From the Albuquerque Tribune:
A federal judge ruled [Wednesday] that the government was negligent on two of three counts in a wrongful-death case involving a drunken U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs worker who killed four people in a head-on car wreck.
But U.S. District Judge William “Chip” Johnson ruled in favor of the government on one count and said he needed up to 30 days to rule on what monetary damages, if any, to assess.
In his ruling in the non-jury trial in Albuquerque, Johnson said the BIA was negligent for entrusting a vehicle to Lloyd Larson, and for keeping him on the job when he should have been fired.
But the judge also ruled that Larson was not acting within the scope of his employment when he crashed his government-owned pickup truck head-on into a car on Interstate 40 on Jan. 25, 2002. Larson, who inspected construction projects on Indian reservations, had a blood-alcohol level of more than 2 1/2 times the state’s legal limit several hours after the crash.