Christo’s Attorney Questions if Umbrella Struck Woman

A lawyer for environmental artist Christo said Tuesday he has been shown no proof that a woman killed near one of the artist’s giant umbrellas in Tejon pass was actually struck by the umbrella, which official reports blame for the death.

“There is no one who has told us that it hit her,” said Scott Hodes, a Chicago-based lawyer. “There are some people who are not certain that the umbrella hit her at all,” he said, referring to witnesses he said he had interviewed.

The Kern County Sheriff’s Department and coroner have attributed the death of Lori Keevil-Mathews, 33, of Camarillo to injuries suffered when she was hit by one of the 488-pound umbrellas, which was torn loose from its moorings alongside a county road by high winds Saturday. The death caused Christo to order an immediate closing of the 3,100 umbrellas--1,760 in Tejon Pass and the remainder in Japan--five days before the scheduled end of the unusual two-nation art project.

The Kern County Sheriff’s Department report on the incident, based in part on a statement by Mathews’ husband, Michael Mathews, said she was “struck by the umbrella and pronounced dead at the scene.”

The Kern County coroner’s report attributed death to multiple injuries, including a broken neck and crushing facial injuries.

“The report we had says she was struck by the umbrella from behind and then pushed forward into the rocks,” Jim Malouf, chief coroner’s investigator, said Tuesday. Hodes, who has been Christo’s lawyer for 27 years, declined to speculate what could have caused the injuries, if not the umbrella. He said he had not yet spoken to Mathews’ husband and that his investigation was continuing.

“Our position is that we are not responsible,” he said. “This was an unexpected act of God, an act of nature.”

Authorities on civil law have said that the fact that the wind apparently caused the death would not necessarily free Christo from liability for the death.

“An act of God in no means rules out liability,” said Prof. Gary Schwartz, a tort law specialist at UCLA law school.

Mathews’ funeral will be held today at 11:30 a.m. at the Pierce Brothers Griffin Mortuary in Camarillo.