Widow Settles for $2.5 Million in ’89 Ramona Shooting Death

The widow of a Mexican national who was shot and killed while trying to extinguish an engine fire reached a settlement Thursday with an insurance company that will pay her and her children more than $2.5 million over the next 40 years.

Attorneys for both sides said they agreed to the settlement, which will cost Allstate Insurance Co. $825,000, rather than appealing a jury’s decision holding the dead man’s neighbor and another man responsible for more than $1.1 million in damages.

Benjamin Gomez, 29, was shot and killed Feb. 17, 1989, after his truck caught fire and broke down. While Gomez attempted to extinguish the blaze, several of his friends ran onto the Ramona ranch of Richard Miller to get a fire extinguisher and buckets of water from Miller’s wife, said Richard Kilborne IV, attorney for Gomez’s family.

Miller and Thomas Costa, who had been drinking, saw the men racing up the hill and opened fire, Kilborne said. Miller and Costa claimed that they fired over the men’s heads, Kilborne said. But one of the bullets hit Gomez in the chest, killing him, Kilborne said.

Miller and Costa were not prosecuted. However, a jury in December awarded Rosario Gomez and her four children $1.1 million in a wrongful-death suit, ruling that the two men were equally liable for damages.

Kilborne has sharply criticized Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller’s decision not to file charges against the pair. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office has said the case was not prosecutable based on the evidence available.

Kilborne said that Allstate refused to pay Rosario Gomez $300,000, the maximum award available under Miller’s insurance policy. Kilborne said Allstate offered just $25,000 in an attempt to take advantage of Gomez’s status as a Mexican national who spoke no English and had few resources.

Kilborne claimed that Allstate settled after the jury verdict because “they recognized they were going to be liable for the judgment, plus interest, and they were staring down the barrel of a lawsuit for intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

Rosario and Ben Gomez had purchased a home in Ramona and were studying to become U.S. citizens, Kilborne said. Since her husband’s death, Gomez has lost the home, but will purchase a new one in Ramona with proceeds from the settlement, he said.

The attorney who represented Allstate during the trial could not be reached for comment Thursday. But Peter Klee, who handled the appeal on Allstate’s behalf and negotiated the settlement, said his client had reasonable grounds for success on appeal.

According to Kilborne, most of $400,000 of the settlement will be spent to buy Gomez an annuity that will give her monthly payments for the next 40 years. The rest will be distributed to her in lump sums every five years.

The remaining $425,000 will pay for Kilborne’s $318,000 in attorney’s fees and Gomez’s new home, Kilborne said.

Superior Court Judge Richard Murphy approved the settlement Thursday, Kilborne said.