State officials who knew escaped convicts might kill a mother and daughter in 1990 but did nothing about it are immune from lawsuit, the Utah Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Citing the state's Government Immunity Act, the high court upheld the dismissal of a civil lawsuit filed by the husband and son-in-law of two women killed in a cabin near Coalville six years ago.Rolf Tiede sued the state over the Christmas-time murders of his wife, Kaye, 51, and her mother, Beth Potts, 72, by two convicts who walked away from the Orange Street Community Center eight days earlier.
Von L. Taylor and Edward Deli have been convicted of the crimes. A jury sentenced Taylor, the triggerman, to die by lethal injection, while Deli was given life in prison.
Tiede said the Department of Corrections also caused the death of Potts and his wife because officials failed to recapture the two men even though they knew where they were.
The duo was at large for more than a week when they shot and killed the women and kidnapped Tiede's daughters.
Tiede himself was shot once in the head and set on fire when he returned to the cabin. He survived and called police, who later captured Taylor, and Deli and rescued the two daughters following a high-speed chase near Kamas.
The morning of the killings and kidnapping, Taylor called another halfway house and talked to an inmate about his plans to kill the owners of the cabin he was hiding inside. Although inmate Scott Manley recounted the phone conversation to officials, they did nothing. Potts and Tiede's wife were shot at 3:30 that afternoon.
After the murder trials, Tiede filed the civil lawsuit seeking damages for the state's failure to act. Third District Judge Frank G. Noel subsequently dismissed the case, saying the government is immune under the act.
The Supreme Court upheld the dismissal, although somewhat reluctantly.
"We sympathize with the Tiedes for the tragedy they have suffered," wrote Justice Richard C. Howe in the decision released Thursday. "Nevertheless, we are bound by the Legislature's policy decisions and are constrained by the immunity act to deny recovery against the state," he wrote.
The decision is the latest in a series protecting state officials from lawsuit. Previously, the justices have upheld dismissals of civil lawsuits involving:
- A parolee who, while on a state-supervised work program, raped a former employer's daughter.
- School district employees who failed to prevent the beating of a high student by fellow classmates.
- A cab driver under state contract who molested a deaf student.
- Police officers who allegedly beat and wrongfully arrested a woman.
Two lawmakers tried to change the law in 1994 but were rebuffed by an "intense lobbying effort," said Sen. Stephen Rees, R-Salt Lake.
He and Democratic Sen. Blaze Wharton, D-Murray, introduced a bill that would have partially done away with government immunity, particularly in cases involving assault or death.
"The argument has always been up there that it would cost government too much money . . . that's not necessarily the case," Wharton said Thursday. "Something's got the change. The way it is now, it's a travesty."
Wharton said he will raise the issue again at the next legislative session.