Excerpt from State of Wisconsin Circuit Court (Dane County) Branch 15
Case No. 97-CV-3209


The document from which this is excerpted is a state document that is freely available to the public.  In deference to the state of Wisconsin, we have omitted the the names of the Plaintiff and the Defendants.  Please note that the state's original draft barred us from requesting any medical information from the hospital.  Again, it is odd that the state would want to include such language.  One would think that the laws regarding slander and libel would protect them sufficiently from anything we might say.   [Our commentary is in red]

Excerpted from paragraph 3:

...Neither payment hereunder nor terms of this settlement agreement will be used or construed as an admission of liability or wrongdoing, and neither the plaintiff, Thomas Kwapil or Lori Kwapil, nor their attorneys, nor through any agent or representative, will claim otherwise publicly, to the media, or in any other litigation. [In accordance with this agreement, we make no such claims.  Furthermore, we have not and will not request that anyone make such claims on our behalf.] Plaintiff, Thomas Kwapil and Lori Kwapil, agree that neither they nor their agents or representatives will publicly criticize or complain through a website or otherwise, about the health care or response to information requests previously provided to them by defendants, employees, or health care providers at [the hospital].  [In accordance with this agreement, we offer no such complaint or criticism.  We have not and will not request that anyone take such actions on our behalf.] Thomas Kwapil and Lori Kwapil will desist from the pursuit of and withdraw all formal complaints to any administrative, governmental or health care agencies. [In accordance with this agreement, we have not pursued any additional complaints, we have deleted sections of the webpage detailing such complaints, and our attorney has prepared correspondence rescinding our complaints to the relevant agencies.   We have not and will not request that anyone take such actions on our behalf. ] Thomas and Lori Kwapil agree that they may request copies of all or specified parts of the plaintiff's medical record from [the hospital's] medical record department, or that the plaintiff's physicians may directly contact [the hospital's] physicians, when such contact is reasonably related to the plaintiff's future health care.  Other requests or demands for information from [the hospital] or its medical staff shall cease. [As mentioned above, we had to draw the line at the state's plan to prohibit us from requesting any medical information as this jeopardized Will's wellbeing]

A violation of this agreement shall result in liquidated damages of $5,000 for each violation.  If there is a dispute concerning whether a violation has occurred, the matter shall be determined by binding arbitration, with a neutral arbitrator to be selected by the Dane County Mediation Panel. [Big brother is watching]

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