South Carolina Nursing Home Blog : South Carolina Nursing Home Lawyer & Attorney : Poliakoff & Associates Law Firm : Elderly Care, Senior Care

The St. Clair Record had an article about a Madison County jury compensating a plaintiff in a negligence trial close to $150,000 in damages.  Jurors deliberated late into the evening before finding for Paul Graves in his suit against Rosewood Care Center of Edwardsville.

The 2003 case was brought by Graves on behalf of his deceased father's estate.   Alfred Graves received inadequate care while at Rosewood Care Center of Edwardsville and that lack of care and violations of the home's own procedures led him to fall and break his hip.

The jury awarded Graves damages for his father's loss of life experienced, pain and suffering and medical expenses. The largest damages were for the loss of life the jury found Alfred Graves, the plaintiff's father, experienced after a fall at the nursing home in January 2003. Those damages totaled $75,000. An additional $30,000 was given for Alfred Graves' pain and suffering and over $44,000 for his medical and nursing expenses.

Rosewood argued that the fall was an accident that had nothing to do with the care Alfred Graves received.

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The Columbus Dispatch had an article about the tragic case of Peter Southard who died from a lack of water.  A mild stroke had left him debilitated, forgetful and always in need of water to drink. He died two days after leaving Whetstone Gardens & Care Center in 2005.  A jury found that his care was deficient and negligent and compensated his family for his wrongful death in the amount of $6.5 million.  Jurors found the nursing home solely responsible for Southard's death

"He could be told to take a drink of water and 10 minutes later forget the conversation," said Gerald Leeseberg, attorney for Southard's widow. "He lived moment to moment."

Diana Southard had cared for her husband since the stroke in 1984.   "After Peter suffered a brain aneurysm in 1984, my priority in life was taking care of my husband," Diana Southard said . "When I returned from this particular respite, I was devastated to see the shape he was in.

 She occasionally admitted him to a nursing home to give herself a break.  In May 2005, she took him to the Whetstone center.  When she returned 15 days later, she found the 61-year-old Navy veteran incontinent with clothes strewn about his room and a bloody rash on his groin from urine-soaked bedding.

"Two days later, he passed away as a result of the lack of care he received while I was away. I lost the love of my life." Doctors said he died of dehydration that caused kidney failure.

The nine-day trial included testimony from doctors who said the care at the nursing home fell below minimum standards and from aides who said they were never told of Southard's critical need for water.  A glass of water was left by his TV stand. But brain damage had left Southard both thirsty and forgetful, which meant that someone had to make sure he drank enough water by watching him do it.

Jurors awarded Southard $500,000 for his pain and suffering before death and $6 million to his wife, their two daughters and three grandchildren for compensatory damages and mental anguish.

Attorneys for Whetstone argued that the dehydration death probably was the result of diarrhea after he left the nursing home.   They also countersued Southard's primary-care physician, claiming negligent care and instruction.

 

 

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Most of the information in this entry comes from John DeMoor "Trends in nursing home litigation". Daily Record and the Kansas City Daily News-Press.

When St. Louis defense attorney Stephen Strum finished his closing argument on behalf of a nursing home client earlier this year in Hannibal, Mo., he and his uninsured client were prepared and almost eager to hand over the keys to the facility's front door.  The jury returned a $400,000 verdict, with $240,000 of it for punitive damages involving aggravating circumstances.  Defendant is appealling the jury's findings.  Strum siad if the appeal is unsuccessful, "we'll just hand over the keys".

Strum is one of many defense attorneys with nursing home clients that have converted each of their facilities into an independent limited liability corporation while at the same time have opted not to carry long-term-care liability insurance so they can't be held accountable for neglect and negligence.

This tactic is just one of the latest trends that nursing homes are using to avoid responsibility for their actions.  Setting up nursing homes as their own limited liability corporation, not carrying liability insurance, refusing settlements and trying each case to the bitter end is part of a growing local and national trend the nursing home industry is using to protect itself from resident related lawsuits.

Defendants are quick to use the tactic to intimidate plaintiffs, concedes Kansas City defense attorney Roger Slead of the law firm Horn, Aylward & Bandy. I have heard it threatened more and more: 'If you think this is a $5 million case, here's the key to the facility because it's not even worth $5 million as an ongoing business concern. Here, you can have the keys to the facility and we're going to walk away,' Slead said.

Plaintiff attorney Derek Potts of the Potts Law Firm in Kansas City said that incorporating into an LLC and not carrying insurance is merely a strategy for nursing homes to shield themselves from liability.  He sees the dangling-keys tactic often used early in a case to discourage attorneys from proceeding with costly litigation. They come out early and say, 'We're just going to be honest with you. There is no insurance, no money and you should probably abandon your case, or we can pay you a nominal amount to go away,' Potts said. And it does work. I know a lot of attorneys who are daunted by that and don't want to risk their time and expense going forward.

Many national nursing home companies have developed shell corporations with elaborate management systems and corporate structures. Potts explained that the corporation at the bottom level of the structure is often a not-for-profit corporation or a pass- through entity which rarely realizes profit or gain on its books.

The defendant will typically file a motion for summary judgment to sever the parent corporation or owner from the case. He points out that the plaintiff must counter by directing discovery towards piercing the corporate veil or showing to what extent the owner controls the care given and how that caused the injury.  Potts says the plaintiff should argue that owners control the quality of care based on how much money they provide for the amount of staff, salaries, training and adequacy of the equipment.

All these things directly impact patient care and controls how much profit they make, but they are also things that can impact how people get hurt or even killed, he said. The challenge is to follow the money trail to establish exactly who profited from the operation of the nursing home and tie that ultimate profit to the injury and, or death.

During discovery, Potts suggests the plaintiff seek the disclosure of ownership statement from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services; identify the named insureds on the liability policy at issue; and depose corporate executives about their understanding of the nature of the relationship.

Decisions by the Missouri Court of Appeals have helped to provide guidelines on how to build these cases. In Scott v. SSM Healthcare St. Louis, 70 S.W.3d 560, (Mo.Ct.App. 2002), the Missouri Court of Appeals held that to establish an agency relationship in the healthcare setting, (1) the principal must consent, either expressly or impliedly, to the agent's acting on the principal's behalf, and (2) the agent must be subject to the principal's control.

Potts currently has a case where he has been told that all his client will receive are keys to a building the nursing home leases. However, he has yet to see a situation where a plaintiff has won and proceeded with collecting the assets of the nursing home.

 

 

 

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An Arizona jury awarded a landmark verdict of $11 million to the widow of a 36-year-old man with traumatic brain injury who died after ingesting foreign objects while in the care of Liberty Manor Residency, a Phoenix assisted living facility. The verdict included $2 million for the decedent, $5 million for the wife and $4 million in punitive damages. It was the largest verdict ever awarded against an assisted living facility in the United States.

Earl Scherrer suffered a severe traumatic brain injury as a result of a car accident in 1996.  He lapsed into a coma and was not expected to recover.  Despite doctors' assessment that Mr. Scherrer's condition was permanent, Lydia Scherrer refused to disconnect her husband's life support.  Earl Scherrer remained in a coma for 16 months before he began to slowly emerge.  With his wife's nurturing and support, he slowly started to speak, albeit slowly.  Mrs. Scherrer worked with her husband day after day, using first-and second-grade reading and math textbooks and other elementary learning tools to stimulate his brain function and coax him to reach his full potential.

Lydia Scherrer devoted many hours per week to her husband's recovery, but she also had to work and was forced to turn to assisted living and residential facilities to provide the 24-hour care her husband needed. For years, she visited him faithfully on her days off, every Tuesday and Wednesday, checking him out of the facility and taking him home.

On April 7, 2006, Mrs. Scherrer placed her husband in Liberty Manor Residency, a facility that purported to provide 24-hour supervision of its residents.  One month later - on May 7, 2006 - she received a call saying her husband had been vomiting.  Mrs. Scherrer rushed over to Liberty Manor, brought her husband home and gave him a bath. Within a matter of minutes, he began vomiting black matter and died in her arms.

Autopsy results showed a number of items - including plastic bags, unopened catsup packets, candy wrappers and paper towels - were found in Earl Scherrer's stomach and small intestines. The medical examiner determined these foreign objects were significant contributing factors to his death. The autopsy read in part, "hypertensive heart disease due to mechanical obstruction of the GI [gastrointestinal tract] from the foreign objects."

Lydia Scherrer brought claims against Liberty Manor for abuse and neglect, wrongful death and punitive damages.

At trial, it came to light that Liberty Manor made numerous false entries in its charts with respect to Earl Scherrer's care, including notations of care on days when Mrs. Scherrer had checked him out of the facility.  Liberty Manor was also unable to produce Mr. Scherrer's alleged caregiver, an employee named Raul.

"Lydia Scherrer did not walk away from her husband, in life or in death," said her attorney, Craig Knapp. "Her hope is that this verdict will force the assisted living facility industry to set and meet higher standards of care for their residents, resulting in enhanced protections for the defenseless individuals trusted to the care of others.

 

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Melvin Raybon died in pain four years ago, and a DeKalb County jury agreed that the cause of his suffering was neglect at the Tucker nursing home where he lived for nine months.  The jury compensated Raybon’s daughter $1.25 million for the pain and suffering her father felt the last year of his life.  

The nursing home provided inadequate care and attention to Raybon. He was admitted in 2002 when he turned 67.  Nine months later, he had to go to a hospital for treatment of a bed sore that infected his left buttock to the bone.  Nursing assistants from the nursing home testified there weren’t enough staff to provide adequate care to Raybon.   The staff neglected him by failing to follow standard protocol of turning and repositioning him every two hours which is necessary to prevent and treat his pressure ulcers.

Raybon also suffered from malnutrition as a result of the infection, which sent his body into a death spiral that led to more bed sores and infections and finally his death in June 2004.

Kindred Healthcare was the company that owned the nursing home at the time. The facility was sold to a new owner last year.

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Chicago's Daily Herald had an article about a million dollar settlement between a nursing home and the family of a resident who died after repeatedly falling at the nursing home in Libertyville.  The case, prompted by the 2005 death of 83-year-old Helen Menneke at Winchester House, was settled out of court after mediation.   Attorney Susan Novosad called the figure the largest nursing home negligence settlement in county history.

Menneke, formerly of Mundelein, was admitted to Winchester House in January 2004, suffering from dementia, Novosad said.   She fell several times over the course of the year, suffering a brain injury and broken bones, Novosad said.   Injuries from a final fall in December 2004 required surgery, and Menneke died in January 2005.

After Menneke's death, Winchester House instituted new policies requiring staff to more frequently check patients' wheelchair and bed alarms to ensure they're working properly, Novosad said.

"The family was outraged that this happened to their relative," Novosad said. "(They) didn't want this to happen to anybody else."
 

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Multimillion verdict against Life Care thrown out (09/26/08 Cleveland Banner) By Linda Womack

Life Care Centers of America was given another trial when an $11.5 million verdict was thrown out.  The nursing home was found to have been negligent and reckless in the death of a former resident. Former Circuit Court Judge Ginger Wilson Buchanan was the judge.  Buchanan did not offer a reason on why the original verdict was set aside.

A Bradley County Circuit Court jury awarded the multi-million verdict in compensatory and punitive damages as a result of the June trial. Dennis Matthews, son of Verdie Matthews a former Life Care resident, filed a lawsuit against Life Care Centers of America alleging the nursing home allowed his mother to develop severe dehydration and severe malnutrition which ultimately played a role in her death.   The jury found Life Care Centers acted negligent and reckless in a three week trial in June.

Ms. Matthews was a resident at the nursing home for four weeks when she was admitted to the Bradley Memorial Hospital on May 1, 2006. She died three days later. Her cause of death was determined by the hospital to be severe nutrition and severe dehydration.

Medical records indicated at the time of Ms. Matthews admission to the nursing home her weight was reportedly 105 pounds. At the time of her death, four weeks later, she reportedly weighed 92 pounds.   Throughout the trial Mr. Matthews' attorney, Thomas Hornbuckle, argued the nursing home falsified fluid and nutrition intake records for Ms. Matthews and did not properly feed and hydrate her.

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Nate Taylor wrote an article for The Coloradoan about a recent verdict for a family against nursing home involving a resident who fell because the nursing home refused to respond to the resident's call light.   The fall led to her untimely death.  This happens all the time in nursing homes and is a result of understaffing.  The nursing home does not want to pay for adequate and competent staff because it will hurt their profit margins.  The staff becomes overworked and fails to respond to call lights.

While the family says her 87-year-old mother Doris Wolfe's November 2007 death was the hardest thing she's had to live through, a close second was the lawsuit her family endured suing Spring Creek Healthcare Center.  "We're just a little tiny family of four against this huge corporation of nursing homes," Johnson said, referring to Spring Creek Healthcare Center's parent company, Sava Senior Care. "You would never, ever, ever go through (a lawsuit) for any reason other than somebody had been harmed and you felt like you had to fight that fight. It was brutal."

Sava Senior Care owns at least 185 nursing homes across the country, including Spring Creek and Fort Collins Health Care Center.  They are represented by Lori Proctor.  We had a case against them last November when a resident fell three times in a 24 hour period.  The jury awarded us $200,000 in actual damages and $600,000 in punitive damages. 

Johnson said her mother stayed at Spring Creek for 17 days to rehabilitate following back surgery at Poudre Valley Hospital. Wolfe broke her ankle the day she was supposed to be sent home.

According to an investigation by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Wolfe may have turned on her call light to request help to go to the bathroom. When Wolfe thought an "extended amount of time passed" and no one answered her request, she opted to try to walk toward her walker on her own and fell and broke her ankle.  Jay Reinan, a Denver lawyer who represented the Wolfe family, said Doris Wolfe did push the button.

"As a result of staffing deficiencies, Mrs. Wolfe was left to decide between soiling herself or attempting to go to the bathroom on her own, and that eventually led to her death," Reinan said. "With a lot of older folks, dignity is important, and that's what happened to Mrs. Wolfe."

The health department investigation also indicated that Spring Creek X-rayed Wolfe's ankle and found no fracture, but a family physician looked at the X-ray results and determined it was fractured in two places.

Johnson said she hopes the jury's decision will lead to changes at the nursing home. "As scary and intimidating as it was, that's why we did this - for change," Johnson said.

 

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A New Jersey appeals court ordered a new trial in a medical malpractice case because the award for pain and suffering was too low to adequately compensate the plaintiff for the rest of her life.  The jury awarded $100,000 for pain and suffering.  The Appellate Division ordered a new trial finding the award "grossly insufficient and a miscarriage of justice," but left in place the liability verdict and $800,000 in economic damages.

Maureen Walsh saw a succession of doctors starting in 1995 for circulatory problems in her toes. By the time she met with vascular surgeon George Constantinopoulos in early 1998, she was in severe pain. He recommended an arteriogram, saying it should be done promptly but that another doctor should arrange it because he was not in her health plan.   A subsequent bypass operation showed that amputation might be necessary because painful gangrene had set in. First she lost her foot, then part of her leg and finally, in 1998, most of her leg as the gangrene advanced upward and her leg began to turn colors.

She was 50 at the time, and federal government estimates give a woman of that age a life expectancy of 32.5 years. 

 

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The Star-Telegram reported a verdict in a tragic nursing home case.  The article asserts that Mable Ann Webb didn’t have to die.   Webb entered CLC Richland Hills nursing home for physical therapy. Within two weeks her skin became flushed and clammy. Her eyes turned red, her tongue swelled and she could not speak.

 

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A jury found Life Care Centers of America guilty of negligence. The jury awarded $1.5 million in compensatory damages to the family of a former resident who died as a result of the nursing home's neglect and negligence.

Life Care Centers of America was sued by Dennis Matthews, son of the late Verdie Matthews. He proved the nursing home allowed Mrs. Matthews to develop severe dehydration and malnutrition which caused her death. 

Thomas Hornbuckle, attorney for Matthews, alleged the nursing home intentionally acted recklessly by falsifying fluid and nutrition records of Mrs. Matthews. Hornbuckle said evidence and witnesses had proved Life Care acted negligently and was at fault in the death of Mrs. Matthews.

Mrs. Matthews, 83, was a resident of the facility from the beginning of April 2006 to May 1, 2006. She was admitted to Bradley Memorial Hospital on May 1, 2006, and died on May 4, 2006. Medical records indicate at the time of admission to the nursing home Mrs. Matthews weighed 105 pounds. At the time of her death four weeks later, she weighed 92 pounds.

Attorney Steve Hornbuckle confirmed the jury found Life Care Centers guilty of negligence in contributing to the death of Mrs. Matthews.   The jury also found the nursing home acted "recklessly," according to Hornbuckle.

The jury will reconvene Monday morning to deliberate on awarding punitive damages. Both attorneys will be given a chance to argue the case.

Jury will decide punitve damages.

Continue Reading...

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The Virginia Supreme Court recently affirmed an $850,000 verdict obtained by Jeff Downey in a nursing home case in Danville, Virginia. The case, Musgrove v. Medical Facilities of America Inc., involved pressures sores, an amputation, and death by dehydration, malnutrition and wound complications.

The Defendant asserted numerous assignments of error, many dealing with pertinent nursing home and/or malpractice issues. The Court denied the writ finding no reversible error in the judgment. Some of the issues included:

· Allowing recovery of both survivorship and wrongful death damages in the same cause of action;

· Allowing a medical expert to testify regarding nursing standards of care;

Allowing a nurse expert to testify regarding causation on pressure ulcers and other adverse outcomes;

Allowing a nurse who works part time clinically, and spends a majority of her time as a testifying expert to qualify under Virginia’s clinical practice requirement;

Allowing expert administrative testimony regarding nursing home staffing inadequacies; and

Allowng expert testimony regarding the significance of gaps in the chart.

Defendant filed some 25 motions in limine along with motions to limit expert testimony (on medical cause of death) and summary judgment on punitive damages.

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The North Country Gazette had an article about a recent jury verdict involving a nursing home's negligence.  A Washington jury ordered Washington County to pay $300,000 to the family of a woman who died as the result of a fall at the county-owned Pleasant Valley Adult Home in Argyle.

Former Fort Edward resident Esther Nolan, 75, died at the adult home in March 2003 following a fall from a toilet. The woman’s death was caused by inadequate staffing and the improper installation of the toilet seat.

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Tucson Citizen had an article about a recent jury verdict where a jury awarded a Tucson family $6 million for a death involving an 81-year-old relative who died of a morphine overdose.  Mary Culpepper and two other relatives were awarded $2 million each.  Culpepper sued Manor Care, TMC, a doctor, nurse and pharmacy over the Dec. 8, 2003, death of her mother, Sylvia Culpepper.

She was admitted to TMC on Dec. 2, 2003, suffering from sciatica, a painful nerve condition.
On Dec. 4, 2003, she was prescribed 15 milligrams of morphine twice a day. Two days later, her dosage increased to 30 milligrams, twice a day.   When Culpepper was transferred from TMC to Manor Care, prescription orders contained both dosages.

The Manor Care staff failed to note the discrepancy in the prescriptions and gave her both dosages, both twice a day causing her death.  An autopsy determined that Culpepper died of acute morphine intoxication.

According to the jury's verdicts, the doctor, nurse and pharmacy weren't to blame for the death. The nursing home had the ultimate rersponsibility for the medications given to the resident at their facility.

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Kathleen Glanville, a writer for The Oregonian, wrote an article about a $900,000 verdict for a resident who was treated ridiculously bad by a nursing home.  The jury ruled that an 86-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease suffered a loss of dignity when Lake Oswego police forced her to the floor of her nursing home and handcuffed her.   The jury awarded more than $900,000 to the family of the late Elvera Stephan for the way she was treated the night of April 13, 2006, at The Pearl at Kruse Way in Lake Oswego.

The jury agreed that Avamere Health Services, the corporate owner of the Alzheimer's care center, had acted with malice or reckless indifference.  Stephan's children moved her into the Alzheimer's care center in early April 2006 after her husband became seriously ill and was hospitalized. Within a few days she became agitated, wandering the nursing home barefoot in her pajamas, confused and, according to her caretakers, dangerously aggressive.

The staff notified a registered nurse in another part of the nursing home, who called the woman's doctor for guidance. He said Stephan should be taken to the emergency room for evaluation and medication.  The nurse called 9-1-1 to summon an ambulance, and because she told the emergency dispatcher that the patient was extremely aggressive, Lake Oswego police responded as well.

But jurors said she didn't look dangerous on a surveillance video from the nursing home. She was gesturing with a telephone receiver but didn't try to hit anyone with it.

Two officers forced the elderly woman to the floor, where they rolled her onto her stomach and handcuffed her hands behind her back. She remained on the floor on her stomach for six minutes until paramedics put her on a stretcher and took her to the hospital, according to Kocher. She returned to The Pearl the next day, when a nurse reported that her wrists were bruised.

A state investigator found the nursing home at fault for failing to assess the woman's condition and intervene in a timely manner.   Stephan's son, James, testified that he didn't learn about what had happened to his mother for six days, when he was told by the relatives of another patient at The Pearl.

The video of the police subduing the woman was played for the jury.   Kocher had asked the jury to award Stephan's family $1 million to send a message to corporations that care for Oregon's elderly and vulnerable.

The jury agreed on $4,200 in economic damages -- the cost of Stephan's shared room for a month -- and $400,000 in noneconomic damages. The jury then awarded $500,000 in punitive damages. Under state law, 60 percent of punitive damages go to the state victims assistance fund.

 

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Attorney for Amel Trezza asked the jury to compensate for his wrongful death at a nursing home  which occurred on May 31, 2001. The total verdict in the case regarding nursing home negligence amounted to $2,522,232.08. The total monetary figure makes the case the largest nursing home negligence case in Connecticut history.

Amel Trezza died on May 13, 2001 after he was administered the wrong food at the Country Manor Healthcare Center in Prospect.  During 2001, there was a widespread strike amongst nursing home employees stemming from a demand for improved wages and conditions of employment.

A replacement worker made the mistake of serving Mr. Trezza, who was blind, food that was supposed to be for a patient on a regular diet. Mr. Trezza was administered a soft diet, which meant that all of his food was put through a food processor, thus making it easier to swallow.

After serving Mr. Trezza the wrong meal and failing to look at the name card, the replacement nurse moved on to other patients in an adjoining room. Meanwhile, Mr. Trezza began to choke after unknowingly beginning to eat the wrong meal. 

Mr. Trezza was found unconscious after he had already lost a great deal of oxygen to his brain, leaving him with severe brain damage. He was subsequently intubated, which was not according to his wishes, and died 10 days later.

The case of wrongful death was tried in Waterbury Superior Court in the recent weeks. Because Connecticut doesn't provide the framework for punitive damages, according to Atty. D'Amico, the case was settled on the basis of non-economical damages. The state of Connecticut enacted such a system as a detriment to lawsuits against nursing homes.

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A couple of weeks ago there was a  nursing home trial over in Tallulah, Louisiana. Tallulah is a small town about 20 miles west of Vicksburg, MS.

After a five-day trial, on Friday, November 2, 2007, a 12-person jury found that the nursing home committed medical malpractice and awarded the plaintiff $250,000 in survival damages and $500,000 in wrongful death damages. The jury also found that the nursing home was negligent in failing to clean Mr. Nelms of his own waste, and awarded the plaintiff an additional $250,000 on that basis.

The lawsuit was styled Everline King, Individually and on behalf of the Estate of Leon Nelms v. Brown Development, Inc. d/b/a Olive Branch Senior Care and D. Brown Enterprises, Inc., Case No. 05-348.

In the two months preceding his nursing home stay, Mr. Nelms lived in his daughter’s home without suffering any significant injuries or complications attributable to his declining health condition. Twenty-six days after entering Olive Branch Senior Care, however, he had to be transferred to a local hospital due to Stage IV infected pressure sores, weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration. He died six days later as a result of his infected pressure sores, one of which was so advanced that it went to the bone and was infected with his own feces. Mr. Nelms was 84 years old at the time of his death.

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Resident's family obtained a $3 million verdict against a regional nursing home operator named Sharo Shirshekan in Missouri.   The case involved pressue ulcers on both heels of the resident.  The feet had to be amputated because of the neglect.  Defendants attempted to blame the resident's pre-exisiting conditions including peripheral vascular disease.  However, the jury realized that PVD does not cause pressure ulcers, neglect does.

 The jury returned $500,000 in actual damages for pain and suffering in the first stage and then $2.5 million in punitive damages against Mr. Shirshekan and his operating company in the second stage.

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Chad Trammel and his team of nursing home lawyers did a great job in a difficult trial.  The multi chain (and infamous) Beverly Enterprises has been found negligent in the death of  resident and ordered to pay $1.4 million in compensatory damages.

After deliberating on Monday, the Ouachita County jury agreed on $875,000 in punitive damages in the case. The company was sued for the April 2005 death of Herman Johnson.

Johnson went into the nursing home March 18, 2005. Two weeks later, he was found unresponsive in his wheelchair in the dining room. Two nurses tried to revive Johnson before an ambulance took him to Ouachita County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. An examination of the body found bed sores and evidence of malnutrition and dehydration--clear signs of serious neglect.

The suit claimed the nursing home was insufficiently staffed to provide adequate care for Johnson. Lawyers for Beverly said Johnson's condition was due to long-term alcohol abuse and other chronic health problems, including anemia, diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney failure. They say Johnson also had a history of refusing to take vitamins and medicine prescribed for him.

The trial began earlier this month, and the jury announced its decision Friday along with the award of compensatory damages. The jury found the defendants also had acted recklessly and had deprived Johnson of his rights as a resident of the home.

Beverly Healthcare is one of the nation’s largest nursing home chains. Over the course of the eight-day trial, the 12-person jury heard testimony from a variety of Beverly representatives, medical experts, and other witnesses. Among the documents displayed during the trial were internal Beverly e-mails referring to the company’s own nursing assistants as “trash” and “misfits” who posed a “hazard” to the residents. According to Beverly’s own officials, the company was not able to retain quality nursing assistants because it refused to raise its wages by $1.00 per hour.

The plaintiffs also introduced evidence showing that the company recently paid its executives $138 million in bonuses. Finally, the jury heard from Beverly Director of Operations David Mills, who took the stand and compared running a nursing home to owning an automobile dealership.

“This jury sent a powerful message to Beverly and all the other nursing-home mega-chains that neglect their residents in order to boost profits,” said Chad Trammell, a partner with Nix, Patterson & Roach and the attorney who represented the plaintiffs. “The people they are abusing are our mothers, our fathers, and our grandparents. These companies have a duty to care for their residents, and that duty is more important than maximizing shareholder return and paying out huge executive bonuses.” 

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A $750,000 settlement between a Pennsylvania nursing home and Francis X. Ounan has been approved by a federal judge. Ounan filed suit against nursing home chain Sunrise Senior Living Services, Inc. on January 15, seeking damages for claims of negligence and wrongful death.

Ounan's mother, Margaret Ounan Boyle, died in November of 2005 from injuries she sustained while wandering from the nursing home. The day after her admission, Boyle fell while wandering from the nursing home, sustaining head injuries. She was found with police assistance and taken to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with bleeding of the brain and died the next morning.

Ounan claims that the nursing home knew at the time of his mother's admission that her Alzheimer's made her a high-risk for wandering. Ounan claims that the nursing home was grossly negligent in failing to institute adequate measures to prevent its residents from wandering. Further, he claims, the nursing home failed to formulate a plan to address his mother's tendency to wander.

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Here is an article discussing the recent $54 million verdict in a nursing home neglect case in New Mexico.

Lori Keith was awarded the compensatory and punitive damages against ManorCare Inc., a nursing home corporation out of Toledo, Ohio, for neglecting her mother causing her death.  At the time of her death, Barbara Barber was due to leave the ManorCare Camino Vista facility within a week to stay with family, Keith said. So when a phone call came about Barber's death, Keith said she knew something was wrong. 

The verdict reached yesterday in Albuquerque includes four million dollars in compensatory damages and 50 million in punitive damages over the 2004 death of 78-year-old Barbara Barber.

The doctor who did the autopsy said Barber died of internal bleeding. The family's attorneys produced evidence that the bleeding had been going on for several days without response.

Tthe nursing home tried to cover up the death by taking away sheets and other items in the room.

The corporation was responsible for the death, jurors decided, and they said the corporation owed Barber's family for it.   The company declined to comment on specific details of the litigation.

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A Cleveland, Tenn., nursing home company has settled a lawsuit for neglecting its patients and allowing an elderly woman to lie in her own feces for hours at a time after back surgery.

The woman, Betty Mae Hanzel of Hastings, developed an infection in her wound during her stay at the Life Care Center of Elkhorn that required surgery to reopen her incision and drain the infection and fecal matter in the wound.

Terms of the settlement between Hanzel and Life Care Centers of America of Cleveland, Tenn., were not disclosed.  According to the federal lawsuit, the nursing home staff allowed Hanzel to lie in her own feces and urine for extended periods and told Hanzel to get her own water even though she couldn't get out of bed.

Near the end of her stay at the home, Hanzel discovered a discharge from her surgical incision, but staff did not tell her doctor about the condition.  Later, she developed blood clots in the arteryleading to her lungs and a "super-infection of the bowel," which led to surgery to remove most of her colon. 

Nurses who used to work at the home in west Omaha said the facility was often short on nurses, and some evenings one registered nurse was responsible for 120 patients, according to depositions taken as part of the lawsuit.

Life Care Centers of America owns and manages more than 260 facilities in 28 states _ including retirement communities, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes.

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A federal jury awarded $1.75 million to a woman who said her sister lost her dignity in the last days of her life because of unhygienic conditions and improper care at a Charleston nursing home.

Tammy Rectenwald, 44, lived at Meadowbrook Acres on Greenbrier Street from March 1999 until October 2003.

On Oct. 8, 2003, she had chest congestion and other signs of pneumonia, but nursing home staff did not call her family or an ambulance.  When the nursing home called Taylor 12 hours later, she insisted that Rectenwald be sent to the hospital.

Rectenwald died a week later at Saint Francis Hospital, where doctors found evidence that she had been neglected, such as an infected catheter site and dirty nails and skin. 

Taylor sued Harrell Memorial Nursing Home Inc., which owns the nursing home, and Nursing Care Management of America Inc., which manages it. Both companies are based in Ohio. The jury found on April 20 the company failed to provide adequate care for Rectenwald.

The award is West Virginia’s second-highest nursing home verdict. “The only way to punish a facility and make them clean up their act is financially,” he said.

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I saw an article about a NY family who settled a fall case for $300,000 after a jury found the nursing home negligent for failing to put up bed rails.

 Palisades resident Gertrude J. Shapiro was in the nursing home recovering from an operation after a fall that left her other hip broken when the accident occurred in October 2001, her lawyer said yesterday.

A Rockland County jury ruled earlier this month that Nyack Manor was negligent in not making sure the bed rails on her bed were used properly. Shapiro's family and the nursing home reached a settlement this week before a second jury could rule on damages.

See link www.nynews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article

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In November of 2005 a Spartanburg County jury ordered White Oak Manor-Spartanburg to pay more than $1 million to the family of a former resident.  Pearl Sinclair, who was a resident of White Oak Manor from October 2003 through May 2004, was given another patient's insulin injection and went into insulin shock as a result of the mistake.  Ms. Sinclair's family claims White Oak Manor's negligence caused permanent brain damage.   The jury awarded Ms. Sinclair's family $50,000 in actual damages and $1 million in punatives. 

Ms. Sinclair's family was represented by Poliakoff & Associates, P.A. of Spartanburg, SC.

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BY SEAN JAREM
The Dispatch


A Davidson County jury awarded one of the largest civil judgments in the past 20 years Thursday when it found a Lexington nursing home responsible for mistreatment of an Alzheimer's disease patient.

After three days of testimony and three hours of deliberations, the jury unanimously decided that Living Centers - Southeast Inc., the former owners of Brian Center Nursing Care of Lexington, must pay $480,000 to Emma H. King after she developed numerous pressure sores on her body. The pressure sores eventually led her to be permanently crippled.

The 83-year-old woman went into the nursing home May 9, 2002, for care and rehabilitation following knee replacement surgery, according to court records.

Within two months, King lost nearly 20 pounds, became dehydrated and developed pressure sores in the sacral area. She then developed two more pressure ulcers on her knees, according to medical records provided during the trial.

Jurors heard evidence that King developed a fever after the sores became infected and had to be hospitalized. When she was admitted back into the Brian Center she never recovered from the injuries and eventually lost the use of her legs.

Family members of King took her out of the nursing home Aug. 28, 2003. For a year, she had to undergo surgery on a weekly basis.

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Damages and Awards in Medical Malpractice Cases

The voice at the other end of the phone says, "My mother was terribly hurt at the hospital. Will you take my malpractice case?" How should the attorney or the office staff taking this call respond? Medical malpractice cases are among the most complex and costly in the plaintiff personal injury law firm. Careful screening of these cases will avoid much fruitless work and expense. This article will focus on the evaluation of damages as well as recent award trends in medical malpractice cases.

One model of screening the medical malpractice case suggests that the attorney should evaluate the four components of liability in their order: duty of the healthcare practitioner to the patient, breach of this duty, proximate causation of damages and damages. A more useful model is to first evaluate damages, before even addressing duty, breach of duty and causation issues.

Given the estimated $25,000-$100,000 cost of bringing a medical malpractice case through five or more years of litigation before trial, it is essential to understand the damages alleged by the plaintiff. The severity and permanency of the injuries must both be considered. Some of the questions to ask when the phone call comes in as described at the beginning of this article include: What happened to your mother? Who said she was injured? How old is your mother? Is she working? Did she lose work as a result of the injury? Have the injuries been permanent? What is her current condition? What was her health before the incident?

High damages cases
Significant injuries are relatively easy to identify during the initial screening. An analysis of plaintiff verdicts in medical malpractice cases1 showed that between 1994-2000 the most frequently claimed injury was other, followed by death. Birth injuries, cancer diagnosis, delayed treatment, (incorrect) diagnosis and medication errors resulted in the highest verdicts. The highest median award was given for severe brain injury ($4,280,000). Median award refers to the middle value or the norm among awards arranged in ascending order.

The median compensatory award in 2000 was $1,000,000, up from $700,00 in 1999.

Low damages cases
Clearly the low to moderate damages cases outnumber the significant damages claims. These claims can eat up the resources of a law firm, with sometimes disappointing results. Low damages cases tend to fall into several categories:

Podiatric or chiropractic: Unless the person has a loss of a foot or part of afoot, or develops paralysis as a result of chiropractic manipulation, these are low damages case.

Minor treatment injuries: Minor treatment injuries, such as suturing a wound and leaving behind glass or embedded objects, or loss of a toe, are low injury cases.

Eye cases: Eye cases include the common allegation of a bad outcome after cataract extractions. Eye cases that are difficult to defend include loss of vision due to prolonged use of corticosteroids, failure to diagnose glaucoma, failure to diagnose a penetrating foreign body, and failure to diagnose an infection. Eye records are challenging to interpret and therefore can complicate the screening of these types of cases.

Dental cases: Dental cases include loss of a tooth or nerve injuries following extraction of a tooth or surgery. In teeth cases, the expenses of the treatment must be balanced against the expenses which would have been incurred had the malpractice not occurred. Osteomyelitis of the jaw after dental surgery is an example of a high damages claim for this category of malpractice. Like eye records, dental records are usually difficult to read.

Surgical scarring or bad results from plastic surgery such as a face lift or tummy tuck may occur. The jury may feel little sympathy for these patients. An exception may be deformity of the face caused by failure to diagnose a postoperative infection or an error in surgical technique. The pursuit of these claims is frequently hampered by the difficulty in finding affordable plastic surgeons willing to act as expert witnesses.

Burns, unless they are to exposed parts of the body such as the face or hands, are low value cases.

Time limited damages with no permanency such as a brief overnight admission to the hospital following a medication error, or anger over the treatment provided by the healthcare provider are low damages cases.

Bad outcomes in very sick people are difficult cases to litigate. Damages of significant intensity (such as death or amputation) may lose their impact when the patient was critically or terminally ill. These cases are time consuming and costly to screen, given the costs of obtaining the volumes of medical records and the time needed to wade through the medical chronicles. These cases may additionally be complicated by the difficulty in convincing the plaintiff that while the outcome was severe, the case would be complex and expensive to pursue, with no guarantee of success.

Bad outcomes not affected by missed or delayed diagnosis such as terminal cancer or chronic incurable diseases and difficult to litigate. A delay in diagnosis may have had no impact on the patient’s prognosis. These cases require careful screening to determine the nature of the condition and the availability of effective treatment.

Moderate damages
Moderate damages cases, as defined by the typical size of the award, in the last decade resulted in median verdicts ranging from $355,000-$668,000. These included (in order of lowest to highest median award): negligent supervision, negligent surgery, nonsurgical treatment, lack of informed consent and medication errors. Medication errors resulted in a median award of $668,000, the highest of the moderate damages awards.

If the case meets the criteria of having sufficient damages to warrant further investigation, consider using a medical professional to screen the case to look for plausible explanations for the damages. Determine in advance if the screening professional will act as an expert witness for you or will be in the role of gatekeeper. Since the screening professional’s hourly fees are usually lower than those of an expert witness, it is economical to use the screener to identify the cases without merit. The screening professional (doctor or nurse) should be experienced in recognizing the valid cases and not hesitant to identify the claim without merit. Although identification of the value of the damages in the claim is a vital first step, the screener cannot stop there. Recognition of the critical link between proximate cause and damages, knowledge of the applicable standard of care, and the ability to identify the plaintiff who lacks jury appeal are equally important.

Med League Support Services Inc. provides screening of medical and nursing malpractice cases and expert witnesses. Contact our office for more information.

1. Shannon, J. and Boxold, D., Medical Malpractice: Verdicts, Settlements and Statistical Analysis, LRP Publications, Horsham, PA, 2002.

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Wrong Insulin Dose, Other Neglect Results In $1.05 Million Nursing Home Verdict
By Gregory Froom

The estate of a diabetic woman whose blood sugar plummeted after she was injected with another patient's insulin has won a $1.05 million verdict against the Upstate nursing home where she resided.

The estate claimed that the 85-year-old patient suffered increased dementia after an incorrect insulin dose administered by nursing home staff sent her into hypoglycemic shock, or extremely low blood sugar.

A Spartanburg County jury ordered the facility, White Oak Manor, to pay the woman's estate $50,000 in actual damages and $1 million in punitives. The verdict was handed down in November.

The case is Clark v. White Oak Manor, Court of Common Pleas No. 04-CP-42-1932. Judge J. Derham Cole presided at trial.

The plaintiff's attorney, Gary W. Poliakoff of Spartanburg, said the jury's finding that White Oak Manor was reckless in its treatment of the patient made the punitive award permissible.

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Estate Settles Nursing Home Neglect Claim Over Dehydration
Plaintiffs Claimed Facility Failed To Address Fluid Intake, Urinary Infection
$300,000 Mediated Settlement

Principal injuries (in order of severity): Dehydration, malnutrition and UTI causing death.

County where tried or settled: York

Case Name and Number: Barley et al. v. White Oak Manor - York, Inc. et al., York County Court of Common Pleas Case No. 2004-CP-46-987 & -988.

Date Concluded: July 13, 2005

Name of Judge: Hon. John C. Hayes, III

Amount: $300,000.

Attorneys for plaintiff: Anthony L. Harbin and John P. Griffith of Anderson


Other Useful Info: The decedent was admitted to the defendants' nursing home in June 2000 with multiple health problems and chronic conditions. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants were aware of his high risk for dehydration. The decedent also lost a significant amount of weight during his stay in the nursing home, according to the plaintiffs' case report. In June 2001, decedent began to experience greater weight loss and poor oral intake. This increased his risk factor for dehydration, but the defendants failed to care plan and implement interventions to monitor him more closely to prevent dehydration from occurring, according to the plaintiffs. Defendants failed to ensure that decedent was receiving at least the minimum amount of fluid intake to prevent dehydration and failed to treat his UTI causing his death, the plaintiffs alleged. The decedent was ultimately admitted to the hospital for dehydration and a urinary tract infection and he died two days later. The hospital records stated that decedent was "clinically dry." The decedent was survived by his wife, one minor child and one adult child.

The defendants settled without admitting any liability, according to the settlement order.

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