Right to Sue Parole Officer Is Sought : Justice: State Supreme Court hears arguments in a pivotal case. At issue is a victim’s right to seek redress against those who fail to warn of danger.

The state Supreme Court was asked Monday to allow a parole officer to be sued for allegedly assuring a woman she was in no danger just before she was killed by a paroled murderer who had threatened her life.

The lawyer for survivors of a San Jose woman told the justices that the parole agent’s “grossly negligent” assurances had lulled the victim into a false sense of security.

The parolee, released after serving 12 years for the slaying of his wife, had told the agent he intended to kill the woman, with whom he had been romantically involved, argued attorney Cliff Weingus of San Francisco.

Nonetheless, Weingus said, the parole agent subsequently told the woman: “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. He’s not going to come looking for you.”

“It was foreseeable the woman would rely on (the parole officer’s) assurances,” Weingus said. “His remarks carried the imprimatur of the authority of the state.”

But Deputy Atty. Gen. Wayman M. Robertson argued that the parole agent could not be held legally responsible for the woman’s death. The officer had no legal duty to warn the woman and could not have reasonably envisioned her murder, he said.

Besides, Robertson noted, the victim previously had been threatened and assaulted by the parolee. “She already was aware of the risk,” he said.

The arguments were heard in a pivotal case that could make it easier for victims of violent threats to sue persons who fail to warn them of the potential for danger. A decision is due within 90 days.

In past rulings, the justices have permitted such suits only in limited circumstances--for example, when a psychiatrist failed to alert the target of threats by a patient. Generally, law enforcement officials have been protected from being sued over crimes committed by parolees.

In a brief filed with the court, the 18,000-member California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. warned that a ruling allowing a suit against the agent would interfere with the broad discretion that authorities need to perform their duties.

Parole officers, the association said, would never know when a good-faith action involving a parolee might later subject them to personal liability if it resulted in death or injury. Because virtually any parolee may commit violence, officials would be encouraged to revoke paroles as the only means of guarding against liability, the group said.

In the case before the court, Grace Morales was kidnaped and shot to death in April, 1986, by Napoleon Johnson, a parolee with whom she had been romantically involved before ending their relationship.

Morales’ surviving children charged in a subsequent wrongful-death suit that Johnson told his parole officer, Michael Ybarra, that he was angry over being abandoned by Morales and would kill her if he found her. Ybarra had Johnson temporarily committed to a mental health facility.

But later, after Johnson’s release from the facility, Ybarra telephoned Morales in an attempt to reconcile her with Johnson, telling her that Johnson was still in love with her and asking her whether she really wanted to break up with Johnson, the suit said. As a result of the agent’s assurances, Morales failed to take steps to protect herself, the survivors charged.

A Santa Clara Superior Court judge dismissed the claim, and in July, 1988, a state Court of Appeal in San Jose agreed that Ybarra could not be held liable, finding that there was no “demonstrably close connection” between Ybarra’s ill-advised assurances and Morales’ death.