Wallace v. City of Los Angeles
| Decision Date | 28 January 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. BO45271,BO45271 |
| Parties | Lula WALLACE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES, et al., Defendants and Respondents. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
James K. Hahn, City Atty., Thomas C. Hokinson, Senior Asst. City Atty., and Richard M. Helgeson, for defendants and respondents.
Plaintiff Lula Wallace ("plaintiff") appeals from a judgment of nonsuit entered in her action against defendant the City of Los Angeles ("the City") and Detective Donald Richards ("Detective Richards"). Detective Richards is a member of the City's police department. The sole cause of action alleged against defendants was for the negligent wrongful death of plaintiff's eighteen-year-old daughter, Demetria Wallace ("Demetria"). Demetria was shot and killed days before she was to give testimony as a witness for the prosecution at a preliminary hearing in a murder case. In granting the defendants' motion for nonsuit, the trial court ruled that defendants had no duty to protect Demetria in any manner after Demetria agreed to be a prosecution witness.
This is a conclusion which we firmly reject. Based on the evidence produced at trial, we find that defendants did owe Demetria a duty of care in their relationship with her. We further find that defendants have no governmental immunity from liability to plaintiff. Therefore the judgment of nonsuit must be reversed.
Plaintiff filed this action on January 2, 1985. Jury trial commenced July 3, 1989. After the completion of the evidence and both parties had rested, defendants moved for a judgment of nonsuit. That motion was granted and the case was taken away from the jury. An order of dismissal was filed July 10, 1989. After plaintiff's motion for a new trial was denied, she then filed this timely appeal.
The story behind this action commenced when Demetria, (a high school honors graduate and a student at Los Angeles City College studying to become a California Highway Patrol Officer), and her boyfriend decided to be good citizens and report a crime to the police after they discovered the lifeless body of cab driver Foley ("Foley"). Demetria's subsequent "good citizen" decisions cost her life. As the trial court disposed of plaintiff's case by granting a non-suit, we review in some detail the evidence that the court found insufficient to support a prima facie claim.
Defendant Detective Richards testified as plaintiff's witness under Evidence Code section 776. He stated he had been with the Los Angeles Police Department since December 1970 and, on May 26, 1983, he was working as a detective. At approximately 10:30 p.m. on that day, he was called to investigate a homicide that occurred in an alley near the intersection of Vermont and Vernon in the City of Los Angeles.
Upon arriving at the crime scene, he spoke with Demetria and her boyfriend, Dennis McQuarie. According to Detective Richards, Demetria and McQuarie were in the dental repair office where McQuarie worked when they heard two gunshots in the alley around 9:30 p.m. About five or ten minutes later they decided to leave the office; they exited out the rear door. That door leads into the abovementioned alley. They saw a car in the office's parking lot which should not have been there. McQuarie looked into the car but could not see anything. He obtained a flashlight and shining it into the car, he saw Foley's body. At that point McQuarie telephoned the police and Demetria waited at the rear door.
Detective Richards interviewed a third person who had heard the gunshots, Anthony Flowers. Mr. Flowers's backyard abuts the alley and he was in that yard when the shots were fired. He saw a black male, approximately 6 feet tall, running in the alley. When shown a photo display folder, Flowers tentatively identified an Anthony Harris as the person he had seen running in the alley. Harris was investigated for a connection to the Foley murder.
Carl Slaughter worked with victim Foley. Slaughter told Detective Richards that on the night Foley was murdered, Foley took a call to go to 950 West 48 th Street. A paper in Foley's cab confirmed that that address was Foley's last taxi call. Richards testified that Slaughter described the house on West 48th Street as a "dope pad." This house was directly across the street from where plaintiff and Demetria lived. Working with the narcotics division of the police department, Richards got a list of people who had been arrested at the "rock house." A person by the name of Grant Christon was on that list. Christon fit the description given by Mr. Flowers of the person he saw running down the alley on the night Foley was killed. So did two other males on the list. The three men became possible suspects in the Foley murder case. Later, one of the residents of the rock house told Detective Richards that Grant Christon was present at the house on May 26, 1983, the day Foley was murdered. Christon did not actually live at that house.
On July 13, 1983, Detective Hudson took an anonymous phone call from a male. The caller stated that Grant Christon was the person who murdered Foley and that Christon had been involved in past violent crimes. The caller stated he would not come forward unless prosecution of Christon was assured. Detective Hudson gave this information to Detective Richards. Two days later, Richards spoke with Detective Crostley who told him that he (Crostley) considered Christon a possible suspect in another murder case. Additionally, Crostley told Richards that another detective had gotten an arrest warrant for Christon for yet another murder; the victim in that murder was named Lamont Norwood.
Grant Christon was stopped in his vehicle on August 5, 1983 for violating the Vehicle Code. During the stop the officers discovered he was carrying a .38 Smith and Wesson handgun. Detective Richards was told about the arrest. Knowing that Foley had been killed with a .38 caliber handgun, Richards obtained the gun taken from Grant Christon and the three bullets recovered from the Foley murder to see if they had been fired from that gun. The ballistics comparisons showed that those three bullets were fired from the gun taken from Christon. However, the gun was a stolen gun and the true owner of the gun was sure it had still been in his possession at the time Foley was murdered. Thus, at that point in time, the district attorney's office was not willing to file charges against Grant Christon for the murder of Foley. The deputy district attorney handling the matter felt there was insufficient evidence against Christon and the case needed further investigation.
On August 29, 1983, Detective Richards went to plaintiff's home to question Demetria. He talked to her about an hour. Two police officers were with him. According to Richards, none of Demetria's family was home at that time. He testified that Demetria told him that on the night of Foley's murder, when her boyfriend was calling the police and she was waiting at the back door, she saw Grant Christon walking in the alley. He stopped and looked at Foley's car for about 5 seconds. A chain link fence separated Christon from the car. Then Christon left the scene. Demetria recognized Christon because she had gone to school with him.
Based on the information she gave him, Richards wrote out a statement for Demetria and she signed it. After she signed the statement, Richards told Demetria that she would probably be a witness in a case against Grant Christon. He also told her about a witness protection program and how if a witness is threatened, the witness will be relocated. Richards testified that at that point in time, he did not consider Grant Christon to be a danger to the community but if he had so considered Christon, he would have informed Demetria because of her position as potential witness in a future case against Christon. Richards stated he did not tell Demetria that Grant Christon was a suspect in two other murders. Nor did he tell her that Christon had been threatening witnesses in other murder investigations; but he stated he would have told her about Christon's threats to any other witnesses if he had known about such threats because he would have felt obligated to help protect her from any potential harm. Evidence produced by plaintiff later in the trial called into question the veracity of Richards's assertion that he did not know Grant Christon had been threatening witnesses and did not believe Christon was a danger to the community.
On August 31, 1983, two days after Detective Richards spoke with Demetria at her home, Grant Christon was arrested for the murder of Foley. The district attorney filed charges the next day. (At some point in time, Christon was also arrested for the murder of Lamont Norwood.)
On September 15, 1983, Detective Richards was informed that an anonymous caller had telephoned plaintiff's home that day to say that if Demetria testified regarding Grant Christon, plaintiff's home would be blown up. Richards testified that he called plaintiff and advised her to contact him if the threats continued and he "would take action to relocate [Demetria]." 1 Richards testified he did not recall plaintiff being upset about the threat when he talked to her. After he spoke with plaintiff about the threat, he called Grant Christon's attorney to tell him about it so that the attorney could get Christon to stop the threats. Richards believed that the threat was coming from Christon or from Christon's family or friends. Christon was in jail on the day the threat was made to plaintiff.
When speaking with plaintiff about the threatening call, Detective Richards did not tell plain...
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