The household of John O’Keefe has added a wrongful demise specialist lawyer from California to symbolize them in their civil swimsuit in opposition to Karen Learn, who was acquitted earlier this 12 months of his homicide.
Bibianne Fell, who goes by Bibi, is a San Diego-based lawyer who, in response to her web site, “primarily practices in the areas of catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death.” She has practiced regulation in California since December of 2004, in response to the movement for admittance, and is in good standing of the state’s bar.
The O’Keefe household’s Massachusetts-based lawyer Marc Diller submitted the request to permit the out-of-state lawyer to affix as co-counsel on Wednesday. Plymouth Superior Courtroom Choose Daniel J. O’Shea on Thursday allowed the request, having discovered that “the petitioner has satisfied the necessary requirements for admission pro hac vice.”
Paul O’Keefe, the youthful brother of John O’Keefe, and different family members filed a wrongful demise lawsuit in August of final 12 months in opposition to Learn and the 2 bars the place the couple drank simply forward of his demise on Jan. 29, 2022.
The lawsuit didn’t have a lot exercise for some time as Choose William M. White Jr. paused it till after the legal trial in opposition to Learn had run its course.
Learn, 45, of Mansfield, was indicted in June 2022 on fees of second-degree homicide, motorized vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision inflicting the demise of John O’Keefe, her boyfriend. She was tried twice, first in 2024 that resulted in mistrial after which in a second trial earlier this 12 months when she was acquitted on all of the indicted fees however was convicted of drunken driving.
Two of Learn’s three attorneys within the first trial have been from out of state: Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little, each of Los Angeles. They have been joined within the third trial by Robert Alessi of New York. Learn was represented all through by Massachusetts lawyer David Yannetti.
Now that the legal trial has concluded, the civil swimsuit has resumed.
The swimsuit alleges the identical occasions because the legal prosecutors: that Learn and O’Keefe argued into the midnight hour of Jan. 29, 2022; that O’Keefe received out of Learn’s automobile at 34 Fairview Street in Canton; and that Learn, “in a state of intoxication,” drove her SUV into O’Keefe, who then “suffered serious injury and died.”
A civil continuing has a a lot decrease bar for jurors or a choose to seek out in favor of the plaintiff. Whereas legal convictions require proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” civil instances want solely a “preponderance of the evidence” — which means greater than 50% certainty — to seek out within the plaintiff’s favor.
The Herald reached out by electronic mail to lawyer Fell for remark however acquired an automatic out-of-office response.
Photograph By Matt Stone/Boston Herald
Peggy O’Keefe, the mom of deceased Boston police officer John O’Keefe, and her son, Paul O’Keefe seated within the courtroom gallery throughout Karen Learn’s second trial. (Photograph By Matt Stone/Boston Herald)
