Articles Posted in Nursing Home Negligence

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Sophia Alcon, 77, was admitted to Life Care Center of Pueblo, a skilled nursing facility. During the 7 months that she remained there, she suffered various injuries and illnesses, including urinary tract infections, bed sores, dehydration, malnutrition, pain, renal failure and aspiration pneumonia. She was brought to a nearby hospital where a staff medical provider noticed that her vagina was packed with dried feces. She died as a result of her medical conditions and is survived by her 10 adult children.

One of her sons, on her behalf and for the family, sued the nursing home and its corporate affiliates maintaining that they were responsible for her death. In the complaint it was alleged that the nursing home was negligent, was responsible for her wrongful death and was guilty of numerous consumer protection violations. Among other things, the Alcon family alleged that the defendants chose not to properly assess Sophia’s medical needs, formulate an appropriate care plan, provide adequate staffing and properly trained personnel at this skilled nursing facility.

The jury’s verdict of $5.56 million, included $5 million in punitive damages, which are designed to punish the defendants for the abusive treatment to Sophia Alcon.

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According to recent reports by the National Center on Elder Abuse — Administration of Aging (Department of Health and Human Services), America’s expanding elderly population has led to an increase in elder abuse.

It is predicted that by 2050, people 65 and older will make up 20% of the total U.S. population. Today, the fastest growing segment of America’s population consists of those 85 years and older. In 2010, there were about 5.8 million people 85 or older. By the year 2050, it is projected that there will be 19 million people over 85.

“Elder abuse” is defined as intentional actions that cause harm or create a serious risk of harm (whether the harm is intended) to a vulnerable elder by a caregiver or other person who is in a trust relationship with the elder. Other abuse includes the failure of caregivers to provide the basic needs of an older adult or to protect the elder from harm from others.

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Genevieve Thompson, 74, was hospitalized and required assistance with all activities of daily living due to her long list of health problems. One of them included morbid obesity.

During her hospitalization, she developed a Stage II pressure sore, which was documented two days before she was transferred to a nursing home for rehabilitation.

About a week and a half into the nursing home residency, she was transferred back to the hospital where she was diagnosed with sepsis. She required debridement and other wound treatment for the bed sores, which by then had worsened. She required institutional care at the hospital for the next several months.

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Mary, 77, suffered from an end-stage renal disease and required a wheelchair due to left-sided weakness that resulted from a stroke. Mary lived at a nursing home facility, Beachwood Pointe Care Center, with her husband who also used a wheelchair.

When the nursing home’s staff chose not to bring Mary to the facility’s dining room, her husband threw a belt over his shoulder and “towed” Mary — in her wheelchair — to the eating area. As the couple rounded a corner, Mary’s wheelchair caught on a doorframe, which caused her to fall to the floor. Mary suffered a broken leg in the fall, but it went undiagnosed for two days until the nursing home’s staff at her dialysis center noticed the injury and sent her to the hospital.

After Mary returned to the nursing home, she developed multiple bed sores. This included two Stage IV sores on her buttocks, which became infected and led to sepsis from which she later died.

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Edward Fiala and his wife were residents of Bickford Senior Living Group. He was confined to a wheelchair and suffered from a disorder that affected his motor control and cognition. The healthcare power of attorney was held by Fiala and his children. The nursing home staff from the beginning of his residency were instructed that Fiala was not to get any medicine without their prior consent and that Paxil specifically was prohibited. These instructions were made apparent in Fiala’s nursing home medical chart.

In spite of that specific instruction, the nursing home staff members, who found Fiala difficult, administered Paxil and other medicines from time to time. There was no prior consent to allow it over the original instructions prohibiting it.

Fiala believed that the staff gave him medication to chemically sedate him to make him easier to work with. Sometimes, the drugs left him in a catatonic state. Other times the medicine caused him to be agitated and behave violently.

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In an interesting Louisiana Supreme Court case, it was held that in the matter of Lessie Porter, a nursing home resident at Southern Oaks Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, her abuse and treatment by a nursing home nurse was not a medical malpractice issue under the state’s Medical Malpractice Act. The court ruled that the treatment was not such that mandated the case to be handled under the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act, La. Rev. Stat. Ann. ¶ 40: 1299.41.

In this matter, Porter, the nursing home resident, on one particular evening began leaving her room by crawling down a hallway. The attending nurse became frustrated and asked several nursing assistants to drag Lessie to her bed. Lessie was then dragged across a brick floor and injected with a tranquilizer.

Before she died, she sued the nursing home for her injuries claiming negligence, breach of contract and breach of the state’s nursing home resident’s bill of rights. The nursing home moved for summary judgment claiming that the claim brought by Porter fell under the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act (MMA) which required involvement of a medical review panel. Lessie’s family also moved for partial summary judgment. The trial judge ruled in favor of her family holding that her claims were not medical treatment related.

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A Cook County jury signed a $150,600 jury verdict for injuries suffered by Ruth Ratowitz on Oct. 17, 2011. She was wheelchair-bound and was being transported by Rich Township to and from her healthcare appointment at Ingalls Memorial Hospital’s Professional Office Building in Harvey, Ill. She was 67 years old at the time. The transportation program was sponsored by the Rich Township Dial-A-Ride Program for Rich Township residents.

The township provided the transportation in a van specifically outfitted with a Q’Straint Restraint System for the purpose of keeping passengers secure in wheelchairs.

The plaintiff filed this lawsuit against the Rich Township and its driver, Horace Morgan, claiming that they chose not to properly secure her wheelchair in the van for the return trip and was speeding and making sharp turns during the transit causing her to fall from her wheelchair inside the van where she suffered a fractured tibia.

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Eleanor Groeller died, allegedly because of the nursing home negligence of Evergreen Healthcare Center where she was a resident. Her son, William M. Groeller Jr., who was administrator of her estate, filed a negligence complaint against Evergreen Healthcare.

The trial was held in the Circuit Court of Cook County wherein Groeller’s counsel requested that the judge give a jury instruction on institutional negligence as to the nursing home. However, based upon testimony from Groeller’s nursing expert about the alleged failings of the nursing home’s nurses, the defendant nursing home requested an instruction to the jury on professional negligence. That instruction was designed to instruct the jury on the negligence of the nurses, not the nursing home as an institution.

The trial judge decided to give both of these jury instructions. The jury returned a verdict for the nursing home and Groeller appealed arguing that the instructions were contradictory.

 

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In a nursing home dispute, the Illinois Appellate Court weighed in on an issue of whether a health-care power of attorney holder could bind the nursing home resident to an arbitration provision in order to gain admission to the long-term care facility. In this case, Edward M. Fiala Jr. sued Bickford Senior Living Group in Kane County, Ill. Bickford moved to compel arbitration based on an agreement, called “the establishment contract” that his daughter, Susan Kahanic, signed as attorney-in-fact under a health-care power of attorney.

Kahanic’s signature on the establishment contract was required in order to get Fiala admitted to Bickford Senior Living Group’s facility.

It was argued that the health-care power of attorney did not authorize Kahanic to consent to the arbitration provision in the establishment contract. The trial court agreed and denied Bickford’s motion.

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Marjorie Stearns, 89, suffered from dementia. She lived full time in a nursing home. The nursing home records showed that Marjorie had fallen at the nursing home. The nursing home initiated safety measures to protect against any future falls.

This Illinois Appellate case analyzed the legal concept of duty. It described two types of duties: one being the ordinary duty that all persons owe each other to guard against reasonably probable and foreseeable injuries that may arise as a consequence of an act and the second being an affirmative duty to act that arises as a result of a special relationship between one party and another.

In this case, the issue of duty was critical in that it had to be determined whether the ambulance service that was transporting the resident back from her dialysis treatment to the nursing home when she suffered a head injury had a duty to protect her.

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