$3.5 Million Settlement For Family Whose Son Was Crushed To Death At Lassen Volcanic National Park

Published Date

February 20, 2014

The federal government, while acknowledging no wrongdoing, has settled for $3.5 million a lawsuit brought by a California family whose 9-year-old son died in an accident at Lassen Volcanic National Park.

The settlement brought to an end a legal battle that raised evidence of a coverup by Lassen Volcanic officials and which drew harsh criticism on the National Park Service by a federal judge.

Tommy Botell, 9, was crushed to death and his sister, "K.B.," injured when a retaining wall along the Lassen Peak Trail that they were sitting on collapsed on July 29, 2009. The children's parents filed a wrongful death and personal injury lawsuit against the federal government in June 2011.

During some of the early stages of the case, a U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory G. Hollows concluded that Lassen Volcanic officials "purposely destroyed material evidence" in the case. In his ruling, the magistrate said Lassen Volcanic Superintendent Darlene Koontz violated Park Service policies by ordering the retaining wall to be dismantled before a special agent for the agency could inspect it as part of an investigation into the boy's death.

While park officials maintainted that was done for the public's safety, a federal judge later adopted the magistrate's findings and recommendations.

Word of the settlement surfaced Wednesday. In a statement released by their attorneys, the Botells said:

“This was a horrific event that no family should have to endure. Our grief and loss were compounded by the refusal of the Park Service to accept responsibility and to act responsibly during the lawsuit.”

National Park Service officials had no immediate comment today when asked about the settlement.

The Lassen Peak Trail runs 2.5 miles one-way to the top of the 10,457-foot peak. Much of the mountain is barren, lacking of trees and other vegetation that could help stabilize the flanks. The trail begins at the peak parking area at an elevation of 8,500 feet and zig-zags across this steep and rocky landscape to the summit. There were 50-60 people hiking the trail when the wall collapsed, and some came to the family's aid.

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Comments

Submitted by ecbuck on February 21, 2014 - 6:29pm.

Thanks Rick, the wiki pretty well describes the situation.

And no it wasn't a court judgement, it was a settlement. The family threatened them and they payed up to make the threat go away.

Submitted by Rick B. on February 21, 2014 - 8:19pm.

Well, you just have a merry old time explaining your personal opinion to the parents of the dead kid.

Submitted by Perpetual Seasonal on February 21, 2014 - 9:08pm.

I believe a major reason we have this is because there are so many that have their axes to grind over local problems with the NPS and they grasp at anything at all to attack the agency. This leads to a bunker mentality. That is why we have this culture in the NPS that feels it must either rally to the side of or hush up/ignore this kind of thing.

Many see this as some kind of Trojan horse to bash the NPS, not an internal cancer that is worse than anything from the outside.

With this kind of unchecked culture of corruption eventually some really big media frenzy event will happen and the agency won't be able to just brush it aside "without admitting wrong doing"

Submitted by Perpetual Seasonal on February 22, 2014 - 8:34pm.

One aspect of this that's just occurred to me is that Superintendent Koontz may not be the only one responsible for destroying evidence. In the Judges ruling the actions of Lassen's Chief Ranger John Roth seems pretty close to obstruction of justice. One park employee who was given responsibility for gathering documents requested by the Botell's attorneys testified that Roth took those documents into a meeting with Koontz then after the meeting shredded some of them before they were delivered to the Botell's attorneys.

It seems to me that any future criminal case this ranger is involved in that goes to trial the first thing the defense attorneys will do is to bring up Roth's destruction of evidence in the Botell case. So by trying to cover it's rear end and keep this guy in a law enforcement position they may we be jeopardizing future prosecutions.

Submitted by Rick B. on February 22, 2014 - 10:49pm.

I think you're right in this, and it will all come down - who to charge, what to charge them with, etc - all come down to the decision and discretion of the appropriate prosecutor. Probably federal, rather than local?

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