Mr. Li had been suing the Xi'an police on grounds of "serious negligence" for failing to keep the peace during the riots.
(He says he has filed a lawsuit against The Chronicle and its reporter on grounds of libel, negligence and interference with contractual relations).
The lawyer for Li Jianli, who was badly beaten in Xi'an for driving a Japanese-made car during anti-Japan protests in China last month, said by telephone Friday that Mr. Li had decided to sue the local police on grounds of "serious negligence".
If Rocco himself had followed her into the subway and shot her, Olga might conceivably have had a case against the city on the ground of police negligence, but, as Mr. Miller argued, that was not what had occurred.
After the California Highway Patrol failed to turn over the copyrights, he and his family brought suit against it and the two employees who leaked the photographs, on a variety of grounds, including negligence, infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecution Service, Lieve Pellens, said that the investigation, known as Operation Chalice, was an important phase in which officials were trying to establish whether there were grounds to prosecute priests on charges of negligence and failing to aid abuse victims.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who is hearing the arguments, yesterday reviewed the legal duty that airlines have to people who are injured or killed on the ground if a plane crashes because of negligence.
