Jury compensates family for death of mother.
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.
A month after entering the home, in July 2004, Webb died at a Fort Worth hospital of kidney failure caused by an untreated urinary tract infection and being overmedicated with pain killers. A jury awarded Webb’s family $2.1 million from the home and its medical director. The family’s attorney, Geno Borchardt, doubts they’ll collect anything from the nursing home, which did not have insurance. Legal damage caps could also reduce the award, he said.
Gary R. Trebert, who owned the nursing home at the time of Webb’s death, is to be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. Monday for conspiring to evade about $34 million in taxes related to nursing home companies he controlled, including some in Tarrant County.
The jury award included $1.2 million in punitive damages against Dr. Adolphus Ray Lewis of Fort Worth, the medical director at CLC Richland Hills. He was also found 49 percent liable for the $900,000 in actual damages.
Punitive damages against the nursing home are still to be determined, Borchardt said.
The lawsuit alleged that Lewis was responsible for prescribing a painkiller at three times the appropriate dosage. In August 1998, the Texas Medical Board found that Lewis violated state law by prescribing large quantities of controlled substances, among other deficiencies. Lewis’ medical license was restricted from prescribing certain drugs in an office setting for three years, and he was ordered to complete 50 hours of continuing medical education, state records show. But Lewis was allowed to prescribe medications at nursing homes.
CLC Richland Hills was acquired by a new owner, but Lewis continues as the medical director there.
Among the list of suspected culprits in Webb’s death was the nursing home fax machine. It was broken so nursing home staff did not see an analysis of Webb’s urinary tract infection for about two weeks, Borchardt said.
Trebert, 57, faces up to 10 years in prison and possible fines and restitution. The tax evasion scheme involved about 70 nursing homes that Trebert and two other North Texas men operated across the country, according to court documents.
