility," she said. "As a mother, I won't lay down and let these people hurt us any more."
The Suttons will still pursue their claims against Dixie Medical Center, psychologist Richard Y. Moody, counselor V. Gerald Thamert, and three physicians affiliated with the Dixie Medical Center: Dr. Ronald A. Larsen, Dr. Steven Van Norman and Dr. Robert O'Brien.
The counselors and physicians were each affiliated with Summit Quest at the time of Michelle's death, Burton said. They wrote letters to prospective participants saying they provided medical and psychological care to the youngsters enrolled in the program, Burton said. The Suttons' insurance company would not have paid Michelle's $13,900 enrollment fee for Summit Quest without those written assurances.
Summit Quest was operating on a 90-day provisional license in Utah at the time of Michelle Sutton's death. Utah refused to issue the group a permanent license when it failed to meet new standards set by the state for wilderness youth programs, Burton said.
Nevada also denied Summit Quest a license to operate in that state.