By Jeremy Sharp
The Journal-Standard
Posted Oct. 18, 2014 @ 9:00 am
Updated Oct 18, 2014 at 1:33 PM
FREEPORT — A judge will decide Nov. 3 if a wrongful death lawsuit against the Stephenson County Sheriff’s Department will continue in court.
Jason Kamp of Byron sued the sheriff’s department in September 2013 after his wife, Sarah Kamp, died from injuries sustained in car accident. Sarah Kamp, 32, a language arts teacher at Polo High School, was pregnant with the couple’s second child on May 20, 2013, and was on her way to see her OB-GYN in Freeport that morning, according to the lawsuit.
At 7:07 a.m., Sarah was driving through the intersection of Montague and Rock City roads south of German Valley when she was hit by another car. A motorist, more than an hour earlier, had reported that the stop sign on Montague Road was missing. Police later said the sign had fallen down after sustaining weather damage.
The $4 million lawsuit alleges the accident occurred because of the negligent acts of 911 dispatcher Dan Reed, who took the missing sign call more than an hour before the crash. The 911 operator failed to do anything with the information about the hazard, according to the lawsuit.
“The crash that killed Sarah Kamp and her baby could have been prevented by a phone call,” a court document from the plaintiff states. “Had Reed notified anyone of the downed stop sign at Rock City Road and Montague Road, Sarah Kamp and her baby would still be alive.”
The defendants filed a motion in June to dismiss the case, claiming the sheriff’s department and 911 operator are immune to the lawsuit. They cite a section of Illinois’ Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, which states in part that “Neither a local public entity nor a public employee is liable … for failure to provide adequate police protection or service.”
Defense attorney Gerard Cook did not respond to several requests for comment.
“It’s our position that given the circumstances in the case that immunity does not apply,” said attorney Tim Mahoney, who is representing Jason Kamp. Mahoney said the Tort Immunity Act does not apply to dispatcher negligence.
Garrett Miller, the individual who called 911 about the missing sign, said in a sworn statement in the court records that he would have stayed at the intersection to flag down approaching cars had Reed not told him “someone would be out there to take care of it.”
There will be an opportunity to appeal if the motion to dismiss is granted. Mahoney said the case is in the early stages of litigation, and he expects it to go on “for a while.”