Judge Will Dismiss Part of Suit Over Woman’s Death

A federal judge said Monday she will dismiss a $10-million lawsuit that alleged three Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were responsible for the death of a Van Nuys woman after an evening of drinking.

However, U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer said that a wrongful death claim also contained in the lawsuit could be refiled in Superior Court.

Because the deputies had not acted in their official capacity as law enforcement officers while they were with Catherine Braley, Pfaelzer said she will grant the deputies’ request to dismiss a civil rights claim filed by Braley’s mother, Mary Postma of Van Nuys.

Braley’s beaten and strangled body was found the morning of Jan. 15, 1988, in a parking lot five blocks from a Van Nuys bar called The Hunter, where she had been drinking for several hours.

The sheriff’s deputies named in the lawsuit, Robert Mallon, Robert Waters and Mike Turner, were among several off-duty deputies who had gone to the bar following the funeral of a fellow deputy. Braley, 26, left the bar at the same time as the three deputies, according to the lawsuit.

All three deputies have denied involvement in Braley’s death, and Los Angeles police say none of the deputies are suspects in the case.

According to court depositions, Waters and Turner went their separate ways after leaving the bar. Mallon said that he and Braley left in his unmarked county car and drove to a nearby spot where they had consensual sex in the car.

He said in a deposition that Braley then got out of the car and drunkenly walked away.

In order to keep her lawsuit in federal court, Postma needed to present evidence that the deputies had acted “under color of law,” thereby depriving Braley of her civil rights.

But Pfaelzer, without addressing whether the deputies were responsible for Braley’s death, said the lawsuit’s allegations did not contain evidence that the off-duty deputies attempted to exercise their law enforcement authority.