PROVO, Utah – A Utah Supreme Court battle stemming from Gabby Petito's 2021 murder could "pave the way" for Charlie Kirk's family to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit over alleged security failures surrounding his assassination at a Turning Point USA event last year, according to an attorney involved in the appeal."Right now, Kirk's claims, if filed, would likely be dismissed, like Gabby Petito's claims were dismissed on that basis," said Brian Stewart, an attorney for the family of Gabby Petito who is working on the appeal involving their own wrongful death claim in the Beehive State."We would need the Utah Supreme Court to overturn Tiede to pave the way for Charlie Kirk's family to proceed."Tiede refers to a 1996 Utah Supreme Court decision upholding the dismissal of a lawsuit over the 1990 murders of Kay Tiede and her mother Beth Potts, two Texas women killed by a pair of men on parole who attacked their family after walking away from a halfway house, Deseret News reported at the time.KIRK FAMILY MAY HAVE PATH AROUND ARCHAIC LAW SHIELDING GOV'T IN POLICE CHIEF’S ALLEGED ‘GOT YOU COVERED’ TEXTThis undated portrait of Gabby Petito served as the inspiration for a mural painted of her in her hometown of Blue Point, New York.
(Family of Gabby Petito)The decision upheld the constitutionality of the state's governmental immunity law as applied to wrongful death claims, which Stewart said are barred against governmental entities when the injury arises from a third-party assault or battery.Central to the Petito appeal is the argument that Utah's Constitution prohibits lawmakers from limiting or eliminating the right to recover for wrongful death.KIRK FAMILY HAS POWERFUL EVIDENCE — BUT UTAH LAW COULD DERAIL WRONGFUL DEATH CASE: EXPERTSHer family's lawsuit against the Moab Police Department alleged that officers were negligent in their response to a traffic stop involving Brian Laundrie two weeks before he killed her.A judge dismissed the case on governmental immu...