› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
Beasley Allen attorney J.P. Sawyer is representing the family of an Arkansas man who suffered at the hands of staff ill-equipped to care for him at the White Hall Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The complaint alleges the nursing home facility put profits over people, misrepresenting its ability to properly care for residents in order to hold onto government funding.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of a class of thousands of residents at 27 Colorado nursing homes operated by SavaSeniorCare claims that state officials allowed the nursing homes to operate without insurance in violation of state law, leaving residents without means to sue when they are abused and neglected, according to the Denver Post.
The choking death of a Fresno, California nursing home resident has resulted in the severest penalty under California state law and an $80,000 fine against the home for inadequate care, according to the Fresno Bee.
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would protect nursing home residents and their families from losing their right to hold long-term care facilities accountable for negligent and abusive care.
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The secret of Robert Young’s death was almost buried forever with the nursing home resident who suffered from cerebral palsy. But his family kept asking questions. A year later, Young’s body was exhumed from his pauper’s grave and an autopsy was performed, revealing that the man’s death was the result of blunt force trauma to the head, according to the Chattanooga (Tennessee) Times Free Press.
DuPage County, Illinois officials are stepping up their investigations into allegations of physical abuse of elderly in nursing homes and in-home health care settings, spurred in part by the horrifying story of a nursing home resident who froze to death last month after wandering outside her nursing home, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Only four people managed to escape. But the others – 23 people who were unable to walk or crawl to safety – perished in a devastating fire at a government nursing home in Podyeisk, Russia, according to CBS News.
Jenette Sloan went every day to the Williamsburg Village nursing home in Muncie, Indiana, to visit her 94-year-old mother, Verna Talbott. But one day in June 2007, Sloan was startled to see her mother drugged to unconsciousness with a red, swollen face, according to The Star Press. Sloan questioned nursing home employees but no one would tell her what had happened to her mother. Shortly after she left, one nurse called to tell her that they were sending Talbott to the hospital because she was hit by one of the certified nursing assistants (CNA).
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Wes Bledsoe, the founder of the watchdog group A Perfect Cause, returns to Albert Lea, Minnesota, this week to meet again with families of victims allegedly abused during the widely publicized “attacks for thrills” incident at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune. While in town, Bledsoe also will attend the arraignments of two of the nurses charged with in the crimes.
Tennessee nursing homes are lobbying the legislature to put a cap on the amount of damages that plaintiffs can collect in court, according to a report in Nashville, Tennessee’s The City Paper. Sixteen states, including Tennessee, do not put monetary limit for damages such as pain and suffering, which has resulted in millions of dollars in damages awarded to victims for nursing homes‘ violations of patient care. The nursing home industry says without damage limits, nursing homes in those states become a target for out-of-state trial lawyers.
