Shooting Victim Asked if She Was a 'Mental Patient' Can Sue 911 Operator
A Michigan Supreme Court split 4-3 issued a one-sentence order allowing a woman who called 911 after being shot to sue the operator who thought the woman was making a false report and chastised her.
Lorraine Hayes of Detroit, who is being represented by Geoffrey Fieger, is suing operator Kimberly Langford for intentional infliction of emotional distress, the Associated Press reported.
Hayes called 911 twice on Jan. 12, 2005 after being shot in the head. In the first call, she asked for an ambulance and gave her address, but mistakenly told the operator she was a male when asked and then corrected herself. After more questions, Langford asked: “Are you a mental patient?”
Hayes responded: “My body is numb. I’m getting ready to die.”
Langford told Hayes that she would get in trouble if she were making a false report, but sent police to the address. However, police apparently could not find the address, and only after she called her son in Minnesota, and he called Detroit police, did emergency services arrive 42 minutes later.
While the ruling was just one sentence, the dissenting judges were not silent, the Associated Press reported:
“Defendant’s job required her to make sure incoming calls were genuine in order to prevent unnecessary dispatches of limited emergency services, and defendant’s continued disbelief that plaintiff had truly suffered a gunshot wound to the head was not altogether unreasonable,” Justice Stephen Markman wrote in his dissent.
Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon, whose office is representing Langford, declined to comment to the Associated Press. Fieger could not be reached.
Fieger played the audiotape of Hayes’ 911 call at a 2006 news conference, the Associated Press said. That year, he took the case of a then 5-year-old Detroit boy who the 911 operator thought was a prankster. His mother had collapsed and died without receiving help, ClickOnDetroit.com reported at the time.
