Earlier this month, US District Court Judge Jacqueline Nguyen dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit (without prejudice) against the City of Los Angeles filed by Voletta Wallace, mother of Christopher Wallace aka The Notorious B.I.G. In the lawsuit, Ms. Wallace blamed Los Angeles and the LAPD for her son’s death. The case contained allegations against police officers Rafael Perez and David Mack, claiming that they were in cahoots with Suge Knight to have Biggie murdered (allhiphop). This is the latest verdict in a string of similar suits brought by Big’s family against the City.

It occurred to me that many folks might not understand what “wrongful death” really means. Your resident JD is here to help.

Generally, wrongful death is defined as the taking of the life of an individual resulting from the willful or negligent (intentional or unintended) act of another. It’s the responsibility of the plaintiff, Ms. Wallace in the case at hand, to prove that what the defendant did was the proximate cause of death.

A wrongful death action is a tort that is different and separate from criminal charges. Neither proceeding has any bearing on the other. I’ll take this opportunity to remind you of a fella named Orenthal James who was found not guilty of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman but was found liable in the subsequent wrongful death case. O.J. was ordered to pay upwards of $33 Million! To be clear, the reason why you can be not guilty of murder in a criminal court and guilty in a similar civil action is because the burdens of proof are different. In a criminal case, it’s beyond a(ll) reasonable doubt. In the civil matter, a fact-finder need only find that the defendant is guilty by a preponderance of the evidence.

This time around, the case was dismissed without prejudice. What that usually means is there was no decision on the merits (or the facts) of the case and, if Ms. Wallace is so inclined, she can bring another suit on the same grounds later on. Dismissal without prejudice gives the Wallace family a free “do-over” of sorts. Of course the case has to have legs on which to stand if they do decide to re-file. Perez Hilton let out a sigh of relief that the case is finally over but he obvy didn’t go to law school like me *wink*. Yes, this battle is lost but the war is not over, so to speak. With things being unsettled in a legal sense, we could potentially be talking about who killed Biggie in courtrooms for the next ten years.

I’m not sure why the case was dismissed without prejudice in this particular instance. I haven’t been able to find a transcript or good accounting of what Judge Nguyen (an Obama pick, by the way) actually said. Ms. Wallace had a previous wrongful death claim tossed out after it was discovered that her team misled the court in regards to their possession of certain information. Perhaps something like that happened this time. My best guess is that there wasn’t enough to go forward at this time but perhaps the plaintiffs will now have an opportunity to get their shit together. I can’t imagine this being easy for anyone involved especially B.I.G.’s family. I don’t know what their financial situation is but I’d like to think this is more about principle than payout. In a comment to MTVNews, Ms. Wallace said, “I thank you for the opportunity to touch [my son's] fans and for the network’s continued support of me and the family, but it’s been 13 years, I miss my son, his children miss their father, and the murderer is still at large.” Yeah. It might be time to start weighing the strength of the case + it’s potential reward vs. the time and emotional capital spent chasing this down.