Articles Posted in Long-Term Care Facilities

by

In 2014 the case of Mary Slepicka was contested wherein it was claimed in the lawsuit that Holy Family Villa Nursing Facility incorrectly billed her during her stay. The key issue in the appeal was venue. The court in 2014 ruled that she was wrong to file her case in Springfield, Ill., instead of Chicago. The unanimous opinion of the Illinois Supreme Court, authored by Justice Charles E. Freeman, said the venue mistake was not fatal to earlier administrative and trial court rulings, which determined she was correctly evicted from the nursing home for failing to pay living expenses.

The Supreme Court justices ordered the case back to the Illinois Appellate Court. The Illinois Appellate Court for the 4th District determined there was not enough evidence to reverse the initial decisions.

In the lawsuit, Slepicka claimed she was qualified for a lower Medicaid rate. Her contract with the nursing home in 2011 listed her as paying a higher out-of-pocket expense. In addition, she was given a room that wasn’t certified for Medicaid coverage.

Continue reading

by

A 15-year-old boy, Kevin Barr, who had cerebral palsy and seizure disorder, lived at a residential care facility. Early one morning, staff at the home found Kevin unresponsive. Emergency personnel were called one hour later. However, Kevin died before the paramedics arrived at the scene. Kevin is survived by his parents and a sibling.

Kevin’s parents, individually, and Kevin’s mother on his behalf, filed a lawsuit against the residential care facility. In the lawsuit it was alleged that the care facility had chosen not to administer a critical anti-seizure medication to Kevin and then lied to the family, stating that the facility had “done everything it could” to care for Kevin before his death.

The lawsuit also charged that the defendant residential care facility had failed to promptly call 911, lied to the police by telling them Kevin’s medical file was unavailable and failed to inform the police that Kevin had missed a dose of his critically important anti-seizure medicine.

Continue reading

by

On Dec. 13, 2006, Myron Tucker was admitted to a long-term care facility in Oak Lawn, Ill. Tucker was 52 at the time and was wheelchair dependent with impaired memory and judgment. His medical history included a seizure disorder, right-sided stroke with left hemiparesis, a craniotomy and brain surgery for a ruptured aneurysm.

The defendant physician, internist Dr. Neerja Ahlowalia, was assigned to act as Tucker’s attending physician at the long-term care facility or nursing home. On the night of Tucker’s admission, Dr. Ahlowalia telephoned orders for continuation of two anti-seizure medications as listed on the prescription bottles brought to the nursing home with him. The doctor ordered lab tests to be performed in the morning, including blood level testing of one of those medications. However, the lab tests still had not been done when Dr. Ahlowalia saw Tucker a few days later on Dec. 17, 2006.

Dr. Ahlowalia maintained she verbally asked the nursing home nurses to follow her prior order and she made no changes to her admission orders. This is the only time. Dr. Ahlowalia actually saw Tucker in person.

Continue reading

by

It is not new that nursing home residents are too often at risk for abuse, neglect and injury in the more than 17,000 nursing home facilities operating in the United States. Too many times these facilities are understaffed or staffed with untrained or unskilled workers. All of this results in many reports of serious physical, verbal and even sexual abuse in Illinois nursing homes and in other states.

It has been more than a decade since there was a two-year investigative study completed that found more than 9,000 instances of abuse. The most common abuse problems are untreated bedsores followed by inadequate medical care, malnutrition, dehydration, falls, inadequate hygiene and cases of wandering residents.

The aging of adult Americans places even more stress on nursing home facilities and long-term care facilities in which the aging are most likely to be residing. The cost of maintaining a resident at a qualified nursing home is now out of reach for many families. Many times a family member or a loved one becomes unmanageable at home because of illness, injury, age, dementia or other onset of the conditions related to aging.

Continue reading

by

The owners of a chain of nursing homes housed in multiple states around the United States have been held to have committed fraudulent transactions in an attempt to transfer liabilities to a “shell company.” The owners of Fundamental Long Term Care Inc. have been the subject of multiple wrongful death cases related to negligence in handling nursing home residents.

Liabilities that included many judgments in Florida have never been paid to the families of the residents who died at the hands of the nursing home personnel. There were reports of four wrongful death judgments in Florida alone. The company filed for bankruptcy protection, but not without careful scrutiny by the court and the judgment creditors.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Tampa, Fla., ruled that the owners of Fundamental Long-Term Care Holdings LLC engaged in a “carefully orchestrated sham transaction” by selling a unit of the company in 2006 to a retired graphic artist who didn’t even know he had purchased the shares of the company.

Continue reading

by

Peter Piel, 62, resided at the Mirajoy Home. When a nurse’s aide attempted to transfer Piel from his bed to a shower chair, he fell, hitting his head, fracturing his left hip and injuring his right leg. He required surgery for the hip and was diagnosed as having brain damage and chronic pain. His injuries and permanent condition are all related to his fall at the assisted living facility.

Through his guardian, Piel filed a lawsuit against the nursing home and its owner claiming improper staffing and training. Among other things, the lawsuit claimed that there should have been two aides transferring Piel to that shower chair.

The defendants argued that his injuries were not related to his fall. They contended that the aide had caught him before he hit the floor and that his injuries were not as significant as claimed. Before the case went to trial, the parties settled for $1,500,000. The attorneys representing Piel’s guardian were Michael F. Moran and Alexander H. Feldman.

Continue reading

by

A Georgia jury has awarded $43.5 million in damages related to the abuse and neglect of an 80-year-old man, Morris Ellison. Ellison was a resident of a nursing home where the ownership held title to a string of nursing facilities in and around the state of Georgia. Ellison eventually died in this nursing home.

Along with the neglect and possible abuse, Ellison was found to have been malnourished, dehydrated and lacking sufficient nursing and medical care, all of which was a contributing factor in hastening his death. But the background of this catastrophic case was that the nursing home owners had bilked Medicare and Medicaid out of tens of millions of dollars.

In this case, the nursing home’s individual owner and his wife ran three nursing facilities or long-term care facilities in Georgia. According to newspaper reports, this couple had a net worth of almost $100 million, relying almost exclusively on Medicaid and Medicare payments to operate their nursing home empire. According to the testimony in the case, one of the nursing home directors stated that the facilities were so lacking in funds that they were unable to pay for laundry, essential supplies and personnel wages for the nursing homes. The owners were systematically draining money out of the nursing homes, which resulted in a lack of food supplies, water, medicine, personnel and basic cleaning supplies.

Continue reading

by

Sui Mee Chiu, 85, was admitted to the Arcadia Health Center for long-term care. A member of the Arcadia staff found a Stage I pressure sore on Chiu’s lower back. A care plan was then initiated by the nursing home staff. The plan included pressure-reducing measures, frequent bathing and wound care. However, the pressure sore progressed to Stage IV, necessitating 7 hospitalizations for wound care management. Chiu developed recurring urinary tract infections from her use of Foley catheters and required a year of antibiotic treatment.

Because of the antibiotic treatment, Chiu became antibiotic-resistant and died of pneumonia and respiratory failure about 15 months after the Stage I pressure sore was first discovered and diagnosed. She was survived by her two adult children.

Her family sued the nursing home and its licensee for negligence and for choosing not to implement the care plan in a timely fashion. It was claimed that had a proper treatment been implemented, Chiu’s pressure wound would have healed without a problem. The family also maintained that the nursing home chose not to keep adequate documentation regarding Chiu’s treatment at the nursing home.

Continue reading

by

An appellate court in Ohio has ruled that a family’s motion to compel was wrongly granted because there had not been an in camera inspection of the requested documents under that state’s peer review laws.

In this case, the nursing home decedent was living at Manor Care of Mayfield Heights. Her health had deteriorated while living there. The family sued Manor Care and others claiming negligence, statutory violations under the laws of the nursing home care law of the state and other claims. During the course of the litigation, the family of the decedent moved to compel production of documents related to an alleged investigation into the nursing home resident’s death. The trial judge granted that motion.

The appellate court reversed the trial court noting that although 42 C.F.R. §483.10 provides nursing home residents with timely access to their own records, under 42 U.S.C. §13.96(r) disclosure of records from a quality assessment and assurance committee is limited.

Continue reading

by

In a measure passed by the Florida State Senate, lawsuits that allege nursing home abuse could be subject to smaller awards.  The bill would shield many private equity firms that own nursing homes around the state of Florida.  The bill is directed to shield from financial exposure in lawsuits for those in ownership positions and take no active role in the management of the facilities.  It would limit actions against any ownership party who had no impact on the day-to-day activities in the nursing home facility. 

The proponents of the bills say its purpose is to allow for private equity firms and other private investors to take a more active role in investing in nursing home facilities in the state.

According to the report, this bill was targeted at Tampa attorney James Wilkes, who has a reputation for successfully representing plaintiffs in nursing home abuse cases. The bill has the support of the Florida Healthcare Association, AARP, the Florida Justice Association, which represents a host of Florida trial lawyers. 

Continue reading