Jan. 18 (UPI) — The family of murder victim Kristin Smart filed a lawsuit Thursday against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, citing “negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful death.”
The lawsuit alleges Cal Poly could have prevented Smart’s murder if the school properly investigated her former classmate and murderer, Paul Flores, and disciplined him, as he had been the subject of multiple harassment reports prior to Smart’s murder.
“Cal Poly’s failures are indefensible, and it must be held accountable to prevent this cycle of callous negligence from ever occurring again,” the lawsuit read.
Smart’s parents, Stan and Denise Smart, told the San Luis Obispo Tribune that Cal Poly’s mishandling of the case exacerbated the trauma of losing their daughter.
“Paul Flores took Kristin’s life,” Denise Smart told the Tribune. “Cal Poly took ours.”
Smart was a freshman at Cal Poly when she disappeared after an off-campus party in May 1991. Flores was convicted of her murder in 2022 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Her body has not yet been found.
The school in 2023 issued a public apology for its mishandling of Smart’s disappearance. Smart’s friends and family quickly reported her missing, but Cal Poly officers waited until after Memorial Day weekend to take a missing persons report. Days later, police told the Smart family their daughter was likely camping.
The case wasn’t transferred to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office until a month after Smart disappeared, the lawsuit alleged.
Cal Poly President Jefferey Armstrong, in his apology, said Smart’s disappearance spurred the creation of new safety programs on campus.
“While we will never be able to control what an individual with bad intent decides to do, we are constantly working to help ensure things like this don’t happen again at Cal Poly,” Armstrong’s apology read.
Lawyers for the Smart family told the Tribune the public apology was the first time the family were aware the university might have had additional information regarding Smart’s disappearance.
“We don’t know what information the president had in his possession to make that apology, and it appears to us that Cal Poly has been sitting on information and keeping it from the Smart family for decades,” attorney Marc Lewis said, adding that Smart’s family never saw an investigative file regarding their daughter’s disappearance from the university.
Smart’s family is seeking monetary compensation from the school.
