LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County will pay $11.75 million to the family of a prominent entertainment attorney struck and killed by a sheriff’s deputy who was distracted by his cruiser’s on-board computer.
The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved the settlement in the wrongful-death lawsuit brought by relatives of Milton Olin Jr., the Daily News reported.
Olin, a 65-year-old attorney and former chief operating officer of the online file-sharing service Napster, was cycling in a bike lane in Calabasas in 2013 when he was hit. He died at the scene after landing on the patrol car’s windshield and shattering the glass.
Prosecutors declined to file charges against Deputy Andrew Wood, a 16-year department veteran, after concluding he was acting within the course of his duties when typing into his car’s computer. Wood had been responding to a deputy’s inquiry about whether a fire investigation had been completed.
An internal probe found Wood violated sheriff’s policies and the department imposed unspecified discipline on him, according to the newspaper.
More than a year after the collision, the Sheriff’s Department implemented its first explicit restrictions on in-car computers, including eliminating their use for administrative tasks. Previously, only general directives were issued on safe driving, including the need to employ defensive driving techniques to prevent a collision and avoid operating vehicles “in an unsafe or negligent manner,” the Daily News said.
The victim’s widow, Louise Olin, launched the Milt Olin Foundation in 2014 in an effort to end distraction-related deaths and injuries around the country.