Peabody Paying $250K To Dispatcher Who Slept Through 911 Call

PEABODY, MA -- The city reached an agreement that will pay John "Jack" Brophy $250,000, according to minutes of a City Council executive session held in January. Brophy, who had sought as much as $1.5 million, was fired in 2005 after sleeping through a 911 call from the parents of a six-month-old baby who had stopped breathing.

Police and ambulance crews heard the call and the child survived, but Brophy was fired. An arbitrator ruled the penalty was too harsh, and the city lost an appeal of that case in 2008. Brophy never returned to work, and was fired again for not taking a drug test and fitness exam before returning to work. His lawyers argued that, because he had not been legally fired in 2005, he was not required to take those tests.

According to the Salem News, Brophy continued to work as a plumber an let the case go dormant until 2014. That was when his attorney filed an order to push the city to abide by the arbitrator's decision. That case was supposed to have opened in December, but the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement.

Under the terms of the settlement, Brophy has been paid $125,000 this year and will receive another $125,000 next year. Peabody also paid $79,200 for a forensic accounting firm to give an expert opinion in the case.

For more on this story, see the Salem News. Subscribe to Peabody Patch for more local news and real-time alerts.

Patch file photo.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).