Ohio Fire Department and Firefighters Dismissed Out of Wrongful Death Suit

A federal court judge in Ohio has dismissed a fire department and four of its firefighters from a wrongful death suit filed by the family of a woman who died in a fire in 2011.

Sydney Burke died in a house fire on April 9, 2011. Burke’s family blames the Mantua-Shalersville Fire Department for her death claiming that responding personnel “failed to immediately enter the structure and attempt rescue efforts for the known victim trapped inside the residence.”

The suit named the department, Chief Matthew L. Roosa, Lieutenant Kenneth Justus, Firefighter Tim Benner, and Firefighter Bill Byers personally as well as in their official capacities. The allegations in the complaint included:

• Most of the Fire Department’s efforts were directed at extinguishing the fire, and fire crews were observed working in a lackadaisical manner without fervor and aggressiveness that reasonable and prudent firefighters would have demonstrated knowing that a victim remained inside the structure.
• The Defendant Firefighters individually and/or as employees of the Mantua-Shalersville Fire Department performed their professional firefighting duties in a reckless, willful, and/or wanton manner through their actions and/or omissions.
• Defendant Mantua-Shalersville Fire Department knew or should have known that the individual firefighters dispatched to the Elm Street residence did not possess the necessary and/or requisite training and/or skills required to extinguish the fire and execute search and rescue efforts for Sydney Burke.”
• Defendant Mantua-Shalersville Fire Department, while acting under color of state law, exhibited a systematic and persistent failure in its hiring, training, supervision, and retention of firefighters. These acts and/or omissions deprived Sydney Burke, Jeff Burke, Patricia Burke, and Ronald Jeffery Truman of their rights and liberties secured by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in violation of 42. U.S.C. § 1983.

In dismissing the fire department and firefighters from the suit yesterday, Judge Sara Lioi first outlined the operational activities of firefighters on the scene [which incidentally paints an entirely different picture of what occurred compared to the allegations contained in the complaint]. Judge Lioi then addressed Burke’s § 1983 due process claim:

• Here, plaintiffs fail to establish any Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process violation.
• MSFD did not deprive Sydney of her life.
• The unfortunate and tragic circumstances of the fire in her home did that.
• In light of that fact, from a constitutional standpoint, the legitimacy, appropriateness, and/or advisability of any of MSFD’s policies with respect to hiring, training, supervising, and retention of firefighters is irrelevant because no matter how good (or bad) those policies may be, they cannot be said to have resulted in a constitutional violation for any of the plaintiffs.

Turning her attention to the state law claims, Judge Lioi addressed the immunity defenses of the department and the firefighters at length. In the end she concluded:

• No matter what the individual defendants did (or arguably did not) do, and even if all of the alleged “insufficiencies” are taken as true, plaintiffs have failed to raise any material factual dispute surrounding the expert’s conclusion that the tragic result would have been the same and would not have been caused by any actions or omissions of the individual defendants.
• Put another way, even if there had been hundreds of highly trained firefighters, with millions of gallons of water available, and a highly effective and efficient incident control system, that would not have led to a different result, since the unrefuted fact is that Sydney had, unfortunately and tragically, already expired by the time the fire department arrived.
• Plaintiffs cannot demonstrate the requisite recklessness to destroy the individual firefighters’ statutory immunity. The individual defendants are, therefore, entitled to summary judgment on plaintiffs’ state law claims.

The suit continues against the property owners of the house.

Here is a copy of Judge Lioi’s decision: Burke Ruling

Here is the original complaint: Burke Complaint