Posts Tagged Orland Central Dispatch

IL Supreme Court abolishes Public Duty Rule

Excerpts from CookCountyRecord.com:

For decades, Illinois cities, villages, fire protection districts, and others providing police, fire protection, and ambulance services have enjoyed general immunity from lawsuits brought by plaintiffs who may accuse paramedics, firefighters, and police officers of failing to provide the level of protection or response individuals may believe they should have.

On Jan. 22, however, a majority of justices on the Illinois Supreme Court decided the time had come to undo the judicial rule underlying that immunity, finding in a 4-3 decision that the so-called “public duty rule” should be discarded.

Essentially, justices Thomas L. Kilbride, Anne M. Burke, Charles E. Freeman, and Mary Jane Theis banded together to abolish the public duty rule, while Chief Justice Rita B. Garman, Robert R. Thomas, and Lloyd A. Karmeier joined in a dissent to the majority position.

However, the issuance from the state Supreme Court included three separate opinions: a lead opinion, authored by Kilbride, to which Burke concurred; a second, concurring opinion from Freeman and Theis; and a scathing dissent, authored by Thomas.

“We conclude that the underlying purposes of the public duty rule are better served by application of conventional tort principles and the immunity protection afforded by statutes than by a rule that precludes a finding of a duty on the basis of the defendant’s status as a public entity,” Kilbride wrote in the lead opinion. “Accordingly, we hereby abolish the public duty rule and its special duty exception. Therefore, in cases where the legislature has not provided immunity for certain governmental activities, traditional tort principles apply.”

The case arose out of Will County, where the East Joliet Fire Protection District and other local emergency response services and dispatch agencies were sued by the family of a woman who died in her home when paramedics were unable to render aid quickly enough to her call for help with breathing problems.

According to court documents, Coretta Coleman called 911 in June 2008 from her home in an unincorporated Joliet neighborhood and asked for help, as she was experiencing respiratory problems. Her 911 call was promptly transferred, following standard protocols at that time, from the Will County 911 center to an operator at the Orland Central Dispatch, who would then dispatch an ambulance to the home. When the Orland dispatcher attempted to speak with Coleman, however, the court documents said Corretta did not respond to his questions. He then placed Coleman’s call into a “line for ambulance dispatch” for an “unknown medical emergency.”

Paramedics then went to her house, but received no response to knocks on the door and shouts of “Fire Department!” and saw nothing when they looked in through windows. After speaking with neighbors, they said they could not force entry, unless police were present. The first ambulance then left the scene, prompting a number of neighbors to call 911 to report the departure.

A second ambulance was dispatched to the scene, and, as those EMS personnel pondered whether to force entry, Coleman’s husband purportedly returned home and let them in, 41 minutes after Coleman’s initial 911 call. Coleman was found unresponsive and was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Coleman’s husband then sued, alleging willful and wanton misconduct and negligence against the various defendants. The case was filed in Cook County Circuit Court, but transferred to Will County.

There, a judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying the various EMS agencies were protected by the public duty rule. That finding was upheld by an appellate court.

Under the public duty rule, which dates to the 19th Century, local municipalities are presumed to “owe no duty to individual members of the general public to provide adequate government services, such as police and fire protection.” Generally, this rule has long immunized local governments from certain kinds of personal injury lawsuits.

In this case, the Coleman family challenged the rule itself, saying it allows governments to be treated differently than its citizens in injury litigation.

While each set of two justices differed in their reasons for believing so, a majority of Illinois Supreme Court justices agreed the public duty rule needed to go, saying the state constitution’s rejection of the concept of “sovereign immunity” meant immunity laws enacted by Illinois lawmakers should hold sway in deciding the conditions under which plaintiffs can sue municipalities and their associated EMS agencies. Should lawmakers wish to specifically immunize EMS agencies and municipal governments against such suits, they were free to do so, the justices said.

“Our constitutional provision abolishing sovereign immunity and the passage of various statutes providing for certain immunities with regard to official conduct of local governmental entities constitutes a comprehensive scheme for balancing the private and public interests at stake in assessing municipal tort liability,” wrote Freeman and Theis in their special concurring opinion. “Scrupulous application of the immunity statutes enacted by the General Assembly is the best way to achieve and maintain that balance.”

Dissenting justices, however, said the two-plus-two majority erred deeply in rejecting a principle the state Supreme Court had twice found did not conflict with either the state constitution or the state’s tort immunity laws. Dissenting justices, led by Thomas, blasted the majority for abandoning long-established legal precedent upholding the public duty rule without any new, “compelling legal rationale” to do so.

Thomas wrote he understood justices may “strong disagree” with past court decisions and “therefore wish that they had been on the court when” those cases were decided.

“But that ship has sailed,” he said. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, precedent should rule.

“This court has been emphatic that ‘stare decisis … ‘expresses the policy of the courts to stand by precedents and to not disturb settled points’ and therefore we ‘will not depart from precedent ‘merely because the court is of the opinion that it might decide otherwise were the question a new one,’” Thomas wrote. “Yet that is precisely what the concurring justices are doing here.”

He said emergency responders encounter situations in which they must respond “in the midst of unfolding emergency situations when every decision they make is fraught with uncertainty and their own safety may be at risk” and they must be free to respond free from the risk of lawsuit from those questioning their actions “in hindsight.”

“Local public entities often provide needed services for their communities where the risk of potential liability to individuals would discourage local public entities from providing those services,” Thomas said.

The case attracted the attention of public policy groups and associations statewide, as a number of them, including the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, the Illinois Association of Fire Protection Districts, Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel, Illinois Municipal League and the Illinois Public Employer Labor Relations Association, among others, submitted briefs on the questions in the case.

Attorney Roman R. Okrei, a former Will County judge, of Lockport, argued for the Coleman family before the state Supreme Court.

Attorneys Stephen H. DiNolfo, of the firm of Ottosen, Britz, Kelly, Cooper & Gilbert, of Naperville; Kimbley A. Kearney, of Clausen Miller P.C., of Chicago; and Kevin J. Clancy, of Lowis & Gellen, of Chicago, argued on behalf of the defendants, including the East Joliet FPD, Will County and Orland Fire Protection District.

thanks Dan

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Another department looks into consolidating emergency dispatch – Lemont FPD (update)

A followup article on the Lemont FIre Protection’s decision to go forward with outsourcing emergency dispatch services:

Lemont’s emergency fire and medical dispatchers last week received notice that their services might be contracted out to an outside provider. The district’s board of trustees Thursday decided to move forward with outsourcing. Lemont’s emergency fire and medical calls will soon be routed through [the] Orland Central call center, as the Fire Protection District Board of Trustees Thursday unanimously approved outsourcing the services.

The positions of the district’s 9 dispatchers—3 full-time and 6 part-time—will be eliminated when the change goes into effect, tentatively by April 1.
“We didn’t take this lightly,” said Fire Chief George Rimbo during the meeting. “We truly believe we’re giving you the recommendation that’s going to set us on the path of the right thing to do.”

The shift is to compensate for funds lacking in the district, following a court decision dictating that the fire district could no longer monitor fire alarms in businesses. Funds allocated for that service previously covered the cost of keeping dispatch in-house, Rimbo said.  Without the funds, it’s not feasible for the district to cover the cost of dispatch operating from within the district, Rimbo said.

At a cost of roughly $116 per call with in-house services, contracting the work through Orland Central could reduce the cost to $39 per call—an estimated annual savings of roughly $235,000, said Rimbo.

Current dispatchers route vehicles based on proximity to one of the district’s four fire stations. Advanced real-time tracking technology used by Orland Central locates ambulances and fire trucks, and reroutes the nearest vehicle to an emergency, Rimbo said.  High-end technology—such as a $1 million computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system—offered by Orland Central is a significant improvement over Lemont’s current $60,000 hardware, Rimbo said.

Orland Central is one of two fire/EMS/rescue dispatch centers in the state, and serves as back-up to the primary statewide MABAS Communication System operated out of Red Center in Northbrook. In 2012, the center’s 11 full-time and 8 part-time staff fielded 19,000 calls across the Orland Fire Protection District and the two additional contracted communities of Oak Forest and Calumet City.  Lemont dispatchers field approximately 3,000 calls per year.

thanks Dan

Our previous post is HERE.

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Another department looks into consolidating emergency dispatch – Lemont FPD

A recent article outlines a possible move to close the emergency dispatch center maintained by the Lemont Fire Protection District.

Lemont’s emergency fire and medical dispatchers received notice that their services might be contracted out to an outside provider. The Lemont Fire Protection District Board of Trustees will consider the move Dec. 19. Lemont emergency fire and medical calls could soon be routed through a center in Orland Park, as the Lemont Fire Protection District mulls outsourcing the service to compensate for lacking funds.

Fire dispatch employees last week received email notification of the potential change, which would eliminate their positions and shift the work to an Orland facility.

“We lost a decent amount of cash-flow to support our dispatchers,” said Fire Chief George Rimbo, of why they began researching the outsourcing. “We lost the revenue.”

Rimbo examined three options—Orland Central Dispatch, keeping the services in-house, and a third confidential party. At a cost of roughly $116 per call with in-house services, contracting the work through Orland Central could reduce the cost to $39 per call—an estimated annual savings of roughly $233,000, said Rimbo.

If the board approves contracting through the Orland Call Center, Rimbo expects to see call response time improve. Current dispatchers route vehicles based on proximity to one of the district’s four fire stations. Advanced real-time tracking technology used by Orland Central locates ambulances and fire trucks, and reroutes the nearest vehicle to an emergency, Rimbo said.

Orland Central is one of two fire/EMS/rescue dispatch centers in the state, and serves as back-up to the primary statewide MABAS Communication System operated out of Red Center in Northbrook. In 2012, the center’s 11 full-time and 8 part-time staff fielded 19,000 calls across the Orland Fire Protection District and the two additional contracted communities of Oak Forest and Calumet City.

Currently, nine dispatchers—3 full-time and 6 part-time—operate out of Fire Station 1 in Lemont. The district fields roughly 3,000 calls per year

The board of commissioners will consider the move Thursday, Dec. 19 at 6 p.m., at Fire Station 1, 15900 New Ave., in Lemont.

thanks Dan

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