SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah judge on Wednesday dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit that Gabby Petito's parents filed against the city of Moab alleging police did not do enough during a traffic stop to protect their daughter from the man who killed her weeks later.
Plaintiffs' attorney Judson Burton argued that a state law barring lawsuits against government agencies is unconstitutional and said they plan to appeal.
Seventh District Court Judge Don Torgerson said he could not consider the law's constitutionality but the Court of Appeals can, KSL-TV reported.
Petito’s family said the dismissal was expected.
“We never anticipated that this would be an easy process and look forward to the Utah Supreme Court upholding the Utah Constitution’s original intent to preserve the right to recover for wrongful death claims under these circumstances,” her family said in a statement.
Petito, 22, was traveling the country in a converted camper van with her fiance, 23-year-old Brian Laundrie, and posting about it on social media when they were stopped by police in Moab on Aug. 12, 2021. Someone had called to report a man was slapping a woman. Police determined that Petito was the aggressor, and officers had them spend the night apart.
Her parents last heard from her in late August and reported her missing on Sept. 11, 2021, after Laundrie returned to Florida alone.
The search for Petito drew worldwide attention, spurring amateur sleuths to scour social media for clues. It also brought scrutiny from authorities and the media, both of which have been criticized for focusing more attention on missing white women than women of color.
Laundrie was named a person of interest in the case and disappeared two days before Petito's body was found on Sept. 19, 2021, just outside Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Authorities determined that she had been strangled.
Laundrie's remains were found a month later in a wildlife reserve near his parents' house in Florida. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after writing in a notebook that he killed Petito.
An independent investigation found that Moab police made “ several unintentional mistakes ” when they encountered the couple. In their report investigators said Petito very likely “was a long-term victim of domestic violence, whether that be physically, mentally, and/or emotionally.”
Her parents, Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt, sued Moab Police in November 2022, seeking $50 million in damages.
Burton, their lawyer, said Wednesday that Gabby Petito called them during the interaction with police and they wanted her to come home, but she assured them police would take care of things. The attorney said the parents relied on the police to handle the situation but a “grossly negligent” investigation increased the chances of their daughter being harmed.
Burton said officers placed Gabby Petitio in a police car and sympathized with Laundrie, laughing with him, which could have emboldened him. He said one of the responding officers explained the risk of domestic violence, showing he understood the situation but did not respond properly.
Mitchell Stephens, the attorney representing the Moab Police Department, argued for dismissal on the grounds of governmental immunity, while adding that allegations about Moab’s involvement in her death are completely speculative.
He said the couple left Moab together and continued traveling. He cited multiple instances where courts have not found police at fault when domestic violence escalated to murder.
“Moab is not liable for criminal conduct that occurred a month later in a different state. Brian Laundrie is the cause of Gabby Petito’s death,” Stephens said.
FILE - Nichole Schmidt, mother of Gabby Petito, whose death on a cross-country trip has sparked a manhunt for her boyfriend Brian Laundrie, speaks alongside, from left, Tara Petito, stepmother, Joseph Petito, father, Richard Stafford, family attorney, and Jim Schmidt, stepfather, during a news conference, Sept. 28, 2021, in Bohemia, N.Y. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are holding relatively steady Thursday after market superstar Nvidia and another round of companies said they’re making fatter profits than expected.
The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 63 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.1%. The moves were part of a busy day for financial markets worldwide, as crude oil prices continued to rise and bitcoin broke above $98,000.
Nvidia rose 1.6% after yet again topping analysts’ estimates for profit and revenue thanks to voracious demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology. It also gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that topped most analysts’ expectations.
Its stock initially sank in afterhours trading late on Wednesday after Nvidia released its results, which some investors said might be because the market was looking for its revenue forecast to top analysts’ median estimate by even more. But its stock recovered in premarket trading Thursday, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said it was another “flawless” performance by Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang, whom Ives calls “the Godfather of AI.”
How Nvidia’s stock performs has tremendous impact on indexes because it’s grown into Wall Street’s most valuable company at nearly $3.6 trillion. That means a 1% move for it packs more weight on the S&P 500 than a 1% move for any other stock.
Its huge gains, with its stock roughly tripling so far this year, also leave it open to criticism that its price has climbed too much, too quickly and become too expensive.
The frenzy around AI is sweeping up other stocks, not just Nvidia, and Snowflake jumped 28%, after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company, whose platform helps customers get a better view of all their silos of data and use AI, also reported stronger revenue growth than expected.
BJ’S Wholesale Club added 0.3% after likewise delivering a bigger profit than expected. That may help calm worries about how strong U.S. shoppers can remain, given high prices across the economy and still-high interest rates. A day earlier, Target tumbled after reporting sluggish sales in the latest quarter and giving a dour forecast for the holiday shopping season. It followed Walmart, which gave a much more encouraging outlook.
Helping to keep Wall Street in check was Google’s parent company, Alphabet. It fell 3.8% after U.S. regulators asked a judge to break up the tech giant by forcing it to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser. In a 23-page document filed late Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice called for sweeping punishments that would include restrictions preventing Android from favoring its own search engine.
Regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android but left the door open to it if the company’s oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.
Drops for other Big Tech stocks also weighed on the overall market, including slides of 0.9% for Apple, 1% for Amazon and 1.2% for Meta Platforms.
In the oil market, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 1.6% to bring its gain up to 4.2% for the week. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 2%.
Oil has been rising amid escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war. After the Biden administration allowed Ukraine to attack Russia with longer-range American-made ATACMS missiles, Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold for using his nuclear arsenal, with the new doctrine announced this week permitting a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.
In stock markets abroad, Shares of India’s Adani Enterprises plunged nearly 23% Thursday after the U.S. charged founder Gautam Adani, 62, in a federal indictment with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The Indian businessman and one of the world’s richest people is accused of duping investors by concealing that his company’s huge solar energy project on the subcontinent was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme.
Indexes elsewhere in Asia and Europe were mixed.
In the crypto market, bitcoin is trading around $97,500 after eclipsing $98,000 for the first time. It’s more than doubled this year so far, and its climb has accelerated since Election Day. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to make the country “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were holding relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.40% from 4.41% late Wednesday.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed.
FILE - People walk under a sidewalk shed near the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
The facade of the New York Stock Exchange is illuminated on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
People walk by monitors showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index and Japan's foreign exchange rate against the U.S. dollar at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Travelers walk by monitors showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
A woman covering herself from the rain walks by monitors showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
People walk by monitors showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
A woman walks by a monitor showing Japan's foreign exchange rate against the U.S. dollar at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
