Court reinstates lawsuit over North Aurora child scalding
An appellate court panel recently reinstated a lawsuit that was filed by a North Aurora man claiming false arrest, conspiracy and infliction of emotional distress against a Kane County Child Advocacy Center special investigator, an Aurora police officer and other authorities.
Jason Barnes was acquitted because of lack of evidence on charges he purposefully scalded his then 18-month-old son in August 2009.
Barnes, 41, sued authorities in late 2011, and a judge dismissed the lawsuit in December 2013.
The appellate court panel ruled the lawsuit should be reinstated a little more than a week after hearing oral arguments from attorneys, a move Barnes' attorney Ron Stearney called "stunning.
"It sends a signal. The sense is that the case was not given the amount of consideration it warranted at the trial level," Stearney said.
The lower court dismissed the lawsuit on grounds police and prosecutors were granted immunity as part of their investigation and the trial.
Barnes argued that authorities told him a DCFS "safety plan," which did not exist, prohibited him from seeing his son in the hospital even though Barnes was not arrested until months later.
He blamed a faulty thermostat on his hot water heater that allowed temperatures to near 200 degrees.
In the appellate reversal, the justices ruled the lawsuit over malicious prosecution should be reinstated against the investigator, Tim Martin, and Robert Jones, an Aurora police officer who helped investigate the case.
Counts of false arrests, conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress were reinstated against Jones.
Also, counts of conspiracy and deprivation of the right to family association as were counts of conspiracy were reinstated against Jones, Martin, and employees and investigators of DCFS and Kane County, according to the ruling.
"It's not enough that they pretended to say (there was a safety plan). That's one issue," Stearney said. "But they went through great lengths to keep him from his children and I think that's cruel."
Stearney said the appellate court's decision also gave him access to old Children's Advocacy Center records as part of the civil litigation process to see if the center had mishandled cases in the past.
A message left Monday for CAC Executive Director Deb Bree was not immediately returned.
No court date has been set for a Kane County judge to revisit Barnes' suit; authorities have a month to appeal the matter to the Illinois Supreme Court, but Joe Lulves, Kane County assistant state's attorney and chief of the office's Civil Division, said an appeal was not expected.
"We do not believe that the appellate court's issues are ripe for supreme court review," Lulves said.