A $2.25 million settlement has been approved in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought against Dakota County and three employees by the father of Eli Hart, a 6-year-old boy who was fatally shot by his mother in May 2022.

Tory Hart filed the lawsuit in Dakota County District Court in August 2022, alleging the county and its three workers failed to protect the boy from his mother, Julissa Angelica Genrich Thaler, who at the time had custody of the boy while residing in Spring Park in western Hennepin County. The lawsuit was later moved to U.S. District Court.

On Tuesday, the Dakota County Board of Commissioners approved the settlement at its regularly scheduled meeting, a decision that followed lengthy negotiations between the two sides.

“On behalf of the Hart family, and after two years of challenging litigation, we are pleased to bring this matter to a resolution with Dakota County and bring to a close this tragic situation,” attorney Andrew Davick at Meshbesher & Spence said Tuesday.

According to court documents, Tory Hart will receive just over $1.2 million, while the boy’s paternal grandfather and paternal and maternal grandmothers will be awarded $25,000 each. Meshbesher & Spence and Dunlap & Seeger will get the rest of the settlement for representing the family in the lawsuit.

A jury convicted Thaler, 29, of first- and second-degree murder Feb. 8 for shooting the boy nine times with a shotgun while he sat in a booster seat in the back seat of her car on May 20, 2022. His body was discovered in the trunk of the car during a traffic stop in Mound by Orono police. Thaler was sentenced Feb. 16 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

According to the lawsuit, Dakota County assumed “interim custody and legal responsibility” of Eli in January 2021 after a Dakota County judge granted a Child in Need of Protection or Services (“CHIPS”) petition the county brought for the boy. The petition came after Thaler was placed on a mental health and welfare hold after Farmington police received reports from Dakota County Social Services that she was hearing voices telling her to kill herself and that she was having paranoid delusions.

Beth Dehner, a Dakota County social worker, concluded in August 2021 that reuniting the boy with Thaler would be unsafe and that the risk level for doing so was “high.”

Two months later, Dehner and Jennifer Streefland, another Dakota County social worker, intended to reunite Eli and his father. But later that month, Dehner, Streefland and Sheri Larson, Eli’s appointed guardian ad litem for Dakota County, along with Jennifer Jackson, an assistant Dakota County attorney, met and decided that Eli would not be reunited with his father and would spend more time with both of his parents, according to court records.

In late March 2022, Dehner and Streefland submitted a report to Dakota County District Court on Thaler’s lack of stability, missed therapy sessions, missed parenting education sessions and “her concerning actions” toward Eli’s father, including the filing of a new Hennepin County petition seeking an order for protection. “Despite these concerns, Defendants recommended that custody be returned to Thaler and to dismiss the CHIPS file,” the lawsuit states.

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On May 10, 2022, 10 days before the murder, Judge Tim Wermager followed the recommendations of Dakota County Social Services and the guardian ad litem and terminated court jurisdiction over Eli, who was reunited with Thaler.

“Plaintiff alleges that while Thaler ‘pulled the trigger,’ it was the failures of Dakota County, its agents and employees, and others that permitted Eli to be reunified with Thaler and that such failures were a proximate cause, in whole or in part, of the injuries and death of Eli,” the lawsuit states.

In a written statement Tuesday, Dakota County said: “The murder of Eli Hart was a horrific tragedy. Our deepest condolences go out to his family and to all those affected by his death. The settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing, but it brings closure to a very emotional case for family, county staff and all involved. Dakota County remains firmly committed to the safety and well-being of our community’s children.”