posted 10-20-2006 08:46 AM            

Man wins $600k in lie-detector suit

A jury has awarded $600,000 to a former Shelby County probation officer who was fired based on what his attorneys argued was a negligently administered polygraph test.


The six-member Shelby Superior Court jury in Shelbyville late Wednesday awarded Daniel P. Morgan, 38, $400,000 on his claim of negligent administration of a polygraph examination and $200,0000 on his claim of reckless or intentional infliction of emotional distress.
A panel of three Shelby County judges overseeing the county probation department fired Morgan on June 13, 1997, after meeting with a State Police senior polygrapher and the intern who administered the exam, said Kevin W. Betz and Sandra L. Blevins, Morgan’s co-counsel.

Morgan filed his lawsuit in 1999, and the case reached various appeals courts before it made it to state court in Shelby County before Special Judge Karen Love of Hendricks County.

Morgan, who was a probation officer in Shelby County for five and a half years and now lives in Franklin, took the polygraph exam after a 16-year-old boy on probation accused him of making sexual advances, his attorneys said.

The attorneys for Morgan, who now works for the Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation, argued during the trial that the more experienced, senior State Police polygrapher failed to tell the judges overseeing the probation department that the polygraph results were “inconclusive,” while the intern who administered the test told the judges the results showed Morgan was “slam dunk deceptive.”

Staci Schneider, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Attorney General’s office, said it would be several days before a decision is made in consultation with the State Police on whether to appeal.

The monetary judgments were handed down against the State Police. The jury also found the intern polygraph examiner at the time, Timothy Kaiser, now a State Police first sergeant, liable for punitive damages, but assessed no monetary payment against him.

Call Star reporter William Booher at (317) 444-2706.

posted 10-20-2006 03:26 PM         

Call me skeptical, but I have a hard time taking anything printed by the local media at face value. There has to be more to this story. Do we have any members in Indiana that could give us the complete picture?