Predator case against county dismissed; family gets $1.9M

The family of a 15-year-old girl, slain in 2001 by a registered sex offender, won't be able to pursue a lawsuit against Mason County for not telling them the offender had moved to their neighborhood.

The State Supreme Court on Thursday overruled lower courts and said the county had no duty to warn the family that Joseph Rosenow had moved into the Lake Cushman area, near where the family of Jennie Mae Osborn lived.

Rosenow, a high-level sex offender, raped and killed Osborn, a high-school sophomore. He was on state supervision at the time of the slaying for choking a woman to unconsciousness and had raped a woman at knifepoint.

"We hold that Mason County had no duty to warn the Osborns because they did not rely on a promise to warn and Jennie Mae Osborn was not a foreseeable victim," the court said in a divided opinion.

"We were very pleased with the results," said Michael Patterson, attorney for Mason County. "We were concerned that the door would be flung wide open with regard to liability with counties that have to register these sex offenders." He said that at the time of the murder, there were 300 sex offenders in Mason County.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Tom Chambers said the county had the duty to notify residents that Rosenow had moved into the neighborhood.

According to the ruling, another resident Shannyn Wiseman, learned that Rosenow had moved into the area and had offered to post warning fliers to alert neighbors. But Detective Jason Dracobly, the officer in charge of sex-offender registration, discouraged her and promised he would post fliers. While he put a notice on the county's Web site, he didn't distribute fliers.

"While we cannot know if the type of warnings Wiseman would have done or Dracobly promised to do would have prevented the tragic outcome in this case, we do know that no flyers were posted, no neighbors were told, the local high school was not notified and that Rosenow raped and murdered 15-year-old Jennie Mae Osborn," Chambers wrote.

Since Osborn's death, the Legislature has toughened sex-offender laws, which now require that the notices be published in newspapers.

Rosenow, 51, the father of one of Osborn's friends, pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to life without release.

Stephen Bulzomi, attorney for members of the Osborn family, said they were disappointed by the ruling but realize they have to accept it. While the lawsuit against Mason County was dismissed, the family won $1.9 million from the state for failing to supervise Rosenow.

"The real tragedy is that Mason County was clearly negligent, and it walked away with no accountability," Bulzomi said.

The Supreme Court, in its ruling, said, "Assuredly, Mason County has a 'duty' to protect its citizens in a colloquial sense, but it does not have a legal duty to prevent every foreseeable injury. The Osborns fail to assert facts sufficient to show Mason County had a duty to warn them of Rosenow's presence."

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com