SAUK VILLAGE | Village officials voted unanimously Tuesday night to settle a lawsuit with Susan Dobrzeniecki and her late husband Thomas for $290,000. Dobrzeniecki, a Village employee since 2003, brought the suit against several village police officers as well as St. James Hospital and two of its emergency room doctors, alleging that she was unlawfully committed and her home was unlawfully searched in retaliation for conflicts between her family and the Sauk Village Police.
In Dobrzeniecki’s 8 count lawsuit filed in Federal Court she
alleges that her Fourth Amendment rights were violated, that she was falsely
imprisoned by the hospital and she also sought to recover against doctors and
the hospital for intentional misrepresentation, medical malpractice,
intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of
emotional distress.
The entire incident unfolded on November 9, 2009, after
members of the Sauk Village Police Department informed Dobrzeniecki, while she
was at work at Village Hall, that her son was shot and was in the hospital. While at the hospital visiting her son a
member of the Sauk Village Police Department along with Hospital Security
escorted Dobrzeniecki from the room into a secure room in the Hospital’s
emergency room where they informed her, wrongfully, that they had a court order
to hold her since she had allegedly made the statement earlier “I’m a good
person. Why does this keep happening to
me? If something happens to my son, I’ll
just die” according to Federal Court documents and court transcripts.
A Police officer asked her to turn her purse and jacket over
to them and they would give them to a friend who had driven her to the
hospital. According to court documents,
police officers allegedly removed her keys to her home and without any court
order went to Dobrzeniecki’s home and “illegally” searched it while her
wheelchair bound husband repeatedly told officers to leave. Officers used as a pretext a search the home,
that they were searching for the gun which shot her son, but according to
Federal Court records there was no reason to reasonably believe a gun was at
the home nor was there a search warrant.
During the time that followed hospital personnel kept
Dobrzeniecki under video and audio surveillance. According to Federal Court documents,
Hospital defendants “failed to observe the procedural protections against
wrongful involuntary commitments, and their treatment of Susan fell below the
standard of care”. Dobrzeniecki was
transferred to a psychiatric hospital on orders from a doctor at St. James
Hospital and later released.
Without any discussion from the board of Trustees Tuesday
night, the vote to approve the settlement was unanimous. Taxpayers will only be responsible for the
first $50,000 while the Village’s insurance carrier will pick up the other
$240,000 according to Village officials.
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