Justices to Decide if County Can Be Sued Over Courthouse Killing

The state Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether Los Angeles County can be sued over failing to provide courthouse security measures that might have prevented a fatal shooting.

The justices granted the county’s request to review a lower-court ruling that allowed a negligence suit by the family of Eileen Zelig, who was shot to death by her husband on a courthouse escalator before a scheduled divorce hearing in 1995.

Chief Justice Ronald George and Justices Joyce Kennard, Marvin Baxter, Ming Chin and Janice Rogers Brown voted to review the case. Courthouse security has been a particular concern for George, who has lobbied successfully to increase state funding for local court renovation.

Harry Zelig, 52, a physician from Woodland Hills, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 29 years to life in prison. The couple’s youngest daughter, Lisa, 6, saw the shooting; she and her brother and sister are plaintiffs in the suit against the county.

Judges at the downtown courthouse had talked for years about getting weapons-detecting equipment but had no funding for it at the time of the shooting. The county bought metal detectors for its courthouses two years later, but they weren’t installed in the downtown courthouse until this July.

The court’s presiding judge at the time, Gary Klausner, was quoted as calling the shooting “an accident waiting to happen.”

The children’s lawsuit was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias, who said the county had no notice of any particular danger at the courthouse and had no duty to install metal detectors or other security devices.

But the 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled in July that the county might have had a duty to take protective measures--particularly in family law cases, which are “generally volatile”--if there was evidence of previous violence at other county courthouses.