The case is a wrongful death suit on behalf of Maryville ward Victoria Petersilka, who hanged herself on Feb. 9, 2002. Petersilka's relative, Jennifer Hess, sued Maryville, the Des Plaines home for troubled youth, in 2003.
Complete secrecy is unusual for wrongful death cases in Cook County, because Rule 12.15 of the court says the plaintiff "shall file" a petition for approval of the settlement, and that the judge must decide how much lawyers in the case are paid.
When Little City, the Palatine facility for the developmentally disabled, settled a wrongful death case in July 2004, for example, the judge's order included the amount and how it was to be disbursed.
The judge Friday did not indicate if he would agree to secrecy, but he noted that none of the parties involved in the case seemed to object.
If the documents remains secret, it will remain unknown whether a Maryville lawyer will be involved in the settlement.
That lawyer, Robert C. Yelton III, was added as a defendant to the lawsuit in February 2004. Lawyers for Petersilka alleged that Yelton "aided and abetted" Maryville in its creation and cover-up of two different, conflicting reports about Petersilka's suicide.
Yelton and his attorney did not return calls.
The false report ignited a firestorm of controversy after it was discovered, and it spurred two investigations by DCFS' Office of the Inspector General. More controversy came after a University of Illinois at Chicago professor criticized the office reports as a whitewash.
State-paid monitors were brought in, and Maryville's leader, the Rev. John Smyth, promised changes. But in September 2003, as FBI subpoenas were issued to investigate possible federal health care fraud, DCFS Director Bryan Samuels declared the Des Plaines campus "not safe" and announced the state was essentially severing ties with the facility. A national agency later pulled its accreditation.
According to the suit, the original Maryville report said Petersilka had threatened to kill herself before doing so. The altered report said she had simply threatened to run away.
The difference was crucial because, had Maryville authorities known of her suicidal intentions, certain precautions, such as regular checks on Petersilka, should have been taken, the suit claims.
In later investigations, Maryville maintained that the alteration was not an attempt to cover up the fact that it was aware of Petersilka's suicidal intentions, but that the original report had been false, and that the Maryville program manager John Siers had lied about the suicide on the first report only to justify a restrictive physical hold that was placed on Petersilka that day.
The UIC professor, Ronald Davidson, accused the Office of the Inspector General in an Oct. 27, 2002, letter to then-DCFS Director Jess McDonald of glossing over Maryville's actions.
His letter notes that DCFS regulations clearly say agencies must report any instance of falsified documents rather than just turn over what they believe to be the true report - regardless of what a lawyer advised. The letter implies this was known to Maryville. In fact, the CFS-119 form that Maryville submitted to DCFS on the incident has a check box for falsified documents.
"Getting bad legal advice does not absolve an agency from having to abide by the same commonsense ethical behaviors that all other DCFS providers in Illinois are expected to follow," Davidson's letter said.
The firm that DCFS consulted at the time, Yelton & Kehl, does not list child welfare law as one of its specialties on its Web site. In court filings, it vigorously denied doing anything wrong.
However, a judge approved taking a deposition of Yelton and Maryville's Fr. David Ryan, ostensibly to discover just what advice Yelton gave Ryan about the falsified report.
DCFS and Maryville would not comment Friday on the secrecy provisions of the settlement.
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