Widower Robert Gilliam, who was estranged from That ’70s Show actress Lisa Robin Kelly when she accidentally overdosed on multiple drugs at a California rehab facility in 2013, filed a wrongful death suit on June 9 in Los Angeles Superior Court against Pax House and its owners, James and Marcia Burnett.
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He alleges negligence, claiming that staff members at the yellow Craftsman property in Altadena were improperly trained to care for patients such as his wife (who played Topher Grace‘s older sister on the hit Fox sitcom from 1998 to 2003), and requests unspecified damages.
Forty-three-year-old Kelly’s new boyfriend told TMZ shortly after her death that Gilliam himself triggered her fatal relapse, alleging that her troubles were exacerbated by his physical and emotional abuse. It was a charge Gilliam sharply denied, explaining that, in fact, “in the last two weeks, she called me 22 times to get away from [the boyfriend],” and that Gilliam was making arrangements for her to check in to another treatment center closer to the suburban home outside Charlotte, N.C., that they once shared. (In 2012, the then-couple was simultaneously arrested for mutual misdemeanor assault at that North Carolina address.)
Gilliam is now asking for damages sustained “resulting from the loss of love, affection, society, comfort, support … expectations of future support and counseling, companionship, solace and mental support, as well as other benefits and assistance” of Kelly.