BY DAVID STEINKRAUS
dsteinkraus@journaltimes.com | Posted: Tuesday, June 9, 2009 12:00 am
At its May 26 meeting and at Tuesday's, the Racine County Board passed two resolutions which settled $58,000 in damage claims against the county.
One was from Arthur Woiteshek, a resident at Ridgewood Care Center, who sued the county because of his treatment at the hands of one of the nursing home's certified nursing assistants.
According to court documents, Woiteshek, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and was 85 at the time, was living at the center on March 9, 2007. Aide Amelia Clay twisted his ear in order to prevent him from disturbing another resident who was sleeping in a chair. That action resulted in three cuts on one of Woiteshek's ears, two of about one-half inch and the other of slightly more than 2 inches. Doctors used 19 stitches to close the wounds.
The case was filed last spring and was scheduled for a jury trial starting June 23. The $25,000 settlement will be made with Woiteshek's estate. He died at Ridgewood on May 17 at the age of 88.
Clay's part in the matter is still pending. She was fired from her job at Ridgewood but filed a grievance which is now in arbitration, said Jon Lehman, the county's corporation counsel. The incident also resulted in additional training and the reinforcement of training at Ridgewood, said Geoff Greiveldinger, the county's chief of staff.
The other claim resulted in a $33,000 settlement with Ruby Windsor of Mount Pleasant who was improperly jailed because of an invalid arrest warrant. Windsor was arrested by Mount Pleasant officers on the morning of May 10 when they ran a routine computer check while responding to a call for service. On Nov. 2, 2007 a Family Court commissioner had issued a warrant for Windsor's arrest for failing to appear at a hearing, but the warrant had been canceled 15 days later, and that information had apparently not been entered into the computer system used by police.
Mount Pleasant officers, acting on the erroneous information, handcuffed Windsor, who was in her nightgown, and took her to the county jail. On the following day, Mother's Day, her daughter brought a copy of the court order canceling the warrant to the jail, but Windsor wasn't released until Monday after she appeared before a court commissioner.
The incident had a wide-ranging effect on how the county handles warrants, Lehman said. An internal committee comprised of people from the sheriff's department, Clerk of Courts office, and Child Support Department looked at the whole process and recommended a number of changes.
"It really resulted in a whole new position being created in the Clerk of Courts office so that one person was going to be devoted to nothing but warrants," Lehman said. Two deputies were reassigned so a large portion of their time is devoted to handling, and they communicate directly with the warrants clerk. Law enforcement officers also now have access to the same set of computer records which the court clerks do, he said.
"If good can come from bad, that was the classic case," Lehman said. "Almost everything we do now, she (Windsor) was the genesis of it."