LANSING, Mich. (Legal Newsline) – A 911 operator in Michigan who was found with his feet up on his desk watching videos on his phone while emergency calls went unanswered could still be found liable for a man’s death from a heart attack.
The Michigan Court of Appeals on May 20 denied defendant Joshua Choroba’s plea to have his motion for summary disposition granted, leaving intact a Wayne County Circuit Court ruling that puts the case on track for a trial.
That trial would determine if Choroba was grossly negligent on March 2, 2018, when he didn’t realize calls were coming in during Stephen Greene’s heart attack.
Choroba admitted he did not check the volume on the speakers that alert dispatchers to incoming calls when he started his shift. They were turned all the way down for reasons that are unclear.
“(A) reasonable jury could find Choroba, based on his actions that night, simply did not care about the safety or welfare of those who might be calling 911 and was thus liable for gross negligence,” the decision says. “A reasonable jury could also find that his actions constituted nothing more than ordinary negligence.”
The woman who had overseen the work station before Choroba testified she saw him with his feet on his desk, watching Facebook videos on his phone. She noticed a light flashing on her computer screen that indicated an incoming call.
Departmental policy dictated that operators must check call volume when logging in to a work station. Rachel Rowell, also a defendant, took the call regarding Greene’s heart attack and dispatched firefighters to his nursing home.
Choroba then noticed a group of missed 911 calls on his computer, most of them from the nursing home.
“Choroba did not notice the visual prompts on his computer screen that 911 calls were coming in or the prompt alerting him to the missed calls piling up,” the ruling said.
Rowell denies turning down the volume when she was using the work station before Choroba. He denies turning it down, too.
Rowell settled for $6.9 million, though the agreement stipulates Greene’s estate will not try to collect from her personally.
Should Choroba be found to be ordinarily negligent, he can make an argument that he is entitled to immunity under the state’s governmental tort liability act.
“Choroba did not check the volume of the speaker at the station where he was working, as required by departmental policy. And Choroba had previously been disciplined for failing to properly log into his work station and allowing a text to 911 to go unanswered for hours,” the decision says.