It seemed to be the outcome the community wanted, yet it inspired little celebration.
Two El Dorado County sheriff's deputies dropped their lawsuit Thursday against a 67-year-old Shingle Springs woman whose mentally ill son killed his father and then lost his life in an ensuing gunbattle with deputies last summer.
The action only reversed one tragedy from that day in June 2007, observers say, and it doesn't bring closure for a devastated family still trying to understand what happened.
"Suffice it to say, in the end, Greg Murphy and Jon Yaws did the right thing," said El Dorado County Supervisor Ron Briggs, who was one voice in the public outcry over the lawsuit.
Still, he said, "there's no victory here. … Nobody wins."
Attorneys representing Murphy, who has since left the Sheriff's Department and works for the El Dorado County District Attorney's Office, and Yaws filed paperwork Thursday to abandon their lawsuit seeking $38 million from Karen Mies, said Stephen Jaffe, the woman's San Francisco-based lawyer.
Murphy and Yaws, who had filed the lawsuit over injuries suffered during the gunfight, also gave up their right to refile the case, Jaffe said.
Mies declined to speak Thursday, but through her lawyer expressed gratitude for the groundswell of support from the community since the lawsuit's initiation.
But she and her son Jacob, who was home when his brother Eddie Mies lost control, won't have closure until the Sheriff's Department releases the results of their investigation into the gunfight, Jaffe said.
Today, Jaffe expects the county to turn down his written request for the report. He said he is likely to follow up with litigation.
"The Mies family – or what's left of it – still have a lot of questions about what happened that day," he said.
On June 5, 2007, Eddie Mies gunned down his father, Arthur, and then engaged deputies in an hourlong shootout at the Mies' Shingle Springs property.
Murphy and Yaws were shot in the gunbattle, as was Yaws' canine partner and a third deputy, Melissa Meekma, who declined to join the lawsuit. All have since recovered physically; Yaws is back at work as a deputy, Murphy is an investigator for the DA's office.
Meekma medically retired from the Sheriff's Department after struggling with post-traumatic stress.
Donder, the dog, is retired from duty.
In their lawsuit, Murphy and Yaws sought $19.2 million each for emotional distress, medical expenses, loss of earning capacity and punitive damages. They alleged that Mies and her deceased husband were negligent in not recognizing Eddie Mies' mental problems and his potential for violence.
David Mastagni, whose Sacramento-based labor law firm represents them, declined to comment.
The suit drew ire from both the law enforcement and El Dorado County communities. On the Internet, in public and in local newspapers, critics lambasted the deputies for preying on a woman with meager finances and tremendous sadness.
Sheriff's Lt. Kevin House, who called the deputies "heroes" the day of the shootout, described their lawsuit recently as "a disgrace to the entire law enforcement community."
On Thursday, he applauded the deputies for dropping the lawsuit.
"I have always known Jon Yaws and Greg Murphy to be professional and upstanding people, and I'm not entirely sure what this whole thing was about," House said. "I'm just pleased this family can start getting closure to this terrible ordeal."
Although El Dorado County stood to gain from the lawsuit – under state law, it could have recouped medical and disability expenses paid to Murphy and Yaws – officials there never supported it, said Ed Knapp, chief assistant counsel.
With the lawsuit at a dead-end, the county's lien on any damages also goes nowhere.
"The county's not going to do anything to try and recover its lien because it doesn't think Mrs. Mies did anything wrong," Knapp said. "I think it simply endorses our view all along that there was no merit to it in the first place."
The lawsuit lacked standing, he said, because of the so-called "firefighter's rule," which generally precludes emergency workers injured in the line of duty from suing citizens.
The logic is that such workers accept risk when they take on their jobs, they are well-paid for that risk, and citizens might hesitate to call for help if they feel they are taking on a liability in doing so.
As is customary in worker injury cases like this one, El Dorado County had the right to file its own case against Mies. Officials also were invited to join Murphy and Yaws in their case.
The county's response, Knapp said: "Hell, no."
"The county thinks that the public policy supporting the firemen's rule is good public policy," he said.
Still, some say real healing won't come until all questions are answered – including whose bullets hit the deputies – and all doubt has been lifted.
"I believe the report will show that the deputies of El Dorado County all performed in a very professional manner that day … but it needs to be concluded," Briggs said. "Without the incident report, everybody's guessing."
Call The Bee's Kim Minugh, (916) 321-1038.
