Is an Orange County group home that treats abused and neglected kids responsible for the demise of a 15-year-old girl who ran away from the facility and six days later while in hiding died of a methamphetamine overdose?
The answer is no, according to a California Court of Appeal, which has upheld a superior court ruling awarding pre-trial, summary judgment to New Alternatives, Inc.
The loser in the litigation is Anthony Gallardo, whose daughter Erica died after the County of Orange removed her parental custody and placed her in long-term government care in 2013.
She decided to flee and eventually encountered Jeffrey Peurrung, a Buena Park sex offender obsessed with runaway minors, who supplied her with the fatal dose of narcotics.
Peurrung, who had no ties to New Alternatives, was eventually convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the case.
But the victim’s father believed New Alternatives and county officials were also responsible for Erica’s death and sued in 2015, claiming negligent supervision and care “for [his daughter] during her custody, which allowed her to run away and ultimately caused her death.”
Attorneys for New Alternatives argued that the organization had no duty to protect the teenager from Peurrung and that it was legally prohibited from keeping her locked in their facility.
In March 2017, Superior Court Judge Martha K. Gooding agreed with Gallardo’s contention that his daughter shouldn’t have left the facility but observed that the organization couldn’t legally prevent her from doing so.
Last week, a three-justice panel at the state appellate court—Thomas M. Goethals, William Bedsworth and Eileen C. Moore—agreed with Gooding, stating that New Alternatives can’t be held responsible for the “unforeseen criminal acts of third parties.”
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
They should held responsible. She was under care this facility when she meet sex offenders. If the can’t take care of what is the purpose taking her from her father?
They county paid for her funeral so yes they were responsible.
The father has not been notified of this hearing and the judgment. Wow I’m her septmom and we have been waiting to hear back from the attorney
It is now June and the father still has not heard from his attorney. Maybe if he was a celebrity client he would of heard something by now. Sadly I found this article simply by using Google and notified the father.
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Jeffrey Peurrung is a predator, he is a con…and he’s good st it. He’s like able, he know how to work others, I personally know Jeffrey oh so well. The is a slug of a man, he is a waste of the food water and the air he breaths…he’s still filling women girls and kids with drugs for his sick sexual desires. And in case you didn’t read everything. There was mention of a child as young as 4 years old with Jeffrey having involvement with that child. It doesn’t elaborate what he’d done to this child… Jeffrey is now living in Tucson AZ still giving out drugs for his sexual wants and desires. I tells the officers that police his where about that he is homeless but that’s not true. He just doesn’t want others whom he live around to be informed by getting a letter saying that he’s now living in their neighborhood…watch out Tucson and Officers don’t be such dummies.