Victims Relying on Civil Court in Their Search for Justice

The O.J. Simpson case, when the families of his ex-wife and her friend were awarded $33.5 million from the former football legend for their wrongful deaths, really started the trend.

Now, lawyers say, it is becoming almost commonplace for victims of violent crimes to look beyond the criminal justice system for some measure of restitution. They seek monetary damages from their alleged attackers or a third party in civil lawsuits.

More recently, the relatives of Carole Sund, her daughter Juliana and family friend Silvina Pelosso, who were murdered last year during a trip to Yosemite National Park, have filed civil suits seeking to hold accountable the accused murderer and the motel where he worked as a handyman. Cary Stayner confessed to authorities that he killed the women after encountering them at Cedar Lodge, the El Portal motel that employed him.

And in Colorado, where two teenagers killed 13 people in April at Columbine High School before taking their own lives, some survivors are suing the parents of the gunmen and the people who supplied the students with the weapons.

The trick in such cases, of course, is actually collecting damages. Not many convicted criminals languishing in prison have substantial assets that a judge can seize.

Simpson, found not guilty by jurors at his 1994 criminal trial, was later judged responsible for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in a civil case. I. Donald Weissman, a Woodland Hills litigator who has represented many crime victims, agrees that such civil cases can sometimes result in “an empty judgment.”

“The perpetrator is sitting there in jail, and you just hope one day he wins the lottery,” said Weissman, only half joking. “In recent years, courts generally have been more understanding of victims’ rights, but there are limits.”

Weissman and other lawyers say it is usually more promising for them to sue third parties whose negligence may have contributed to crimes--individuals like the owner of an apartment house where an assault, a murder or a rape has occurred if the premises have inadequate security.

Jeff Dion, an Arlington, Va., attorney who has helped organize a lawyers’ group to represent crime victims in civil courts, said nearly two-thirds of all judgments have been against third parties--”people who were in a position to prevent the crime and didn’t.”

“These are the owners of apartment houses, parking lots and the like,” Dion said. “They generally have deeper pockets than the criminal himself, and they also have insurance coverage.”

A leading case, said Dion, is that of a woman who was raped at gunpoint in the stairwell of a low-income Brooklyn housing project on the day after Christmas in 1992. After the assailant was arrested and pleaded guilty, the victim sued the New York City Housing Authority and was supported by neighbors who testified that locks on the outside doors seldom worked.

A jury in 1998 awarded her $3 million. New York housing officials have appealed the case.

Similarly, a 24-year-old rape victim in Southern California has sued the owners of Corona Pointe Apartments, one of the largest complexes in Riverside, on grounds of inadequate security. The victim’s lawyers alleged the owners knew a sexual predator was targeting young women, a charge the owners denied.

According to legal authorities, apartment owners can successfully defend themselves from such lawsuits if they show they have provided “reasonable security measures” to guard against on-site criminal activity. But if the owners learn of criminal activity and do nothing or fail to warn residents, they may be held liable for substantial damages.

Dion calls the Simpson case “a watershed event that brought a greater awareness on the part of victims that they have another remedy available to them besides the criminal justice system.”