The family of slain Utah Corrections Lt. Fred House has settled with the final defendant in a wrongful-death lawsuit against the maker and seller of his bullet-resistant vest.
Ann House and her three children came to a confidential agreement Thursday with Lawco Police Supply, the now-defunct Ogden company that sold the vest her husband was wearing when he was killed in 1988. The day before, the House family settled with the vest maker, Armour of America Inc. of Los Angeles, for an undisclosed amount."It's been 11 years," said Ann House, 44. "We've all already had enough."
The Houses' suit claimed Lawco did not provide the best possible vest, which the Corrections Department would have wanted House to wear, but a second-rate model.
Lawco attorney Tim Dunn said he considered the agreement a victory.
"They finally took our settlement offer," Dunn said. "We had to convince them that their evidence was weak, and I thought we put on an extraordinarily good case, and we hadn't even begun our defense."
Fred House was a dog handler and a member of the Corrections Department SWAT team when he was shot on Jan. 28, 1988 after a 13-day siege of the polygamous Singer-Swapp clan's farm near Marion, about 40 miles east of Salt Lake City.
House wore a Kevlar vest with a ceramic chest plate insert to protect from rifle fire. The fatal bullet, fired from a .30-caliber rifle by Timothy Singer, grazed the non-ceramic edge of the plate, pierced the soft armor Kevlar and tore House's aorta.
The plaintiffs contended Lawco didn't keep a promise to provide the best vests to the Corrections Department, which bought 10 from Lawco and Armour in 1981.
Armour of America and Lawco argued no vest can stop all rounds and House knew those limitations as a skilled SWAT team member and weapons instructor. They also said the labeling on the vest was sufficient.
"Twenty-five million or $25 wouldn't have brought Fred back," Ann House said. "The real injustice was these guys were sold vests and told a bunch of stories and they relied on these vests to protect their lives."