Dead Man’s Family Settles With City

The family of a man who died in police custody from injuries suffered in a 1996 drunk-driving accident will receive $326,000 from the city and a private ambulance company under the terms of a settlement reached in federal court.

The city and its police department must pay more than $250,000 to the wife and daughters of Luther Thomas Allen as part of the court settlement, attorneys involved in the case said Monday. Gold Coast Ambulance Service, which was also named in the federal civil rights lawsuit, must pay the remainder.

“This illustrates a recognition on the part of the city of Oxnard that there was a serious violation of civil rights which led to the death--a death that was preventable,” said attorney Samuel Paz, who filed the lawsuit last year on behalf of Allen’s wife, Ada Jean Allen, and his two daughters, Phyllis Allen and Cynthia Davis.

“The initial comments the law enforcement officers made at the beginning was that it was Mr. Allen’s fault that he died,” Paz said. “They held everyone responsible but themselves. I would hope this case presents an indication that the city of Oxnard is going to take a closer look at what goes on in its public agencies.”

Oxnard’s city attorney and police chief could not be reached for comment.

Allen’s family also could not be reached for comment, but Paz said the family members were happy to be done with the case.

“It was extremely painful every time they went to a settlement conference or a deposition,” Paz said. “You could see the tears well up in their eyes--the loss was very evident and they wanted to get the case over with. I feel they settled prematurely because they wanted to get this behind them.”

Christoph Nettesheim, who represented Gold Coast Ambulance, said the settlement is “fair and equitable.” But he added, that “does not admit guilt on behalf of my client.”

Allen died Oct. 1, 1996, at St. John’s Regional Medical Center after an Oxnard police officer found him unconscious in his holding cell about three hours after he had been arrested.

The 55-year-old retired Port Hueneme naval base worker was driving his Ford pickup truck south on Ventura Road earlier that day when he failed to stop for a red light and rear-ended a Cadillac, causing a chain reaction of accidents, police said.

Paz said Gold Coast paramedics who responded to the accident were negligent in their care of Allen. He contends that although Allen had “huge lacerations across the side of his body, his shirt was ripped and his chest was crushed in--no one gave him any first aid at the scene.”

When Allen failed a sobriety test, he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. The tests indicated his blood-alcohol level to be more than four times the legal limit, according to police reports.

At the police station, Allen repeatedly complained of chest pains but declined numerous times to be taken to the hospital, police said. He was placed in a cell where he was checked every 10 minutes for approximately an hour before he was found unconscious about 7 p.m. He was pronounced dead at St. John’s Regional Medical Center within the hour.

According to an autopsy, Allen died of chest and abdominal injuries resulting from his accident, including a partial tear of the thoracic aorta, multiple rib fractures, a lacerated spleen and blood in the area between the lungs and heart.

A district attorney’s report released last January found that the Oxnard Police Department was not criminally liable in Allen’s death.

But Paz said that “under the law, they have an obligation to provide medical aid to people that are injured once they are in custody, and they simply failed to do so.”