The Arkansas Department of Human Services was ordered Friday to pay $272,875 in legal fees for a former State Hospital nurse who won $40,000 from the agency after a jury found that her firing violated the Arkansas Whistle-Blower Act.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox ordered the payment to attorney Luther Sutter, whose firm represents Gloria Daniel of Pine Bluff.
Daniel said she had been fired for criticizing how the hospital handled the food-allergy death of a mentally ill teenager. A jury sided with her after a March trial.
Sutter told jurors that Daniel was a "victim of retaliation" by Charles Smith, a 42-year veteran of the Human Services Department who was the hospital's chief administrator.
He's now an administrator in the agency's Division of Developmental Disabilities, according to the agency's website.
Daniel, licensed since 1982, went on to a job at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff.
A spokesman for Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she has not decided whether to appeal the ruling.
"The attorney general is reviewing today's decision from Judge Fox and will evaluate how to proceed," said Judd Deere, Rutledge's representative.
State lawyers said Daniel was fired for wrongly locking a female patient in a room at the state mental-health hospital in September 2010.
Sutter said that Smith fired Daniel either for her participation in the investigation of Gary Cortez Reatherford's death or because she complained to Smith that the hospital did not have the necessary equipment to treat the 19-year-old Benton man's fatal allergic reaction in August 2009.
Reatherford, who had bipolar disorder, died of acute anaphylaxis about 2½ hours after being served shrimp by the food service company that provided hospital meals. The company had substituted shrimp after running out of the popcorn chicken it had been serving.
Georgia-based Morrison Healthcare Food Services reached an undisclosed settlement with Reatherford's family in late 2010. The Department of Human Services was never sued over the death.
Sutter had asked for $332,443 in fees and costs for the work he, his partner, Lucien Gillham, and staff attorney Tona Demers had put into the litigation over the past five years.
Sutter reported that the firm had worked 979 hours and 20 minutes on the case, nearly 41 days, and typically billed $300 to $350 an hour, depending on the lawyer.
The judge found grounds to award fees for 819 hours, or 34 days and about eight minutes.
The first trial ended in a mistrial in October 2010.
Metro on 07/25/2015