Spokane County not negligent in freezing death of 84-year-old, jury finds

A jury ruled Thursday that Spokane County was not negligent in the death of an 84-year-old juror, who apparently lost his way and froze to death on the steps of the courthouse in 2007.

The jury did, however, ask that the county update its policies on when and how a person should be determined “at-risk.”

“I think that’s an indication of how serious they took their jobs as jurors,” said Spokane attorney Heather Yakely, who defended the county. “One of the things the jurors told me was to talk to the communications center to see if they can do more to make it as professional and effective and successful as possible.”

The verdict ends an intense legal battle that started more than nine years ago, when Shizuko Mita walked into attorney Richard Eymann’s office and asked him to determine how her husband showed up for jury duty on Nov. 26, 2007, and ended up freezing to death at the courthouse he was trying to serve.

“I always respect the jury,” Eymann said. “We had a very difficult uphill battle with the law. We’re disappointed, but I certainly hope the county wakes up to the several problems that led to not only Mr. Mita’s death, but the continuing policy with regards to at-risk people.”

During the trial, Mita’s family contended that a Spokane County emergency operator twice gave assurances to the man’s son, Floyd Mita, that law enforcement would search for him that night. However, that recording was destroyed after 90 days, as was policy at the time, the county said.

The Crime Check operator, Kelli Johnson, said she did not remember what was said during the conversations, though she doubted she would have given such assurances, because she did not determine an 84-year-old in freezing weather to be at risk.

In the end, the case came down to the word of a distraught son looking for his father and a Crime Check operator with three years of experience at the time, Mita family attorney John Allison said.

“The law can be difficult for the plaintiffs when challenging a governmental entity,” he said. “We lost the case and then fought to get it back.”

Superior Court Judge Patrick Monasmith threw out the claims against the county and its contract guards, the company Guardsmark, in a pair of rulings in November 2012 and January 2013, but an appeals court resurrected the case in June 2014, saying Monasmith had not addressed central questions in his rulings. Shizuko Mita, who was married to Kay for more than 50 years, died weeks before the appeals court ruling at age 89, leaving their son to pursue the lawsuit.

Monasmith, who typically serves on the Superior Court for Ferry, Pend Oreille and Stevens counties, again dismissed Guardsmark from the litigation in November 2015, but he allowed the claims against the county to proceed to trial. Guardsmark no longer provides security for the courthouse; the county now contracts with a firm called Allied Universal.

“I know it’s been a long, difficult case for everybody,” Monasmith said after the verdict.

Even though the jury sided with the county, the jury foreman read a statement after the verdict that tempered the verdict with advice.

“Just to put this out there, in regards to the policy and procedure guidelines: We believe as a whole that the special factors must be more well defined by the state, by the county themselves,” the foreman said. “Additionally, a public education campaign could be considered to be dispersed to better notify the differences between 911, missing persons or other emergency or nonemergency call centers.”

Kay Mita was the American-born son of Japanese immigrants who was sent with his family to an internment camp in Wyoming for three years during World War II. Mita then worked nearly four decades for Burlington Northern.

He told his family he was excited to serve his country when he received the jury summons in 2007. He arrived on Nov. 26 but never made it back to the jury assembly room after lunch.

Security guards recalled that Mita passed through their checkpoint several times during the day, and that he spent some time on a bench near the heater until the building was cleared at 5:30 p.m.

The building was reopened for a Gonzaga Law School session that evening, and Mita was allowed inside until the building closed at 9 p.m. When Mita was let in at night, a guard said he was very cold and spoke what the guard thought was a foreign language.

Before midnight, a janitor inside the courthouse saw Mita standing outside the building’s south doors. But the janitor was from Ukraine, spoke limited English and didn’t try to talk to him, according to court records.

Spokane County Medical Examiner Dr. Sally Aiken determined the cause of death as hypothermia and the manner of death as accidental. Mita also had scrapes on his hands that Eymann and Allison said were indications he was banging on doors of the courthouse in a failed attempt to get inside.

Allison characterized the county’s arguments as “evasion and denial. Ms. Yakely says it’s speculation whether police would have found Mr. Mita.”

“It’s 30 yards from where I stand right now. They could have got on the radio and walked around the building,” Allison said. “It would have taken minutes.”

Yakely pointed out that Johnson probably would have upgraded the call if Mr. Mita was suffering from dementia or was reported to have been the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“This is not to minimize the loss of a father or husband. This is about whether an assurance was given” to Floyd Mita that law enforcement would help find his father, she said. “A loss of life is always painful. But that does not mean it was anybody’s fault or that anybody did anything wrong.”