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In the News
Victim’s parents settle OnStar suit
By PENNY BROWN
Advocate staff writer
February 24, 2007
The parents of a Baton Rouge teen killed two years ago for his Chevrolet Suburban have dropped their fight with OnStar Corp.
Kenneth and Lisa Bambarger have asked U.S. District Judge James Brady to dismiss their claim that the corporation ignored pleas to track the vehicle and possibly save Dustin Bambarger’s life.
Their attorney, Stephen Babcock, declined to say why the couple decided to drop the case, but he did indicate there might have been a settlement.
“We’ve entered a confidentiality agreement not to discuss the terms of the settlement or dismissal,” Babcock said.
Jim Kobus, OnStar spokesman, declined Friday to comment, saying the company does not discuss matters in litigation.
OnStar is 24-hour in-vehicle safety and security system that allows owners to contact the company with the touch of a button.
Dustin Bambarger’s slaying remains unsolved, but authorities in the Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Office said Friday it is still under investigation.
The action in the civil case comes after a protracted legal battle between the Bambargers and OnStar over Dustin Bambarger’s personal life.
In May, OnStar lawyer Carl Giffin complained to U.S. District Magistrate Stephen Riedlinger that the Bambargers were “stalling forever” on the company’s questions about the 17-year-old’s history of drug and alcohol abuse, psychological treatment, school records, behavioral problems at school and the company he kept in the months before his death and on the day he disappeared.
“Essentially, plaintiffs want to SKIP the discovery phase of the case, presume that liability exists and move straight to the damages phase of the case,” Giffin wrote. “Plaintiffs will not permit any discovery regarding issues of Dustin Bambarger on the guise that this would be too ‘painful’ of an experience for his parents. Such an objection is nowhere to be found in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
Two months later, Riedlinger ordered the Bambargers to provide the requested information and pay OnStar’s lawyers $175.
OnStar has since subpoenaed Dustin Bambarger’s medical records from the Tau Center in Baton Rouge and Brentwood Hospital in Shreveport, which offer psychiatric and chemical dependency treatment.
The Bambargers sued OnStar in December 2005, seeking unspecified damages and funeral expenses.
Dustin Bambarger disappeared from his Woodlawn Estates home in November 2004 — driving off in his parents’ Suburban with nothing more than $20 his mother loaned him. He said he was going to a friend’s house to watch a movie, leaving behind a $500 paycheck.
The Bambargers, who said there was no indication their son was running away, quickly reported him as a missing person, but investigators initially insisted there was no evidence of foul play.
The Woodlawn High School junior’s body was discovered Dec. 8 in an overgrown vacant lot on Ford Street in north Baton Rouge. The Suburban was found at a Florida Boulevard apartment complex covered in motor oil — an attempt, detectives surmised, to destroy evidence.
Three men initially were arrested in connection with the crime. However, Baton Rouge state court records show none of them has been charged.
An East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office warrant alleged one man hit Bambarger in the head with a gun before killing him and renting the SUV for eight rocks of crack cocaine.
Days after Dustin Bambarger disappeared, the lawsuit alleged, Lisa Bambarger and others called OnStar Corp. and asked it to find the vehicle. A company employee told her that couldn’t be done unless the system were activated from inside the Suburban.
The lawsuit alleged the company lied and could have tracked the Suburban anyway. The Bambargers contended OnStar has helped recover stolen vehicles and locate others for repossession despite a deactivated tracking system, “but refused to do so in this case.”
In addition to locating vehicles using a global positioning system, OnStar can unlock doors, perform diagnostics, contact roadside assistance, flash exterior lights, sound the horn, provide driving directions and act as a personal concierge to make reservations or plan a vacation.
