Lawsuit Against Deputy Reinstated

The U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit against one of three Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who were accused in civil actions of killing a Van Nuys woman after a night of heavy drinking and sex in 1988, an attorney for the woman’s family said Saturday.

U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer in March, 1991, granted a summary judgment in favor of Deputies Robert Mallon, Robert Waters and Michael Turner in a wrongful death claim filed by Edward Postma, the dead woman’s father.

The deputies had argued that there was no evidence to link them to the killing.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this week reversed Pfaelzer’s ruling and reinstated Postma’s lawsuit against one of the deputies, Robert Mallon, said Stephen Yagman, an attorney for Linda Postma, Edward Postma’s widow, who continued the lawsuit following his death.

The ruling means the case against Mallon could go to trial before next summer, Yagman said.

Catherine Braley, 26, was found beaten and strangled in a Van Nuys parking lot Jan. 15, 1988. The previous night she had gone to a nearby bar where the three off-duty deputies had gone after a fellow deputy’s funeral.

Sheriff’s officials declined to comment on the reinstatement of the lawsuit and an attorney for Mallon could not be reached for comment.