A Santa Fe woman has brought a defamation lawsuit against the Santa Fe Police Department and the Galveston County Medical Examiner’s Office, alleging the entities wrongfully classified her husband’s recent death as a suicide.
Barbara Younie filed the suit on July 1 in the Galveston County 405th District Court.
Court documents explain that emergency responders on Jan. 8 were summoned to Dakota Dave’s Meat Market in Santa Fe where the late David Younie worked. David Younie was found with a gunshot wound to the chest.
“At some point and time the body was taken to the Galveston Medical Examiner and an autopsy was performed,” the original petition states. “The Santa Fe Police Department presumed that the cause of death was suicide without considering other possibilities such as, homicide, accidental death, death undetermined, etc.”
The suit further shows that authorities determined the decadent was “unhappy with his life” and the medical examiner’s office “merely” corroborated the findings of SFPD to which Barbara Younie accuses the defendants of negligence, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Consequently, the plaintiff seeks unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial.
She is represented by attorney Paul H. LaValle of the Law Offices of Paul Houston LaValle & Associates, P.C. in Texas City.
Galveston County 405th District Court Case No. 15-CV-661