BOISE, Idaho (Legal Newsline) – Idaho will have to defend itself from allegations failures in its online court filing system caused the suicide of Bryan Von Lossberg.
The state Supreme Court on March 15 reversed a lower court ruling in a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit brought by Von Lossberg’s parents against the State and State Police. Von Lossberg shot himself with an unlawfully purchased handgun, but the trial court said Idaho was immune from liability under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
That immunity does not apply to Idaho, the state Supreme Court found. The Brady Act prohibits the sale of firearms to individuals who have been committed to a mental institution.
A provision provides immunity to “a local government” and employees of federal, state and local governments “responsible for providing information to the national instant criminal background check system.”
“Neither a ‘state government’ nor the ‘federal government’ are listed as immune entities,” Justice Greg Moeller wrote, finding Idaho and its state police do not qualify as local governments.
“In drafting the Brady Act, Congress was certainly aware of the general governmental distinctions used to categorize the types of government employees entitled to immunity, but it only granted immunity to one of those types of government entities: local government. Neither state nor federal governments were included.”
Von Lossberg struggled with mental illness after it emerged in his mid-20s. Meridian police took him into protective custody on Nov. 11, 2016, and he was hospitalized for a mental health crisis.
A week later, he was involuntarily placed in the custody of the state Department of Health and Welfare after a magistrate court found him “gravely disabled” because of his mental illness.
While at State Hospital South, he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and autism spectrum disorder. He spent almost an entire month at the hospital.
In February 2017, he purchased a semi-automatic pistol from a pawnshop and claimed on the background check form that he had never been committed for mental health treatment. The pawnshop completed its background check, which did not show his order of commitment from the previous November.
The Von Lossbergs allege that order was not received from the Ada County clerk because of an error in Idaho’s Odyssey iCourt filing system.
Von Lossberg called his father after the sale of the gun, claiming to have it pointed under his chin. His parents tried for 45 minutes to talk him out of suicide and began an hours-long search to find him.
Von Lossberg ultimately shot himself in a shed behind his home. The case will continue, without the immunity to which the State thought it was entitled under the Brady Act.