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Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Law- More on Winnetka fire case

Remember the 7th Circuit opinion last month that began:

This case raises the question: what could be worse than having most of your home burn down in a fire? The answer, of course, is having the rest of it burn down a couple of days later in a second fire. What would make the situation dramatically worse, however, is if the fire department determined that the second fire was intentionally set (possibly by you) and called in federal authorities to investigate, thus requiring you to invest substantial energy, time and money defending against such allegations. Such a scenario would be particularly outrageous if the fire department did not actually believe that the second fire was intentionally set but was merely trying to draw attention away from the possibility that it had been negligent in putting out the first fire. According to Charles M. McDonald of Winnetka, Illinois, this is exactly what happened to him.
The case was McDonald v. Village of Winnetka (ILB entry here). As the Chicago Tribune reports today:
[McDonald] accused the village of violating his constitutional rights after investigators began to suspect arson, [blaming] the Winnetka Fire Department for the loss of his home, saying he believed that a fire on May 10, 1999, smoldered and "rekindled" two days later.

But when officials turned the tables and called in federal authorities to investigate their suspicion that someone had set the second fire, McDonald sued the village in U.S. District Court in Chicago. He accused officials of treating him differently from other Winnetka fire victims by failing to consider rekindling, under a law more commonly used in discrimination cases based on gender, race, sexual orientation or religion.

Now the village is considering trying to recoup more than $1.25 million it spent defending itself against the lawsuit, in which a judge scolded McDonald for "playing fast and loose with the facts of this case," according to the June 17 appeals court decision.

Judge John Darrah ordered McDonald to pay $18,333 in reimbursement costs for copied records, which the village is still waiting for, officials said. "The village has never had a doubt that everything that was done to investigate this was correct and proper," said Katherine Janega, Winnetka's village attorney.
* * *

After filing the lawsuit in May 2000, McDonald appealed his case after Darrah granted the village's motion for a summary judgment, dismissing the suit. McDonald had been seeking up to $5.3 million for his legal and consulting fees, as well as an unspecified amount for "emotional distress," Janega said. * * *

On June 17, a three-member panel of judges with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that McDonald had failed to prove his argument under the 14th Amendment's "class of one" equal protection clause.

"It's very strange to transform an individual grievance against the Fire Department into a sort of class-based agreement when there is nobody else who is a member of your class," said Robert Bennett, a law professor at Northwestern University, who said such cases are rare.

"My hunch is this guy's lawyers started thinking they weren't going to get anywhere with [the argument that] he was treated shabbily, and so they tried to go with the equal protection clause," Bennett said.

Neither McDonald nor three of his attorneys at Chicago-based Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood returned calls. * * *

During the court battle, the village was forced to provide fire reports dating to 1980, said Janega. To comply with the requests for open records, the village copied 23,730 documents that filled 46 boxes, providing information that included compact discs, personnel files, training manuals and e-mail messages, she said.

"We produced at their request a mountain of information," Janega said. "They could not find anything to substantiate their claim because there was nothing to substantiate their claim."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 7, 2004 12:08 PM
Posted to General Law Related