$10 Million Wrongful Death Judgment for Parents of Nurse Murdered by LAPD Detective in 1986
After trial: The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in a published opinion in January 2018. Lazarus is serving a prison sentence of 27 years to life, and we could not confirm whether any of the judgment has been paid.
Won by Taylor & Ring, LLP.
Nels and Loretta Rasmussen sued Stephanie Lazarus, the former Los Angeles police detective convicted of murdering their daughter Sherri in 1986. After a bench trial the court entered a $10 million wrongful death judgment for the parents. The Court of Appeal affirmed in a published opinion, rejecting Lazarus's argument that the suit had been filed too early.
What happened
Sherri Rasmussen, a 29-year-old nurse, was killed in her Van Nuys home on February 24, 1986, a few months after her wedding. She was struck on the head and shot three times in the chest, and the scene was staged to look like a burglary. Her parents, Nels and Loretta Rasmussen, told police she had been stalked by her husband's former girlfriend, a Los Angeles Police Department officer. The investigation instead followed a burglary theory and went cold.
In 2005, DNA from a bite mark on Sherri's body was tested and came back female. The LAPD reopened the case in 2009 and focused on Stephanie Lazarus, by then a detective with the department. Investigators secretly collected a DNA sample from her that matched the bite mark. She was arrested in June 2009 and charged with the murder.
The Rasmussens filed a wrongful death action against Lazarus on July 26, 2010, while the criminal case was still pending. Lazarus answered in February 2011 and raised the general two-year statute of limitations, but she did not claim the suit was premature. On March 8, 2012, a jury convicted her of Sherri's murder, and she was sentenced to 27 years to life.
Four years later, in April 2016, Lazarus moved to dismiss the civil case. Her argument was that the special limitation period for suits against convicted felons (Code of Civil Procedure section 340.3) runs for one year after the conviction, and the Rasmussens had sued before the conviction rather than after it. The trial court denied the motion.
The case then went to a bench trial. Both sides waived a jury and stipulated that Lazarus had been convicted of the murder. Little evidence was needed: the Rasmussens testified about their loss, and Lazarus pressed her prematurity argument. The court again rejected it, reasoning that the parents should not lose their claim for having sued as soon as their daughter's killer was identified. It entered judgment for the Rasmussens against Lazarus for $10 million. Taylor & Ring, with attorneys John C. Taylor and Sonya Ostovar, represented the plaintiffs.
Lazarus appealed. In a published opinion issued in January 2018 (Rasmussen v. Lazarus, 19 Cal.App.5th 48), the Court of Appeal affirmed on three grounds. She had waived the defense by waiting four years to raise it. Any prematurity had been cured by her conviction before she raised it. And the equities favored the Rasmussens, who would otherwise have been left to wait until Lazarus finished parole to sue again.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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