Judge tosses out Petito family’s lawsuit against Moab, but fight is likely not over
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Scott Lewis and Kade Garner, ABC4
MOAB, Utah (ABC4) — Can the family of murder victim Gabby Petito bring a wrongful death suit against the Moab Police Department for Gabby’s death? The answer, as of Wednesday, Nov. 20, is no — but the case is likely not over, and it could get highly complicated.
Utah 7th District Court Judge Don Torgerson granted the City of Moab’s request to dismiss the Petito family’s civil case this morning but noted his hands were tied by current state law in doing so. In short, Torgerson said the matter is too big for a district court to decide and that appeals courts would have to dig deeper to decide if the Petitos really have a case.
Torgerson had no choice but to grant the City of Moab’s request to dismiss the case based on the state’s existing governmental immunity laws, which protect certain employees from being sued. However, attorneys for the Petito family are digging deep into Utah’s legal history — going back even before Utah was a state — to show that law is flawed and should be overturned.
The Petitos are arguing that officers failed to protect Gabby during an August 2021 domestic abuse investigation. Eyewitnesses reported a fight between Gabby Petito and her fiancé Brian Laundrie. Ultimately, the responding officers took no action against Petito or Laundrie, letting them continue on their way. The next month in Wyoming, Laundrie killed Petito.
Torgerson actually sided with the Petitos on one point — noting that they may have made a strong argument showing a faulty investigation could be a contributing factor in Petito’s eventual murder. However, he agreed with City of Moab attorneys in noting that it couldn’t be the sole cause of her murder.
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Mitchell Stephens, the attorney defending the City of Moab, noted that Gabby Petito died 38 days after the domestic abuse incident 400 miles away in another state. Stephens argued it would be speculation that a faulty domestic abuse investigation led to Petito’s murder. That very speculation, he said, requires the court to side with the City of Moab under state law.
Stephens pointed to numerous cases in which Utah courts upheld immunity for government employees and said those cases, along with the 1965 Governmental Immunity Act of Utah (GIAU), make the Petito family’s case a moot point.
Attorney Judson Burton, who represented the Petitos at today’s hearing, said his team intends to show that Utah’s founders not only intended for wrongful death suits to be legal in Utah, they also never intended to shield governmental employees from civil suits. He argued that the cases Stephens quoted — and the GIAU itself — are based on weak cases.
However, those arguments, which could dig into the very fabric of Utah’s legal codes, will have to wait for another day.
“While the ruling today may feel like a setback, it was not unexpected,” the Petito family told ABC4.com on Wednesday. “We never anticipated that this would be an easy process and look forward to the Utah Supreme Court upholding the Utah Constitution’s original intent to preserve the right to recover for wrongful death claims under these circumstances. We remain committed to pursuing justice for Gabby and thank the many people who have continued to support us in that fight.”