Here’s a type of lawsuit-related news you certainly don’t see every day: The Post reports that the family of slain retired New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum has said they will drop their $20 million civil suit against the District over the negligent care two emergency medical technicians provided after Rosenbaum was hit on the head during a mugging near his home in D.C. in 2006.

Rosenbaum, as you’ll recall, did not receive adequate treatment for his head injury because he was presumed to be drunk by the paramedics who found him. Why would Rosenbaum’s adult children drop their suit when they had such a strong case? Because all they really wanted was for the city’s emergency medical services to be improved so that nothing like what happened to their father ever happens to someone else. After a year-long process cooperating with a city-sponsored task force that studied the District’s ambulance system and worked to propose and implement changes, the Rosenbaum family now says it is satisfied that the city has lived up to its end of the bargain, and will drop their civil suit.

After a year that included the likes of Roy Pearson’s misplaced pants lawsuit, it’s refreshing to see a grief-stricken family with real cause for anger use their legal position to help change city policies for the better, and then walk away. We would hardly blame them if they still felt they were owed a serious amount of cash by the city.