Court Rejects Case of Anorexic Ballerina

A judge has thrown out a wrongful-death lawsuit brought against the Boston Ballet by a woman who claimed her anorexic daughter died because ballet officials pressured her to remain thin.

Patricia Harrington filed suit in June after the death of Heidi Guenther. When she died in 1997, the 22-year-old was 5-foot-3 and weighed 93 pounds.

Suffolk Superior Court Justice Elizabeth M. Fahey, in dismissing the suit, ruled there was no “combination of facts” that could prove the ballet knew or should have known that Guenther suffered from the eating disorder.