Questions linger in wrongful death suit

SANDPOINT — A local author is reviving her claim that Bonner County Commissioner Lewis Rich perjured himself in a wrongful death case before being elected to public office.

“He should be impeached,” said Bonnie Thompson, the plaintiff in the wrongful death suit in which Rich was called as a witness.

Thompson accuses Rich of giving contradictory testimony during the protracted court proceedings. Rich rejects the perjury accusation and said if it were valid claim, he would have been prosecuted.

“I know as sure as I’m sitting here if perjury were involved, I would have gotten communication from the court or her attorney, which I never got,” said Rich.

It is no coincidence that Thompson is renewing the allegation as Rich seeks election to his second term as the District 3 commissioner. Rich, a Republican, faces Democratic candidate Mel Davis on Tuesday.

The wrongful death case stemmed from a chain-reaction crash in front of Rich’s automotive repair business at dusk on Highway 200 in January 1997.

Lily May Sharp, a former Gold Creek resident, told Idaho State Police she was westbound on the highway when she hit a patch of black ice, which caused her Chevrolet Suburban to spin out. Sharp’s sport utility vehicle, which was pulling a U-Haul trailer, came to rest on the north side of the highway facing east.

At some point after the spinout, Thompson’s former husband, Glenn Warren, was also driving westbound in a 1970 Volkswagen bus when he came upon the crash scene and collided with an eastbound motorist who was making her way through the initial crash scene.

Warren, 49, never regain consciousness and died at a Spokane, Wash., hospital 10 days later.

Thompson sued Sharp for negligence, arguing that the collision would not have happened if she had not jackknifed on the highway. Sharp also neglected to activate the hazard signals on the SUV, which Thompson contends would have given her husband adequate warning that trouble lay ahead.

There was no shortage of baffling developments during the protracted proceedings, according to court documents.

Thompson’s trial counsel inexplicably allowed Sharp’s videotaped deposition to serve as her trial testimony, which meant that Sharp couldn’t be cross examined. Sharp accused her own attorney during the deposition of convincing her to falsely state when her spinout occurred, apparently to shorten the span of time separating the crashes.

The plaintiff argued at trial that Warren executed an evasive turning maneuver to avoid colliding with Sharp’s vehicle, while the defense maintained that Warren merely hit the same patch of ice that tripped up Sharp.

A jury decided in 2001 in favor of the defendant, finding that Sharp was innocent of negligence. The plaintiffs moved for a new trial on the grounds that Sharp and Rich gave conflicting testimony in the case.

Thompson’s attorney emphasized that neither Rich nor Sharp indicated that Warren’s loss of control to be the cause of the crash in their initial statements, but on the stand Rich testified that Warren was “fishtailing” out of control as he approached the scene. Rich also told the defense’s crash reconstruction expert he did not see Warren’s VW until it passed Sharp’s vehicle.

In 2002, 1st District Judge James Michaud granted the motion for a new trial. Michaud ruled that the initial statements of Sharp and Rich did not square with their later statements, which made their remarks “not believable.”

The defense appealed Michaud’s ruling to the Idaho Supreme Court, which remanded it back to the district court level for further review.

The matter of a new trial was taken up again in 2005, but Michaud declined to grant a new trial. He faulted both Warren and Sharp for not having snow tires and ruled that evidence tended to support both parties’ theories of what happened on the evening in question.

“The court, having independently weighed the conflicting evidence, concludes that the facts concerning the cause of this accident cannot be satisfactorily resolved,” Michaud said in his ruling.

Thompson, faced with $70,000 of her late husband’s medical debt, an order to cover Sharp’s legal costs and other financial hardships, said she was forced into bankruptcy and had no choice but to abandon the litigation.

But Thompson said she will forever be of the opinion that justice was not served in the case.

“I got the rug pulled out from under me,” said Thompson.

Thompson asked Sandpoint Police to investigate Rich for perjury, but Chief Mark Lockwood concluded that no motive for perjury could be developed and nothing could be found to indicate Rich would have gained anything by fabricating testimony, according to the police report. Prosecutor Phil Robinson declined to charge Rich because it would have been “virtually impossible to prove perjury beyond a reasonable doubt.

“That’s because a thorough and legitimate investigation was not conducted,” Thompson said, pointing out that Rich was the only person who was questioned.

Rich insists his testimony was truthful and to the best of his recollection. He  suspects Thompson keeps pressing her claim because she did not prevail in the lawsuit.

“I’ve got nothing to hide. I have no reason to mess with testimony and I’ve got nothing against Bonnie,” said Rich.