False Account of Girl’s Death Leads to Suit : An estranged relationship between a mother and her daughter seemingly ends in sorrow, until the “deceased” suddenly walks in the door of their tiny home.

Maria J. Gonzalez says she is still haunted by the phone call that is every parent’s nightmare.

She hadn’t seen her daughter in several months. Seventeen-year-old Maria Elena ran away after a family dispute last spring and had avoided contact with her mother. Then Gonzalez left for Mexico to nurse her sick father, and when she returned three weeks later, her daughter’s best friend called, crying.

“She said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me (Maria Elena) was dead?’ ” Gonzalez, 37, recalled.

As it turned out, the report of Maria Elena’s premature death was itself premature.

The friend explained that the Jordan High School newspaper, the Bulldog City Chronicle, had published an obituary with Maria Elena’s photo in the final 1993 issue.

There, on Page 6 with two other obituaries, was her daughter’s freshman identification picture with the brief words about her “death”: “Maria J. (sic) Gonzalez, born in Mexico on May 16, 1976, at the age of 16.” The obituary did not say when the girl died but said she was a victim of street violence.

Gonzalez panicked when she couldn’t immediately reach relatives who could confirm the information. She said she was in such shock that she didn’t recognize her three other children or the relatives who gathered at the house when they heard the news.

Then young Maria Elena walked in the door of their tiny home on Garden View Avenue. Gonzalez said she thought she was seeing a ghost.

“Her hands got all tangled up and she couldn’t move,” Maria Elena, now 18, said of her mother. “She kept saying, ‘It’s not her. It’s not her.’ Then she just hugged me for a long time.”

The school newspaper staff had made a mistake. A female student had died, but it wasn’t Maria Elena, who was attending South Gate High after she ran away.

Gonzalez filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District on March 30, alleging that the school was negligent in its supervision of the newspaper and caused “infliction of emotional distress.” Gonzalez’s attorney, John Watson, has asked the school district to pay $300,000 in damages.

“The students should have been adequately supervised if they’re going to publish information in a newspaper,” Watson said. “They have the duty to make sure the information is correct.”

Jordan High School administrators wouldn’t comment on the case. Attorneys for the school district said they had not yet reviewed the complaint. “We certainly believe this is an unfortunate incident, but we do not believe that the lawsuit for damages in this case is appropriate so we will have no other recourse but to defend ourselves,” said Rich Mason, district special counsel.

Jordan’s principal at the time of the incident, Grace B. Strauther, sent a letter apologizing for the “heartache and hardship” the mistake had caused.

“Appropriate members of our staff and administration have been severely counseled on the importance of checking not only the accuracy of facts but also of pictures. . . ,” the letter said. “This type of error will never happen again at this school.” Strauther, who has since been promoted to a district administration position, promised to print a retraction.

Ron Apperson, district legal adviser, said a retraction would be “the appropriate legal correction.” But Gonzalez said the school never sent her a copy of the retraction. The district’s legal department said it is unclear whether one has been published since the paper resumed publication in September.

Maria Elena is now completing a program outside the school district to become a medical assistant.

Gonzalez said the trauma she experienced continues, and Maria Elena still worries about her mother.

“Sometimes she starts crying by herself,” Maria Elena said, “and I ask her what’s wrong and she says, ‘Nothing.’ ”