Attorneys representing the son of a Columbus-area man who died from a gunshot wound in 2013 have filed an opening brief in an appeal of a federal judge’s decision to dismiss his lawsuit against several current and former Bartholomew County officials.
On April 1, attorneys for Logan Owsley filed the brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, disputing a federal judge’s decision this past November to dismiss a lawsuit in which he alleged, among other things, that sheriff’s deputies lost or destroyed evidence that would help him pursue legal claims related to the death of his father, Cary Owsley.
The appeal is the latest turn of events in a long-running legal fight following the death of Cary Owsley, 49, who police say was found by his wife, Lisa, in his Zephyr Village home outside Columbus in April 2013 with a chest wound from a bullet fired from a handgun. County officials believe that Cary Owsley committed suicide, while Logan Owsley believes that his father was murdered, according to allegations in court documents.
Nearly four months after Cary Owsley’s death, three sheriff’s department deputies — E. DeWayne Janes, Dean Johnson and Christie Nunemaker — were disciplined for errors in judgment during the investigation.
Among those errors were allowing Janes, who was formerly married to Cary Owsley’s wife Lisa, to enter the death scene and remove Cary Owsley’s body from the home and allowing him to touch and secure the handgun, according to the lawsuit. Janes helped cut out a section of the rug that was blood-soaked and bagged it for disposal after investigators left, according to allegations in the lawsuit.
Following a dispute in Bartholomew County probate court over who should be appointed personal representative of Cary Owsley’s estate, Logan Owsley filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis in 2015 against eight Bartholomew County officials, alleging that he was deprived of access to the courts and that the defendants, among other things, obstructed justice.
The lawsuit names then-county sheriff Mark Gorbett, then-county coroner Larry Fisher, who ruled Cary Owsley’s death a suicide, and current and former sheriff’s deputies Janes, Johnson, Nunemaker, Brent E. Worman, William R. Kinman Jr. and Christopher Roberts.
Since then, the case has received national attention and was featured on nationally syndicated television show “Crime Watch Daily” in 2018. In recent years, the lawsuit has bounced around the federal court system.
In April 2019, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Logan Owsley didn’t have standing to bring the case and that there was no federal jurisdiction over the claims in the lawsuit. Later that month, attorneys for Logan Owsley initiated an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
In June 2020, the appeals court vacated the lower court’s dismissal, calling the lower court’s decision a “misstep,” and remanded the case back to U.S. District Court in Indianapolis with instructions for the lower court “to decide whether an access-to-courts claim … can be based on an assertion that the defendants concealed or destroyed evidence that could have been relevant, had suit been filed in state court.”
This past November, a federal judge acknowledged that evidence destruction can form the basis of an access-to-courts claim but once again dismissed the lawsuit, finding that Logan Owsley’s allegations did not satisfy all the requirements of stating such a claim.
To successfully state a claim for a violation of the right to access the courts, also known as an “access-to-courts claim,” plaintiffs must identify a “nonfrivolous, underlying claim,” U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young wrote in his decision this past November.
Young held that Logan Owsley’s access-to-courts claim was “belied by the fact that (his father’s) estate decided not to pursue any claims related to Cary Owsley’s death,” stating that the estate, which was controlled by Cary Owsley’s wife, Lisa, decided not to sue because it believed that he had committed suicide.
“Plaintiff strongly disagrees with the estate’s decision, but he brings this access-to-courts claim as the assignee of ‘whatever interest the Estate of Cary A. Owsley has in the federal lawsuit,’” Young states in his decision this past November. “And it is apparent that the estate had no interest in a wrongful death action. Absent an underlying claim, the estate (through its assignee) cannot state a claim for denial of access to state court.”
Young acknowledged that Logan Owsley had filed a petition in 2015 to remove Lisa as the estate’s personal representative, alleging that she was using her position to “prevent a successor from filing a lawsuit against her or other family members on behalf of the estate.” But Young ultimately found that Logan Owsley’s “access-to-courts claim, as the court understands it, boils down to frustration with the state court’s decision to maintain Lisa as the estate’s personal representative,” according to the decision.
“In any event, plaintiff failed to appeal the state court’s decision to retain Lisa as the state’s personal representative. To the extent plaintiff had an underlying claim, he thereby abandoned it,” Young wrote. The judge also dismissed the remaining federal claims in the lawsuit, deeming them to be “derivative of the access-to-courts claim,” and ordered his state law claims to be dismissed without prejudice.
Just a couple days after the decision this past November, attorneys for Logan Owsley filed another notice of appeal in the Seventh Circuit.
According to the opening brief filed April 1, Logan Owsley’s attorneys argue that he did satisfy all the requirements to make an access-to-courts claim and disputed that the remaining federal claims were derivative of the access-to-courts claim.
“…No authority exists for the idea that a claim is frivolous simply because someone opted not to bring it,” the attorneys wrote in the opening brief. “Moreover, the heart of Logan’s access claim is that the defendants’ evidence destruction decimated the chance of a wrongful death claim succeeding. …In short, although the defendants dramatically weakened the estate’s wrongful death claim, there is a wide berth between a claim that has been undermined and one that is frivolous.”
“Efforts in the probate court to maintain Lisa as personal representative … were the continuation of (the defendants’) quest to block Logan from filing suit,” the attorneys added later in the brief.
Currently, the lawsuit, which was initially filed just over seven years ago, is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for the second time.
If you go
Documentary presentation
A documentary entitled “Who Killed Cary Owsley? A Mission for Justice,” will be shown from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Columbus Learning Center, 4555 Central Ave. Donations will be accepted at the door.
The documentary, presented by Clover Lane Media, a media production company in Indianapolis, chronicles the case of the death of Cary Owsley, 49, who was found by his wife, Lisa, in his home April 7, 2013, with a chest wound from a bullet fired from a handgun, police said.
Nearly four months later, three sheriff’s department deputies — E. DeWayne Janes Sr., Dean Johnson and Christie Nunemaker — were disciplined for errors in judgment during the investigation into the shooting and Cary Owsley’s death.
The federal lawsuit was filed April 7, 2015, by Logan Owsley in U.S. District Court against then-county sheriff Mark Gorbett, then-county coroner Larry Fisher, who ruled Cary Owsley’s death a suicide, and current and former sheriff’s deputies Janes Sr., Johnson and Nunemaker, Brent E. Worman, William R. Kinman Jr. and Christopher Roberts.
Among those errors delineated in the lawsuit were allowing Janes, who was formerly married to Cary Owsley’s wife Lisa, to enter the death scene and remove Cary Owsley’s body from the home and allowing him to touch and secure the handgun, according to the lawsuit. Janes helped cut out a section of the rug that was blood-soaked and bagged it for disposal after investigators left, according to allegations in the lawsuit.
