O.C. Child Care Center Is Cleared in Deaths of 2

A Costa Mesa child care center was not liable for the deaths of two children killed in 1999 when a man deliberately rammed his car through a fence and onto the playground, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Thursday.

Families of the victims argued that the center should have known that the 4-foot-high chain-link fence around the curbside playground was inadequate to protect the children. The state high court disagreed, noting that there was no evidence of previous criminal acts at the school.

The child care center “could not have been expected to create a fortress to protect the children or to take further steps to deter or hinder a vicious murderer,” Justice Ming Chin wrote for the court.

The decision made Thursday strengthened legal protections for property owners who are sued by victims of crime. The court said the preschool could not possibly have foreseen that someone would intentionally drive a car into the playground.

The ruling overturned a lower court decision that had permitted the parents of the slain children, Brandon Weiner, 3, and Sierra Soto, 4, to sue the Southcoast Early Childhood Learning Center and the property owner for negligence.

The parents cited a series of accidents that had occurred previously at the site as evidence that the school was on notice that the fence was inadequate. In one of the accidents, a driverless mail truck had gone through the fence at 5 mph, but no one was injured. The property owner said the fence complied with building and safety regulations.

The children were killed by Steven Abrams, then a 39-year-old salesman, who accelerated his Cadillac Coupe de Ville through the fence on the afternoon of May 3, 1999.

Abrams told police he wanted to execute children because he was angry about being spurned by a woman who once lived nearby.

“The foreseeability of a perpetrator’s committing premeditated murder against the children was impossible to anticipate,” Chin wrote, “and the particular criminal conduct so outrageous and bizarre that it could not have been anticipated under any circumstances.”

Abrams was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In addition to the children who died, four others and a teacher’s aide were injured.

John P. McKay, who represented the First Baptist Church of Costa Mesa, which owns the school site, said he was pleased with the ruling.

“If the plaintiffs had prevailed on their theory, every landlord of every school would be on notice that a chain-link fence isn’t sufficient to keep out criminal acts,” McKay said.

Gary L. Green, who defended the school in the case, said the school also was a victim of the crime.

“This was simply not the type of situation that a tort system is designed to address,” Green said. “This was a bizarre criminal act beyond the imagination.”

Federico C. Sayre, representing the parents of the children, said the lawsuit did accomplish something, however.

“After we sued them, they put up a wall, which would have protected the children,” Sayre said.