Nursing Home Negligence

Doctor Employed by Federal and State VA skirts Federal Claims in Nursing Home Negligence Lawsuit

December 10, 2013 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A recent case that alleged harm under the Federal Tort Claims Act, DUCKWALL-KENNADY v. US, Dist. Ct., ED Ky. (2013), was dismissed due to the court’s finding that the doctor defendant was not acting within her scope of employment as an on-call doctor for Federal Veteran’s Agency, but rather in her capacity as a treating doctor for a state Veteran’s Agency.

The case alleged that the plaintiff’s husband became a patient of a veteran’s affairs center, called the Thomson Hood Veterans Center (“THVC”), which was owned and operated by the Kentucky Department of Veteran’s Affairs. According to the plaintiff, her husband suffered an accelerated deterioration of his health, ultimately resulting in his death, due to the physicians who worked in the home failing to take proper care of him.

The doctor who provided care for the plaintiff’s husband was simultaneously employed by the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs at THVC, where the plaintiff’s husband was a resident, and also maintained “on call” telephonic hours with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs at the VA Nursing Home in Lexington, Kentucky. While her patient, the doctor only provided care to the plaintiff’s husband at the THVC.

$114 Million Jury Award in Nursing Home Lawsuit

December 3, 2013 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A decision reached within recent years in a nursing home case offers a glimpse into the realm of extensive punitive damages that may be available in nursing home neglect cases.

In the case, a 76 year old woman was place in a nursing home in Florida for rehabilitation. Throughout the course of her stay, the staff and facility reportedly knew that the woman was at risk for falls, but allegedly did not adopt any preventative measures in place in order to protect it from happening.

As a result, the woman reportedly fell within two weeks of being admitted. She suffered head trauma and a fracture to the upper arm. According to the lawsuit, she never fully recovered from the injuries.

Nursing Home Abandons Patients, Leaves Them to Fend for Themselves

November 5, 2013 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A nursing home in California has been in the headlines lately for allegedly abandoning its facility, and therefore patients. One patient suffering from dementia went missing for several days, until he was finally located by law enforcement officers over 30 miles away.

Government officials began a criminal investigation into elder abuse at the closed residential care facility, where fourteen patients were eventually moved from hospitals to other skilled nursing homes.

The facility had reportedly been battling with California’s elder care oversight agency for months over the state’s attempt to revoke their license over a host of unfixed violations at both this location and another one run by the same family. The lawyer representing the family disputes any allegations of wrongdoing, and alleges that the home was properly staffed for the small number of mostly indigent residents still waiting to find a new place to live.

Five Deaths Allegedly Result of Nursing Home Neglect

October 18, 2013 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

According to at least one report, at least five elderly individuals died as a result of a systematic incidence of neglect at a care home that was rated “good” by the relevant official regulator.

An additional fourteen residents also died, though of reported natural causes, after receiving “sub-optimal” care at the home.

A five week long investigation revealed that residents were routinely given overdoses of medication, and were often left in soiled provisions and in pain during two years of staff shortages and mismanagement. The home has also allegedly engaged in deliberate cover up behavior, such as shredding medical records.

$90.5 Million Verdict Upheld in West Virginia Nursing Home Lawsuit

July 1, 2013 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Proponents of reform in nursing home lawsuits are upset with a recent decision by a West Virginia County Circuit judge who decided to uphold a $90.5 million verdict in a nursing home negligence lawsuit as appropriate, thus denying a request for a new trial. The nursing home’s corporate owner claims the state’s medical malpractice cap on awards, which sits at $500,000, should have been applied, thus limiting the verdict.

According to reports, the plaintiff in the case was the son of an 87 year old woman who suffered from various conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, dementia and other health concerns. He had decided to place his mother at defendant’s nursing home temporarily, while the family waited for a space to open in another facility.

While the woman stayed at the defendant’s nursing home for only a short while, according to the lawsuit, by the time she was transferred to a hospice just a few weeks later she was unresponsive, 15 pounds lighter, and suffered quite substantially from dehydration. After only a handful of weeks at the new location, she passed away.

The lawsuit claimed that the nursing home provided unacceptable care for the plaintiff’s mother, and stated that she had suffered severe mouth sores, head trauma sustained from several falls, and that she was confined exclusively to a wheelchair throughout her stay. At trial, experts testified that the employees at the nursing home had not provided the woman with basic necessities such as basic nutritional needs, presumably as evidenced by her severe weight loss and dehydration.

The nursing home had claimed that the woman’s death was a result of her dementia, and not their neglect. However, the defendants had a history of citations and violations by state inspectors, and had lost Medicare and Medicaid funding for a temporary time period following dozens of such violations in 2011. The judge also noted that profit margins may have been kept high as a result of keeping the number of nurses and other aides as low as possible.

The original verdict was for $91.5 million, which included $80 million in punitive damages, and another $11.5 million in compensatory damages. The judge later reduced the overall amount, ruling that a small portion of the damage award fell within the $500,000 cap. The judge ruled that the $500,000 cap for malpractice damages were not applicable to the case overall because the home did not qualify as a health care provider under relevant state law.

In affirming the denial of a new trial, the judge wrote that a punitive damage award must be high in order to deter such a wealthy company from perpetuating a similar act in the future, and that, further, “This verdict sends a clear ‘deterrence’ message to a multi-billion dollar nursing home corporation that its misconduct will not be tolerated in West Virginia.”

Nursing Home Fined by State Authorities for Overmedicating Patient

April 23, 2013 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Last month, a northern California nursing home received a severe citation and $100,000 fine for allegedly overmedicating an 82-year-old stroke patient with a blood thinning drug. These penalties were imposed following an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the patient’s 2011 death while in the facility’s care.

According to a representative of the organization that filed the complaint with state regulators on behalf of the family, the unidentified patient entered the care facility a year after a stroke left him partially paralyzed. The patient was receiving the drug Coumadin as part of his treatment plan.

The complaint focuses on an incident in May 2011, in which the patient fell from his wheelchair, and according to nursing home records, hit his head and sustained a black eye and other facial bruises. While experts stated the fall should have resulted in the man’s immediate hospitalization, it wasn’t until his daughter insisted that this action was taken four days later. At that point, the man was found to have low blood pressure, multiple organ failure, and a subdural hematoma. Additionally, and most shockingly, hospital admission records indicate that the man’s blood thinner medication levels were allegedly 18 times the normal levels. He died shortly thereafter.

According to the organization helping the family, in 2010 the company who owned the nursing home at the time of the man’s death was required to pay $29.1 million in connection with the death of a different patient in another facility that it owned.

Three Connecticut Nursing Homes Face Fines for Negligent Care

April 9, 2013 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Three Connecticut nursing homes are facing fines for serious lapses in care related to residents who as a result were injured or suffered a further deterioration in health due to improper wound treatment.

In the first incident, according to a state inspection report, the rehabilitation center failed to provide adequate care to a resident for so long that a wound on her leg became “infested with maggots.” The resident had been diagnosed with dementia and other psychological affects, and some time after she developed leg sores, began to refuse treatment, including medications. There had reportedly been a recommendation that she be transferred to an inpatient psychiatric facility, following a psychiatric examination, but the attending physician did not think it was in her best interests. The Department of Public Health imposed a $1,020 fine for the facility’s failure to develop an alternative plan for treatment in the face of the patient’s ongoing refusal for care.

Another facility was also cited with a $1,020 fine for lapses in care related to two patients: one suffered a fall, resulting in a pelvic fracture, and the other was not properly treated for constipation.

The third facility was fined a total of $2,180 for two separate incidents. In one case, a resident had lost over a tenth of her body weight due to apparently losing his/her dentures, and was thus having difficulty chewing. However, the facility’s dietitian was never made aware of the difficulty, which could have resulted in an alternative nutrition plan. The other incident involved a resident who suffered an injury as a result of a transfer from a bed to a wheelchair without the use of a mechanical lift, which was required as a part of the patient’s care plan.

Study by Federal Regulators Finds Higher Rate of Medicare Fraud Among For-Proft Nursing Homes

February 5, 2013 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A substantial percentage of Medicare claims made by for-profit nursing homes were found to be “improper,” according to a report issued late last year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The percentage of improper claims among for-profit facilities was reportedly more than double the rate for non-profit facilities. Bloomberg News profiled several companies that operate for-profit nursing homes, highlighting allegations of unnecessary and even harmful treatments. We have previously explored how for-profit facilities might cut costs in order to boost profits, resulting in neglect of nursing home patients. Similarly, a desire to increase revenue through Medicare billings might lead to unnecessary, abusive treatments. For people selecting a nursing home for themselves or a loved one, this information could be critical to making an informed decision.

For-profit nursing homes vastly outnumber not-for-profit facilities around the country. According to a report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), about seventy percent of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), which are generally part of a nursing home, are operated on a for-profit basis, while nearly eighty percent of long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) are for-profit. MedPAC, “Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy” at 17 (March 2012). During the period from 2005 through 2009, the number of for-profit LTCHs increased by eighteen percent, while the number of not-for-profit facilities decreased by eight percent. Id.

HHS’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report in November 2012 entitled “Inappropriate Payments To Skilled Nursing Facilities Cost Medicare More Than A Billion Dollars In 2009.” The report found that SNFs submitted nearly one-fourth of all erroneous Medicare claims in 2009, resulting in $1.5 billion in “inappropriate Medicare payments.” OIG report at 10. The report further found that SNFs misreported basic information about Medicare beneficiaries in almost half of all claims. Id. at 11. It did not expressly draw a connection between for-profit facilities and inappropriate Medicare claims.

Hyattsville Nursing Home Under Investigation for Alleged Neglect

November 14, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A nursing home in Hyattsville, Maryland has been under investigation by state health officials for more than a year following multiple allegations of neglect, including at least one death. The number of complaints and cited deficiencies led the state to put the nursing home on a national register of nursing homes with poor track records. Although the nursing home has faced fines totaling thousands of dollars, state officials claim that it has not resulted in improvements to care at the facility.

According to WTTG News in Washington DC, the St. Thomas More nursing home received sixty citations from state health inspectors in 2010 for deficiencies. It received thirty-six citations in 2011, and it has received twenty-seven in 2012 as of mid-November. The state’s Office of Health Care Quality (OHCQ) has reportedly cited it for deficiencies such as medication errors, residents’ rights violations, and failure to follow patient care plans. About three months ago, according to one complaint, a patient died after nursing home staff failed to provide adequate emergency medical treatment. A medical malpractice lawsuit accused the nursing home of negligence in the 2005 death of a resident from bedsore-related complications. The nursing home settled the suit in 2011 for an undisclosed amount.

WTTG reported the story of James Franklin, a former patient at the facility who allegedly nearly died from injuries similar to those of the decedent in the lawsuit mentioned above. Franklin went to St. Thomas More after a hospital discharge, and at the time of his admission, medical records reportedly showed that he had a bedsore described as “small and healing.” Franklin returned to the hospital a month later, where the bedsore was found to have grown to cover a large section of his back and buttocks. The wound had turned gangrenous, and infection had spread deep into his tissues. He was in septic shock and at risk of imminent death. He is reportedly recovering at a different nursing home, but still has health difficulties resulting from the bedsore. Franklin’s wife filed a formal complaint against St. Thomas More with OHCQ. An investigation of Franklin’s case by state health officials reportedly found no evidence of abuse or neglect, but the Franklins are persisting in their claims.

Verdict Against Nursing Home in Medication Error Case Based on Res Ipsa Loquitur Doctrine: Freudeman v. Landing of Canton

November 7, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A woman’s estate filed suit against the nursing home where she lived until the end of her life, alleging that a medication error by nursing home staff caused severe health complications leading up to her death. A jury found the nursing home liable in Freudeman v. Landing of Canton and awarded compensatory and punitive damages. The defendant filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law on multiple issues, including whether the court properly instructed the jury about the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur and whether the plaintiff had made an adequate case for punitive damages. The court ruled in the plaintiff’s favor on the motion.

Dorothy Freudeman lived at the Landing of Canton, an elder residential facility in Ohio. In addition to her residency contract, she signed a separate contract for the administration of prescribed medications by the nursing home staff. According to the plaintiff’s complaint, Dorothy Freudeman received an incorrect medication from a staff member that resulted in dangerously low blood-sugar levels. This had a severely adverse impact on her health, until she died fifteen months later.

The executor of Dorothy Freudeman’s estate, Dennis Freudeman, filed suit against the Landing in a Common Pleas Court in Ohio. The suit alleged that the nursing home, through its staff, was negligent in administering the wrong medication, and that this was the proximate cause of the decedent’s injuries and a contributing factor in her death. The defendant removed the case to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. After a jury trial beginning in August 2011, the jury found for the plaintiff and awarded damages.