Montana Judge Tosses Case Against Florida Estates Attorney for Failure to Warn of Danger Posed by Elderly Client

A U.S. district court judge has rejected attempts to name a Florida estates attorney as a defendant in a lawsuit stemming from the shooting of a Montana woman by the attorney's 81-year-old client.  The suit claimed that attorney David Gilmore should have known that his client, Thomas Kyros, posed a threat to the mother of a child prodigy with whom Mr. Kyros had become obsessed. 

Judge Charles Lovell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana ruled that Mr. Gilmore could not have known that his client posed a danger to the prodigy’s mother, and also that the Florida attorney is outside the Montana court's jurisdiction.

As ElderLawAnswers reported last year, Mr. Kyros, a Greek immigrant living in New Port Richey, Florida, became obsessed with Promethea Pythaitha who, in 2005, at age 13, became the youngest person to graduate from Montana State University.  Mr. Kyros contacted Ms. Pythaitha and her mother, Georgia Smith, in 2007, giving them $9,000 in financial assistance after a car accident.  He then began badgering them, according to officials, insisting that Montana State, where Ms. Pythaitha continued to take classes, was not good enough for her and that she should transfer to an Ivy League school. 

Mr. Kyros traveled to Montana in late 2010 and on January 17, 2011, he shot Ms. Smith five times outside the home where she and Ms. Pythaitha live. Responding to a 911 call, sheriff's deputies killed Mr. Kyros at the scene.  Ms. Smith survived but suffered permanent and disabling injuries.  

Immediately after shooting Ms. Smith, Mr. Kyros had tossed Ms. Pythaitha a satchel containing cash and a document naming her as the beneficiary of a trust that would pay her $50,000 a year to attend a number of named colleges but that provided that the fund not disperse any money for Ms. Pythaitha’s education in Montana “while her mother, Georgia A. Smith is living.”

Ms. Smith and Ms. Pythaitha sued Mr. Kyros’s estate, seeking payment for physical, emotional and punitive damages.

In addition to refusing to allow the plaintiffs to proceed with a duty-to-warn case against Mr. Gilmore, the judge ordered both sides to engage in settlement talks because the damages sought would exceed the value of the Kyros estate, which continues to dwindle due to the ongoing case.