Posted on 11/01/2001 4:49:38 AM PST by wysiwyg
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Oct. 31, 2001, 3:54PM
Judge refuses to toss suit by ambulance driver fired after doughnut stop
By ROSANNA RUIZ
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle
A federal judge has denied the city of Houston's request to throw out a lawsuit filed by a former ambulance driver fired after he stopped for doughnuts while transporting a patient to a hospital.
U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal granted Larry Wesley 30 days to amend his employment discrimination suit, which he filed in May.
Wesley must amend his suit to redefine his discrimination case and name the city as the defendant, instead of the fire department, because the department can not be sued as an independent entity, court documents say.
The ruling, however, was not entirely in Wesley's favor. Rosenthal dismissed Wesley's claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress because state law protects municipalities from such claims.
Ray Shackelford, Wesley's attorney, said the fire department treated his client unfairly because of his race.
"The manner in which he was handled is different from the way non-black drivers and firefighters are handled," Shackelford said.
In his suit, Wesley claims that other EMS drivers caught making unscheduled stops either were not fired or were later reinstated.
Carole Snyder, an assistant city attorney who will represent the city in the case, declined to comment about Wesley's suit or Rosenthal's ruling.
Wesley, who was assigned to Fire Station 35 off Martin Luther King Boulevard, was taking an injured youth to Ben Taub Hospital on July 10, 2000, when he stopped for doughnuts.
The boy's mother filed a complaint that led then-Fire Chief Lester Tyra to fire Wesley, a 20-year department veteran. The Firefighters' and Police Officers' Civil Service Commission upheld Wesley's firing, and Wesley did not appeal the decision.
Two other Houston firefighters were fired on similar grounds in February, when they delivered groceries at a northeast fire station with a patient aboard their ambulance.
The firefighters, Leonard Robinson and John Englehardt, have since been reinstated, said District Chief Jack Williams.
One of the scandals of the EMT system is that many people use it as a taxi service to the emergency room for hangnails and scraped knees, and EMT has to take them. This was not an emergency run. It was some slug getting a free ride.
Yeah...well there isn't a Krispy Kreme store in that part of town... LOL
Considering that the patient was being transported from a predominantly black part of Houston, and the patient's mother is the one that filed the complaint that got Wesley fired, I'm sure at least one black person is outraged.
While I agree that many people use the ambulance services when they shouldn't, this patient was a minor (story from 8/2000 says "youth" and this story says "boy"). In any case, he still shouldn't have stopped for munchies.
"Hello, Clarice."
"..I bite down on a scream. Standing in the doorway is
Hannibal Lecter, dark and artificially large against the
doorframe. I offer him my powdered donut..."
What was the child's injury?
Yeah, well if I'm on the way to the hospital with
my leg 1/2 off, that damned driver better have
thought about "going" before he picked me up
or I'm going to insist he worries about "wet pants".
That entire bunch should be fired, but all that's
aside from it.
And whoever mentioned the feds and the airports,
hit it right on the head. Just what we need, more donut
fanatics.
I'm not saying that this judge should be impeached. But an impeachment hearing needs to begin. Perhaps the judge will be found innocent? Perhaps the judge's reputation could be cleared by this. All I'm saying is that the House needs to investigate this. It's ludicrous. And odds are, this judge needs to be removed from the bench.
Let the DNC defend this nonsense. And let the ABA defend this. Let them both throw their bodies into this steam roller. They can't win. And the GOP can't lose. Doing nothing about this is the only way to lose.
FWIW, her name is Aquanella Johnson. Here's the earlier article:
Publication date: 8/29/00Tyra fires driver who stopped for doughnuts
By JO ANN ZUNIGA
Staff
Houston Fire Chief Lester Tyra on Monday fired a 20-year veteran ambulance driver who stopped for doughnuts en route to the hospital with a patient.
Larry A. Wesley, 49, based at Fire Station No. 35 off Martin Luther King Boulevard, was transporting a youth to Ben Taub Hospital for a wound July 10.
On the way to the hospital, Wesley stopped at a Shipley's Donuts shop with the youth in the ambulance.
Aquanella Johnson, the mother of the boy being transported, lodged a complaint with the department, said Houston Fire Department spokesman Jay Evans. After an investigation by the Office of Inspector General, Tyra fired Wesley for four cited violations of patient care guidelines.
The office's report will be sent to the city's Legal Department for further review before it is released to the public.
The fire chief will not comment further since Wesley likely will appeal the case, Evans said.
The suspension is the sixth in the Fire Department within the past month and a half.
On Aug. 8, Tyra fired a deputy chief and a district chief who had been relieved of duty since being indicted in January for tampering with government documents.
Deputy Fire Chief Robert C. Sherrard, 59, and District Fire Chief Larry D. Smith, 46, are accused of trying to destroy or conceal evidence of complaints against HFD dispatcher David Whittington. Whittington was involved in a delayed ambulance response to mortally wounded Houston police Officer Troy Blando on May 19, 1999. Blando was shot by a suspected car thief.
Whittington and dispatcher Donald Clark received suspensions for not following procedures in the incident. During the investigation into that matter, the inspector general's office uncovered evidence of tampering with records of prior, unrelated complaints against Whittington.
Another 20-year Fire Department veteran was fired July 31 and denied his pension amid complaints that he failed to provide medical services June 17 to a 12-year-old boy who later died.
After reviewing the report of the city's investigation in the death of Daniel Lopez, Tyra said firefighter Sergio Lopez was placed on "indefinite suspension."
Tyra also fired two emergency medical technicians July 24 after the June 10 death of 35-year-old Jose Ruiz, who complained of stomach pain but was not taken to a hospital. He died at home several hours later.
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
No pun intended, I'm sure.
I wonder what the nationality and race was, of
the majority of offenders. I'm sure there's more
to this story than meets the eye...[?]
Incidentally, where and when did this become
a "DNC" vs GOP issue? I trust you aren't
implying the DNC is in favor of equal justice
and the GOP isn't? It sure sounded like that.
And you know this is the case in this story how? Any evidence to support your claim here?
I live in a suburb of Houston and this was a big story at the time because a few weeks before a Hispanic boy had gone to the local fire department several times and said he was in pain. They gave him some aspirin and sent him home, telling his parents to take him to the doctor. They didn't, of course. The boy subsequently died of some rare malady, and the fire department was blamed and sued for not running a catscan on him. I remember specifically on the John Matthews KPRC morning talk radio show (now moved to KSEV) that this was NOT an emergency run, it was some kid whose mother was too cheap and/or lazy to take the kid to the doctor, so they both hopped on an ambulance for Ben Taub.
Talk radio has no archives, so I don't know how to substantiate it other than the fact that it was a big deal at the time, and everybody was coming down on the Houston Fire Department because they were supposed to take anybody and everybody to Ben Taub who asked to go, whether it was an emergency or not.
Since it was not an emergency, the guy stopped for a snack. If I were him I would have dumped the welfare bums out on the freeway at speed to turn the thing into an emergency.
Now I have a couple of questions for you: Should fire stations be free neighborhood medical clinics for freeloaders? Should emergency medical personnel be taxi drivers for freeloaders?
By the way, after this incident the city of Houston bought a bunch of SUVs to be used as free taxis for welfare slugs to free up the ambulances for use in true emergencies.
I'm an EMT, so I know what I'm talking about.
The two issues have absolutely nothing to do with one another. True, there are a lot of bogus calls-- I know that better than most on this board. Be that as it may, it is never appropriate to stop for munchies when you have a patient on board. This man was unprofessional, to say the least, and if you assume it was a non-critical case. They should have fired his rear immediately.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
