Dallas Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Nursing Home Resident Awarded 12.5M For Sexual Assault - Dallas, Texas

A jury awarded $12.5 million to a nursing home resident who was attacked by a cook who works at the facility. In 2007, Sophie Schwartz, then 92, a dementia patient, was asleep in her bed at Oakdale Heights of Santa Clarita when she was awakened by a man on top of her. The man, Jose Eduard Vazquez, attempted to rape her until he was caught by another employee. Schwartz, through a guardian ad litem, sued Vazquez and the facility's owner, operator and administrator. Schwartz's attorneys claimed that Vazquez attacked Schwartz after consuming liquor on the job and he was able to enter her room with a master key provided to all employees. The defense argued that the incident was not related to hiring practices or lack of supervision.

For more information about nursing home abuse, go to www.injurylawyerdallastexas.com or call 214-855-0034.

Nursing Home Resident Wins At Trial For Attempted Rape and Injury - Dallas, Texas

 

A jury awarded $12.5 million to a nursing home resident who was attacked by a cook who works at the facility. In 2007, Sophie Schwartz, then 92, a dementia patient, was asleep in her bed at Oakdale Heights of Santa Clarita when she was awakened by a man on top of her. The man, Jose Eduard Vazquez, attempted to rape her until he was caught by another employee. Schwartz, through a guardian ad litem, sued Vazquez and the facility's owner, operator and administrator. Schwartz's attorneys claimed that Vazquez attacked Schwartz after consuming liquor on the job and he was able to enter her room with a master key provided to all employees. The defense argued that the incident was not related to hiring practices or lack of supervision at the facility.

For more information regarding nursing home abuse in Texas, go to www.injurylawyerdallastexas.com or call 214-855-0034.

 

Nursing Home Hit With Verdict As A Result of Bed Sore That Lead To Death - Dallas, Texas

 

A jury awarded $29.1 million to the family of an elderly woman who died from an infected bed sore. In 2005, Frances Tanner, 79, was a resident of the Colonial Healthcare nursing home when she fell and broke her hip before dying in a hospital about a month later. Tanner's family claimed that the nursing home was grossly understaffed, which delayed treatment for her fractured hip and led to its failure to prevent the fatal bed sore. Plaintiffs' counsel maintained that the parent company had a culture of putting profits over patient care. Plaintiffs' counsel suggested that Tanner, who had Alzheimer's dementia, was not being regularly repositioned in her bed while at Colonial Healthcare, which resulted in the bed sore. The defense argued that the bed sore occurred at the hospital after Tanner had left the nursing home.

If you need more information regarding nursing home abuse in Dallas Texas go to www.injurylawyerdallastexas.com or call 214-855-0034. 

Nursing Home Found Liable For Abuse and Neglect of Patient - Dallas, Texas

A jury awarded $7.5 million to the family of a mentally retarded man who died from pneumonia while residing in a facility where he was allegedly abused. Tony Courville, 39, lived at Robinswood School for the Developmentally Disabled and was severely neglected, his family claimed. Couville allegedly suffered from a severe cough for eight days before the facility brought him to a hospital. More than 4 liters of fluid was drained from his chest cavity. The fluid had displaced his trachea and heart. His family also claimed that he had been beaten and sexually abused. Plaintiff's counsel noted that in his last seven months, Courville was brought to the emergency room three times for head injuries, and he received multiple staples each time.

 

For more information regarding nursing home abuse in Dallas, Texas go to www.injurylawyerdallastexas.com or call 214-855-0034 to seek advice from an attorney.

Settlement for Nursing Home Neglect

 

On Jan. 8, Southfield Healthcare Center was ordered to pay $50,000 to the family of a former nursing home resident after a jury found that it failed to diagnose and treat the woman's ulcer. Francisa Gamez's adult children said their mother lived at the facility for one month before her death in February 2005. They claimed nursing home staff neglected Gamez and failed to notice that she had a large sacral ulcer, which they alleged was the origin of the sepsis that caused her death. The family's medical expert opined that had the ulcer been discovered earlier, it could have been treated and Gamez would have survived. Southfield denied the allegations and argued Gamez's death was the result of old age and other existing health problems. The jury awarded damages for Gamez's pain and suffering and the family's survival claims, but awarded no damages on the wrongful-death claim.

NEW RULE HURTS NURSING HOME ABUSE LAWSUITS

 

According to the Washington Post, a new rule passed by the Bush administration would adversly affect lawsuits against nursing homes.  The Washinton Post reports:

The Bush administration shut off a source of information last fall about abuse and neglect in long-term care facilities that people suing nursing homes consider crucial to their cases.

The change, which affects the $144 billion nursing-home industry, was enacted with no public notice or attention.

"This is pretty stunning," said Mark Kosieradzki, a plaintiff attorney in Plymouth, Minn. "Nobody was told. It was just done."

The rule designates state inspectors and Medicare and Medicaid contractors as federal employees, a group usually shielded from providing evidence for either side in private litigation.

The restrictions affect about 16,000 nursing facilities and 3 million residents in the United States. The practical effect is to force litigants to go to greater lengths, including seeking court orders, to get inspection reports or depositions for cases they are pursuing or defending.

"This change hurts nursing-home residents and their families by allowing bad practices to be kept in secret by nursing homes and inspectors," said Eric M. Carlson, an attorney with the National Senior Citizens Law Center in Los Angeles. "Government inspectors have the right to go into nursing homes and investigate, and they learn things that residents and families otherwise could never find out."

The new rule, which was issued in September, generally prohibits state health departments and contractors from participating in private lawsuits involving facilities that are in the federal assistance program without approval by the head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The rule was justified as being necessary to accommodate the hiring of new contractors to make Medicare payments to providers, perform audit and fraud reviews, and do survey, certification and enforcement work for the program.

NURSING HOME LIABLE FOR WRONGFUL DEATH

A jury awarded $1,146,000 to the family of a nursing home resident who sustained fatal injuries when she was dropped while being transferred from her wheelchair to her bed. Maria Belia Peñalver, 90, died the day after the Sept. 25, 2000 incident, which occurred as an employee attempted to move her at Silver Creek Manor, a Living Centers of Texas nursing facility in San Antonio. Peñalver's sons said their mother sustained a subdural hematoma, intracerebral hemorrhage and multiple contusions and lacerations in the fall, and that those injuries were the direct cause of her death. The nursing home argued that Peñalver, who had resided at Silver Creek for three years, died as a result of numerous preexisting medical conditions.