{"id":823,"date":"2019-07-12T23:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T23:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=823"},"modified":"2019-07-12T23:00:40","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T23:00:40","slug":"200000-is-most-that-family-of-a-woman-killed-in-a-house-fire-can-get-from-polk-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/07\/12\/200000-is-most-that-family-of-a-woman-killed-in-a-house-fire-can-get-from-polk-county\/","title":{"rendered":"$200,000 is most that family of a woman killed in a house fire can get from Polk County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A law caps how much a wronged party can get from state and local governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For months, the sad and disturbing story of Loretta Pickard,\nthe 76-year-old woman who died in a house fire in Polk County late last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pickard was on the phone with dispatchers who assured her\nhelp was on the way. But that rescue never happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTell them to hurry!\u201d Pickard can be heard telling a 911\ndispatcher once she learned firefighters were on scene. Sadly, Loretta died in\nher home and her rescuers never came for her, even after spending 20 minutes on\nthe phone with 911.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fire officials told the media that Capt. James Williams\nwas suspended for one day, for recording video of the fire, and then sharing it\non Snapchat. County officials admitted that Loretta may have still been alive\nin the burning home at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fire Chief Tony Stravino has publicly defended\nCapt. Williams\u2019 actions that night, telling 8 On Your Side that saying the\ncrew attempted to enter the home but it was too hot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The media uncovered recordings that\ncontradict their accounts of what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dispatchers repeatedly told Williams that someone was\ninside, yet radio transmissions from Williams that night appeared to show that\nhe was confused if anyone was even inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first reported actions at the scene were a \u201cdefensive attack\u201d which means in firefighter terms, they\u2019re going to fight the fire from the outside. Minutes later,\u00a0Williams called over the radio for backup and cited a policy that two firefighters must be outside before two can go in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief Stravino admitted that policy does not apply in a life or death situation, and said that it was from a \u201clack of knowledge on his part.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Polk County commissioners will likely offer a $200,000\nsettlement to Pickard\u2019s family, an amount county staff recommended\ncommissioners approve when the panel met for a workshop Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was one of their citizens that they were obviously\nsworn to protect. And they didn\u2019t,\u201d said lawyer A.J. Alvarez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alvarez says $200,000 is the maximum any government agency\nis liable for under Florida law. The fact Polk is offering it to the family\nwith no trial or argument sends a message, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt tells me that they understand that they are wrong,\u201d said\nAlvarez. \u201cAnd that they want to rectify the situation instead of an ongoing\nprocess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pickard\u2019s niece, Amber Addison, who has been the family\u2019s\nmost vocal critic, says they been advised not to comment during the settlement\nprocess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County Attorney Michael Craig also declined to\nelaborate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents of Polk County, who\u2019ve been following the sad\nstory, had mixed feelings about the settlement offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always hard,\u201d said Kendal Sherrous, who doesn\u2019t live\nfar from where Pickard died. \u201cHow do you place value on a life? So, I don\u2019t\nknow that I could say an amount is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk resident Alexis Pappas said she doesn\u2019t think taxpayers\nshould have to pay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think what happened with her family was a complete tragedy. But I don\u2019t think a settlement is a way to go. Policy change is the best way to go,\u201d said Pappas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal law protects state and local governments from\nliability under a legal concept called sovereign immunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, most states, including Florida, have passed laws to\ngive something in cases where a party has clearly been wronged. In Florida,\nthat number is $200,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plaintiffs can try to get more, but it\u2019s an often lengthy\nand expensive uphill battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alvarez says an award exceeding the $200,000 cap would first\nentail winning a larger judgment in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point, the party would have to get a state lawmaker\nto introduce what\u2019s called a claim bill for an exception to the $200,000 cap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They would likely need to hire a lobbyist, he says, to\npersuade enough of the Legislature to agree the case warrants a legal\nexception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, if the bill is passed, the governor must sign it into\nlaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd so, actually getting paid is – I would call it \u2013 uncommon,\u201d\nsaid Alvarez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk commissioners will meet to vote on the proposed\nsettlement offer at their next regularly scheduled board meeting Tuesday. If\nPickard\u2019s family agrees to the settlement, Alvarez says they would likely have\nto waive their right to any further claims in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A law caps how much a wronged party can get from state and local governments. For months, the sad and disturbing story of Loretta Pickard, the 76-year-old woman who died… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}