Bay Area Rapid Transit District v. Superior Court (1995) · DecisionDepot

Bay Area Rapid Transit District v. Superior Court

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Court of Appeal Sep 11, 1995 No. A069328Published

Before: King

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Holding. The court held that the plaintiffs' Bane Act causes of action must be dismissed because two were not fairly reflected in the government tort claim and the third failed for lack of standing as the Bane Act does not provide for derivative liability.

Issues

Whether Bane Act causes of action were barred for failure to include them in the government tort claim.
Whether parents have standing to bring a Bane Act claim for the violation of their own rights resulting from the death of their child.

Disposition. remanded with instructions to sustain the demurrer

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“In the unpublished portion of this opinion we hold that two of the three Bane Act causes of action were not fairly reflected in the Halls’ government tort claim. In the published portion of this opinion we hold that the third Bane Act cause of action is defeated by a lack of standing.”

“The Bane Act is simply not a wrongful death provision. It clearly provides for a personal cause of action for the victim of a hate crime.”

Synopsis

[Opinion certified for partial publication.*]

Opinion

KING, J.

In November 1992, 19-year-old Jerrold Hall, who was Black, was shot and killed by a White police officer employed by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). The underlying litigation was commenced against BART by Mr. Hall’s parents, Cornelius and Rose Mary Hall (the Halls), who seek damages for wrongful death and for civil rights violations made actionable by the Bane Act (Civ. Code, § 52.1), an anti-hate-crime statute. In the unpublished portion of this opinion we hold that two of the three Bane Act causes of action were not fairly reflected in the Halls’ government tort claim. In the published portion of this opinion we hold that the third Bane Act cause of action is defeated by a lack of standing. The Halls’ two causes of action for wrongful death are not affected by our ruling.

Petitioners, defendants below, are BART, BART Police Officer Richard Crabtree, and another BART employee. (Except when we are clearly referring to the individual actions of Crabtree, we will refer to petitioners in the

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collective as BART.) BART demurred to the three Bane Act causes of action in the Halls’ first amended complaint. The trial court overruled the demurrer, and BART seeks review by extraordinary writ. We issued the alternative writ and heard oral argument. We grant the requested relief.

I. Procedural Background and Facts

For the purposes of this writ proceeding, BART’s demurrer provisionally admits the facts well pleaded in the Halls’ first amended complaint.

(Blank

Kirwan

(1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318 [216 Cal.Rptr. 718, 703 P.2d 58].)

The complaint alleges that BART Officer Crabtree responded to a robbery call at the Hayward BART station. Jerrold Hall and a companion were waiting for a bus nearby. Allegedly, Crabtree got out of his car with his shotgun and his police dog, chambered a shell, and ordered Hall and his companion to lie on the ground. The complaint further alleges that Crabtree struck Hall twice with the shotgun; Hall turned and walked away. Crabtree then fired two shots at Hall; the second struck him in the back of the head, killing him.

Bay Area Rapid Transit District v. Superior Court

AI Brief

Synopsis

KING, J.

I. Procedural Background and Facts

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II. Discussion

III. Disposition

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