County Not Liable for Death at Courthouse

State and local governments are not financially liable for unforeseen shootings and other crimes in public buildings, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday.

Ruling in a 1995 Los Angeles courthouse murder, the state high court said government is not responsible for random acts of violence it could not have anticipated or provoked.

The decision was a loss for the three children of Eileen Zelig, who was fatally shot in the chest by her former husband, Dr. Harry Zelig, at the county’s civil courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

“The risk of injury to Eileen at the hands of her ex-husband was at least as great outside the courthouse,” Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote for the court. “He could just as readily have shot Eileen as she picked up one of her children from a public or private school.”

The children, including a 6-year-old girl who witnessed the slaying, sued Los Angeles County on the grounds that it failed to provide reasonable security inside the courthouse. Women’s legal groups and advocates for victims of domestic violence sided with the children.

At the time of the shooting, the civil courthouse had not installed metal detectors because the county said it could not afford to pay for guards to operate them. A county spokeswoman said Monday that all courthouses in Los Angeles County now have metal detectors.

The case, Zelig vs. County of Los Angeles, S081791, will now be dismissed because the children of the victim failed to show there was any defect in the courthouse that contributed to the murder, the ruling said.

Governments can be liable for third-party crimes only if it is shown that their property was maintained in a dangerous condition, the court said.

It suggested that a victim mugged in an airport parking lot could sue a government airport authority if the garage had inadequate lighting or had been the site of repeated criminal violence. “In the present case, plaintiffs are unable to point to any defective aspect of the purely physical condition of the property,” George wrote.

Steven J. Renick, a private attorney who represented the county in the case, said there had been two shootings at the courthouse in the 20 years before Zelig’s murder--one involving a security guard and the other involving two litigants.

“If you have a history of violent criminal activity, just like any private landlords, the municipality or the state would have to respond to it,” Renick said.

Eileen and Harry Zelig were in the courthouse on Sept. 1, 1995, for a hearing on spousal and child support. The couple had separated in October 1993, and Harry Zelig had failed to comply with court orders on financial support.

Victim Had Feared Her Ex-Husband

On at least three occasions before her murder, Eileen Zelig had informed the bailiff in one department of the family court that she feared her former husband and believed he might attack her in the courthouse.

The victim had given the bailiff and a judge in the family court copies of letters and telephone messages in which Harry Zelig threatened to kill her. She also had obtained restraining orders against him.

On the day of the shooting, the couple met in a family law hearing room at the court and were directed to go downstairs to a different room.

As she reached the second floor of the building, Harry Zelig pulled out a loaded .38-caliber revolver from his clothing and shot his ex-wife in the chest at point-blank range. Their daughter, Lisa, then 6, watched the shooting. Eileen Zelig, 40, died soon thereafter.

Harry Zelig, a Woodland Hills physician, was later sentenced to 29 years to life for the murder. The children are being reared by grandparents.

Edward M. Medvene, who represented the children in the lawsuit, said Monday’s decision “compounds the tragedy of their mother’s death.”

“It seems a rush to judgment to preclude somebody from being able to present their best case on why, if they go into a courthouse, they shouldn’t be protected,” Medvene said.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge had thrown out the suit, but a state Court of Appeal later reinstated it.

“She had to go to the courthouse to get [child and spousal] support,” Medvene said. “She had no choice but to use that courthouse.”

Renick said the Supreme Court decision reinstates what the law had been before the Court of Appeal’s ruling.

To prevail in the kind of lawsuit filed by the Zelig children, “there has to be an actual defect in the property,” Renick said. “A defect is not simply that someone else committed a crime.”

He said the appeals court probably sided with the children in part because of the nature of the crime.

“This was just a horrible, terrible incident,” the lawyer for the county said. “It was one of those things that just make you cringe.”