The city of Rock Falls has appealed a $31.5 million judgment delivered against the city and two fire officials in connection with the 2021 line-of-duty death of a Sterling fire lieutenant.

In court documents filed Monday, Jan. 12, in Whiteside County Circuit Court, attorney Joseph Culig, representing the city of Rock Falls, former Rock Falls Fire Chief Cris Bouwens and current Fire Chief Ken Wolf, is asking that a judge overturn a Whiteside County jury’s Nov. 14 verdict that awarded $31.5 million to the estate of Garrett Ramos, his widow, Brittney, and their two daughters.

Ramos, 38, died Dec. 4, 2021, while fighting a house fire on Ridge Road in Rock Falls that had been reported by the home’s basement resident at 11:04 p.m. Dec. 3, 2021. Ramos arrived at the burning home at 11:21 p.m. as part of a Sterling fire crew assisting the Rock Falls Fire Department under a mutual-aid agreement.

Ramos, who was fighting the fire while inside the home, was leaving the burning structure to replenish his air supply about midnight when he fell through a hole in the floor into the basement. At the time he fell, fire officials did not know the home had a basement.

Ramos was able to issue two mayday calls, but command officers did not know who was issuing them, where the firefighter was located or what the problem was. They initially identified another firefighter as the one they thought was missing; when he was found, no further work was done to make sure no one else had made the call, according to testimony.

About 30 minutes later, firefighters realized that Ramos had not been seen for a while, and they began searching for him. He was found in the basement in a room adjacent to the room where he fell.

Fire investigators said Ramos was not injured during the fall and had been walking around the basement to find a way out. They believe Ramos survived for about 17 minutes after he fell into the basement and died from asphyxia after running out of air. Firefighters recovered his body at 1:13 a.m. Dec. 4.

Brittney Ramos filed the lawsuit in December 2022, claiming that Bouwens and Wolf, who was a deputy chief at the time of the fire, showed a willful and wanton disregard that caused her husband’s death. At the conclusion of a two-week trial, the jury found that Bouwens and Wolf each were 50% to blame for Ramos’ death.

According to Culig’s post-trial motion filed Monday, the defendants assert that because Rock Falls was a borrowing employer of Garrett Ramos during the fire, they were entitled to the protections afforded by the Workers’ Compensation Act.

According to the motion, “In exchange for imposing ‘liability without fault upon the employer,’ the WCA makes ‘workers’ compensation benefits the exclusive remedy for an employee who is injured [or killed] while acting in the course and scope of his employment” and that this immunity applies “when an employee is loaned from one employer to another employer.”

“The trial evidence overwhelmingly established that the City of Rock Falls was a borrowing employer of Garrett,” according to the motion.

According to the motion, Bouwens and Wolf must be granted “discretionary immunity,” which is “premised upon the idea that [public] officials should be allowed to exercise their judgment in rendering decisions without fear that a good-faith mistake might subject them to liability.”

The evidence did not show that the defendants acted willfully and wantonly, according to the motion.

According to Culig’s motion, in the alternative, the court should order a new trial “if the verdict is contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence” and when the court abuses its discretion in making an evidentiary ruling, and the error is substantially prejudicial and affected the outcome of the trial.

According to that portion of the motion, the jury’s verdict that the defendants’ conduct was willful and wanton is against the manifest weight of the evidence and the defendants were severely prejudiced by the court’s erroneous admission of certain testimony.

According to the motion, the jury, being provided a verdict form with pain and suffering and emotional distress listed as separate line items of damages, improperly awarded emotional distress damages that duplicated or overlapped its award of pain and suffering damages.

“This, in turn, seriously prejudiced the defendants by allowing the plaintiff to obtain a double recovery for the same injury,” according to the motion. “Because the jury awarded $3 million in emotional distress damages that were already encompassed by its $7 million award for pain and suffering, the defendants request that the court order the jury’s damages award to be reduced by $3 million and, if the plaintiff does not accept this reduction, order a new trial on all issues.”

A post-judgment motion hearing is set for 9 a.m. Jan. 21 in Whiteside County Circuit Court.