The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday revived a lawsuit that asks a question: Can the city of Fayetteville be held liable for a crash in which a Fayetteville police officer took his eyes off the road while driving and killed a pedestrian?
The case stems from July 24, 2018, when Officer Ashton Lambert struck and killed 55-year-old Gregory T. Graham as Graham was attempting to cross Raeford Road shortly before midnight. The crash was near Sandalwood Drive and the LaFayette Ford car dealership, close to the Lafayette Village neighborhood at Hope Mills Road.
Graham’s family sued in June 2019 in Cumberland County Superior Court. But the underlying question of whether Lambert was driving recklessly when he crashed into Graham has not been resolved.
Does governmental immunity kill the lawsuit?
Lambert and the city tried to get the case dismissed in 2020. Their lawyers argued that the city and Lambert have governmental and public officer immunity to the lawsuit, and that Lambert was not driving in a grossly negligent manner.
Governmental and public officer immunity refer to a legal concept that the government cannot be sued when it wrongs someone, unless it agrees to be sued and waives its immunity. (The government also can be sued for violating a person’s Constitutional rights.) Immunity “shields a defendant entirely from having to answer for his conduct in a civil suit for damages,” the N.C. Supreme Court said in 2022.
Superior Court Judge Mary Ann Tally in July 2020 rejected the request from Lambert and the city to dismiss the case. Lambert and the city appealed.
The N.C. Court of Appeals in 2022 overturned Tally’s ruling. It was a 2-1 vote among three judges.
The case advanced to the state Supreme Court, which on Friday unanimously said the Court of Appeals didn’t apply the right legal analysis as to whether governmental immunity applies.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Court of Appeals to reconsider the question.
At issue: Does the city have liability insurance that would cover damages from the crash?
If the city has insurance, under state law it waived its governmental immunity.
In its court filings, the city has said it did not have insurance to cover the circumstances of this crash, so it has immunity and the Graham family’s claims should be dismissed.
Graham’s family intended to prove the city had insurance that covered this incident, according to court documents.
Lambert resigned from the Fayetteville Police Department in September 2021, spokesman Loren Bymer told CityView on Monday.
Officer put eyes and hand on his computer while driving
According to the 2022 and 2024 court rulings, here are the circumstances of the crash that killed Graham, based on video footage from his body camera and his patrol car, other video, and other evidence:
Lambert was one of three officers dispatched to a domestic violence call involving a firearm. He was being sent to back up the lead officer. “Officer Lambert also admitted at his deposition that the situation was not an emergency,” a dissent in the 2022 Court of Appeals ruling says.
Lambert drove as fast as 58 mph on Raeford Road, where the speed limit is 45 mph. At the moment of the crash, he had slowed to 53 mph, court papers say. State law allows police officers to speed while responding to calls, but they aren’t allowed to drive with “reckless disregard of the safety of others.”
Lambert was not operating his lights or siren, the documents say. But he was operating his in-car laptop computer.
“Officer Lambert was driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his laptop for 18 of the 23 seconds before he collided with Mr. Graham, and periodically glanced at his computer screen during this timeframe,” the 2022 dissent says.
It also says his body camera shows he was using the computer to figure out where he needed to go. “This body-worn camera footage reflects that Officer Lambert found the address with the computer’s track pad 15 seconds before he struck and killed Mr. Graham.”
“The body-worn camera footage and the dashcam footage from Officer Lambert’s cruiser provides evidence of at least two lane violations by Officer Lambert in the moments leading up to the accident,” the 2022 dissent says.
“In each, Officer Lambert passes right on the outside line of his lane or over it, and these lane violations appear to coincide with Officer Lambert looking at his computer,” it says. “Five seconds before colliding with Mr. Graham, Officer Lambert places his second hand on the steering wheel. Three seconds before the collision, Officer Lambert leans distinctively towards his computer.”
Crash victim was drunk, had suicidal ideations
As Lambert was driving down Raeford Road, Graham was trying to cross.
Graham earlier that day had medical treatment after expressing suicidal thoughts, Friday’s Supreme Court ruling says.
“At one point, he voiced thoughts of ‘throwing himself into traffic,’” it says.
When he was crossing Raeford Road at 11:53 p.m., Graham was drunk, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.31%, according to the ruling. The legal standard for being too drunk to drive is 0.08%.
Graham was using a cane, but he was not stumbling, the 2022 Court of Appeals dissent says. It says he crossed five lanes of traffic before he was hit.
“There was no pedestrian crosswalk on that portion of the street, but camera footage showed that it was well lit by the floodlights of a car dealership,” Friday’s Supreme Court ruling says. “The same footage captured Mr. Graham crossing three eastbound lanes and stopping on the median,” the ruling says. “He looked both ways, and then started across the westbound lanes.”
It further says, “At 11:53 PM, Officer Lambert struck Mr. Graham head-on. He was driving 53 miles per hour, and his body camera footage did not capture any obvious efforts to brake or swerve. There were no skid marks on the road. After colliding with Mr. Graham, Officer Lambert pulled over, activated his blue lights, and alerted dispatch. Mr. Graham died at the scene.”
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
