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

Fox News ran a NY Post article on the verdict against a Brooklyn nursing home.  Brooklyn Queens Nursing Home will have to compensate the family of a 76-year-old patient neglected so badly that he left with more than 20 bedsores. The verdict of nearly $19 million, handed down by a jury, is the first in the state against a nursing home that includes punitive damages.

"It was horrible," said Margaret Whitehurst, who pulled her father, John Danzy, from the home after just nine months. "He walked in on two legs and a cane. He was 237 pounds. When we got him back, he was 148 pounds and he had holes all over his body."  She and her siblings moved Danzy, a retired truck driver and butcher, to another nursing home. He died as a result to an infection caused by the bedsores.

A Brooklyn jury deliberated two full days following the four-week trial before finding the Cypress Hills facility delivered substandard care.  The panel awarded $3.75 million for Danzy's pain and suffering, but tacked on $15 million in punitive damages, based in part  that the home had doctored records to try to cover up the neglect.

An FBI expert testified that about 100 different skin-check notes showing "G" for "good" had been penned over to show "B" for "broken" — an effort by the home to claim it hadn't missed the horrific sores.  "Someone went back and wrote B's over the G's to cover their tracks, so they falsified the records, he said. "We believe that once they found out they were being sued, they went back and said, 'How could we have G's here when they guy has 20 sores?' "

The nursing home restrained the Alzheimer's-stricken Danzy to keep him from wandering off, but left him alone for long periods.  Medical standards require that bedridden or restrained patients be moved every two hours to prevent such sores, but that Brooklyn-Queens only moved Danzy every four hours — if at all.

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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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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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After a 2 week trial in Hendersonville, North Carolina, the jury awarded $800,000.00 to the Plaintiff. Plaintiff was represented by Poliakoff & Associates of Spartanburg, South Carolina. The jury award was $200,000.00 for personal injury suffered by the decedent while a resident at Brian Center - Hendersonville, and $600,000.00 in punitive damages. The Brian Center - Hendersonville is a nursing home owned by SSC Hendersonville Operating Company, LLC which is a subsidiary of  SavaSeniorCare. The Defendant denied all liability, and vigorously defended the entire suit.

The Plaintiff argued that the decedent, Neal Hawkins, Jr., was identified by the Brian Center as being high risk for falls, but that the facility did little to address this problem in the care plan for the resident, and failed to revise the care plan on occasions when changes in his condition compelled such. Further, on February 11, 2005, Mr. Hawkins fell 3 times in one day at the facility, apparently fracturing his hip on the 3^rd fall. Plaintiff further argued that the nursing facility failed to properly assess the patient, failed to follow procedures, failed to follow doctor’s orders, and allowed Mr. Hawkins to remain in the facility in pain for 7 days following the fracture, until he was finally transferred to the hospital.

The Defendant denied that it was liable or responsible for the falls or any resulting injury, and argued that it followed appropriate procedures. On November 16, 2007, the jury awarded a total of $800,000.00 in actual and punitive damages.

Plaintiff’s experts were Dr. Jonathan Klein of Falls Church, Virginia; Janet White of Emporia, Virginia; and Katherine Johnson, of Orlando, Florida. The case was tried for the Plaintiff by lead counsel Gary W. Poliakoff, Raymond P. Mullman, Jr., and Lara Pettiss Harrill. Also participating were attorney Matt Yelverton and attorney Greg Newman, both of Hendersonville, North Carolina.

As of the time of writing of this entry, the Defendant has indicated a possibility of appeal.

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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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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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