Lawsuit in limbo
Wrongful death case against sheriff’s office in jeopardy
COURTS | Bruce Rushton
A wrongful death case against the Sangamon County sheriff’s office has stalled, and the case may end with neither a verdict nor settlement.
Attorneys representing the estate of Patrick Burns, who died in 2010 after deputies deployed Tasers more than 20 times while subduing him, have asked to withdraw from the case. U.S Magistrate Judge Tom Schanzle- Haskins has given Richard Burns, the deceased man’s brother who is executor of the estate, until Dec. 22 to find new counsel before ruling on the request of James Ochs and David Damick, both St. Louis area lawyers, to withdraw as plaintiff’s counsel.
If Richard Burns can’t find a new lawyer and Schanzle-Haskins approves the motion to withdraw, the case would appear over, given that an estate, not an individual, is the plaintiff and so the matter could not proceed on a pro se basis with a person not holding a law license acting as attorney. Patrick Burns had two daughters when he died.
In their motion to withdraw, Ochs and Damick don’t specify reasons for wanting to drop the case, saying only that they and Richard Burns have not been able to resolve differences. At the request of Schanzle- Haskins, the lawyers have filed documents under seal stating their reasons for wanting out of the case. They say in court documents that the reasons must be kept confidential to avoid violating attorney-client privilege or harming the plaintiff’s position in the case.
After Schanzle-Haskins read the reasons filed under seal, he issued a Nov. 7 order that extended pending deadlines to file various motions to give Richard Burns an opportunity to find a new lawyer. The judge, however, has not formally approved the motion to withdraw.
Richard Burns has fought the motion to withdraw.
“I contacted numerous firms and attorneys in an attempt to find new counsel,” Richard Burns wrote in a Nov. 17 response to the magistrate’s order giving him until Dec. 22 to find a new lawyer. “All declined, and all gave the same basic reason that it appeared certain important deadlines had passed that would prevent additional depositions and discovery.”
Burns in his response to the order says that he and Ochs have a personality conflict, but he is willing to set aside differences and proceed so that his deceased brother’s daughters might benefit. Among other things, Richard Burns says that he wanted former sheriff Neil Williamson to be questioned under oath, but Ochs refused to schedule a deposition.
Patrick Burns, an accountant for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, was crazed, unarmed and clad only in underwear when he forced his way into a woman’s house on Wesley Avenue in the early hours of Jan. 23, 2010. He was screaming that people were trying to kill him as he battered the terrified woman, who managed to get him out of her house by the time deputies arrived. Deputies reported that Burns, who had a history of substance abuse and had ingested cocaine, was initially calm and sitting outside the woman’s house when they arrived, but he went beserk when a deputy tried to photograph him.
It took several deputies to subdue Burns.
Tasers were deployed more than 20 times, and the plaintiffs say that deputies used Tasers even after Burns was cuffed. After he was shackled, Burns was taken to St. John’s Hospital, where he became unresponsive and died five days after the struggle. A pathologist hired by the Sangamon County coroner’s office determined that Burns died from excited delirium, but an inquest jury didn’t accept that explanation and failed to arrive at a cause of death. In court documents, plaintiff’s attorneys say that excessive use of Tasers contributed to the tragedy and that Burns suffered from lack of oxygen due to being hogtied and placed prone during the ambulance ride to the hospital.
The county has spent more than $273,500 defending the lawsuit.
Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].
