Bankruptcy judge urges settlement in Bryan Stow-Dodgers lawsuit

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross on Wednesday urged attorneys for Bryan Stow and the Dodgers to settle their dispute without his intervention.

Stow is the San Francisco Giants fan who was beaten and critically injured in the Dodger Stadium parking lot on opening day last year. His attorneys filed a civil suit against the Dodgers in Los Angeles Superior Court and a subsequent claim against the team in Bankruptcy Court. They have said Stow will need lifelong medical care and cited $50 million as a “conservative total estimate” of his damages.

With the civil case on hold, the Dodgers last month asked the Bankruptcy Court to throw out Stow’s claim and find that the team could not be held liable because stadium security was at record levels and the attack could not have been reasonably foreseen.

Stow’s attorneys say the Dodgers are trying to use the Bankruptcy Court to execute an end run around the civil trial, where a jury would hear the case.

Gross put off a decision until March 21.

The Dodgers last week offered to defer to the Superior Court on three conditions: that Stow does not oppose the team’s emergence from bankruptcy, that he waits until that emergence to proceed with the civil suit, and that he seeks to recover damages only from the Dodgers’ insurance carriers and not from the defendants themselves. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt is one of the defendants in the civil suit.

In a court filing Monday, Stow’s attorneys said they could work with the first two conditions but flatly rejected the third, claiming it would “severely limit Stow’s right to recover punitive ... damages.”

bill.shaikin@latimes.com