Spokane County and a security firm for the courthouse must answer allegations that they wrongfully let an elderly man freeze to death outside the courthouse seven years ago. 84-year old Kay Mita died on the courthouse steps on a cold November night in 2007, his body covered with two inches of snow.
He had reported to the courthouse earlier in the day as a potential juror, but at some point, had gone outside to look for his car in the parking lot.
When his worried son that evening called the Spokane Crime Reporting Center, a service the county provides for non-emergency calls, including missing persons, he was assured that a law enforcement officer would be dispatched to look for Kay.
But the Center allegedly failed to contact the sheriff's dispatch office.
In the meantime, security guards had seen Kay outside in the cold, shivering, sluggish and unable to communicate intelligibly. They seated him next to a heater in the lobby, but at 9 p.m., they told him he had to leave and locked the courthouse doors.
The Mita family sued the county and the security firm, Guardsmark, for wrongful death based on negligence.
But both the county and the security company got the suit tossed out on grounds they owed Mita no special duty of care.
Washington State appeals court judges, however, put the case back in court, ruling that the Crime Reporting Center promise to call in police help, plus Mita's age and obvious distress in the subfreezing weather created a special relationship under the law.
The judges were careful not to rule on the disputed issues of negligence and Mita's physical condition, but they agreed the suit should not have been summarily dismissed.