Friday, August 17, 2007

Statement of the Attorney General’s Office:
Nixon et al vs. State of Iowa Lawsuit Resolved in Settlement

Statement of the Attorney General’s Office:

Johnson County District Court Judge Denver Dillard issued an “Order Approving Settlement” Friday morning regarding the Mary Nixon et al vs. State of Iowa case, a lawsuit arising from a 1939 study conducted by students and members of the University of Iowa Speech Pathology Dept. at a Davenport home for neglected and dependent children.

The parties reached agreements to settle the litigation, and received Court approval Friday for the settlement. The parties still must complete executed settlement documents, and receive approval of the State Appeal Board.

Go to Settlement Agreements and Orders Approving Settlement.

The terms of the settlements include:

• The State will pay a total of $900,000 to five of the plaintiffs, Hazel Potter Dornbush, Kathryn Meacham, the Betty Romp estate, the Clarence Fifer estate, and the Phillip Spieker estate. The State also will pay $25,000 to the sixth plaintiff, Mary Nixon.
  
  
• The plaintiffs will dismiss their lawsuit and all claims against the state. (The original tort claims filed by the six plaintiffs sought payments totaling $13.5 million.) In the settlement, the state denied liability.

We believe this is a fair and appropriate settlement. For the plaintiffs, we hope and believe it will help provide closure relating to experiences from long ago and to memories going back almost seventy years. For the state, this is a good and prudent result, based on potential risk, the very high costs of continuing litigation, and the difficulty of finding witnesses who were present for the events in question so many decades ago.

For all parties, it ends long-running, difficult, and costly litigation that only would have run up more expenses and delayed resolution to plaintiffs who are in their seventies or eighties.

We look forward to finalizing this settlement and presenting it to the State Appeal Board for ratification.

[END]

Contact Bob Brammer, 515-281-6699