Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

As a Chicago Nursing Home lawyer I do not find this verdict surprising:

In the largest personal injury verdict in state history, a New Mexico jury awarded $54 million to the family of a woman who bled to death in her nursing home. The plaintiff's lawyer, Carl Bettinger of Albuquerque, was already well-acquainted with the defendant, having previously litigated more than half a dozen similar negligence trials against Manor Care, a nursing home chain based in Toledo, Ohio. After a two-and-a-half week trial, jurors found Manor Care liable for negligence and attempting to cover up the cause of death of 78-year-old resident Barbara Barber.”

Justin Rebello, Lawyers USA 8/03/07

As a Chicago Medical Malpractice lawyer I have handled hundreds of nursing home cases over 25 years. This story from Kentucky is a little too typical:

Loren Richards, an 84-year-old Kentucky farmer, spent his last days bedridden and in intense pain. A bowel impaction that went neglected and untreated for several days finally caused a fatal heart attack, after a morning spent screaming for a doctor who never came. His family didn't know the truth of his terrible demise at the Beverly Health and Rehabilitation nursing home in Frankfort until weeks after he'd been buried. Daughter Jan Richards was at a church service when a man in front of her, who drove the city's handicapped van and had transported local nursing home residents, turned around to offer his condolences. It was so sad, he said, that her father had to die 'suffering like that and nothing was done for him.' Suffering? Nothing done? Richards, her brother Phil and sister Wanda Delaplane, had been told by the nursing home staff that his passing had been perfunctory. He'd had a history of heart problems and a stroke, after all. They believed his care had been good throughout his five years at the home, although after recent staff cuts, the family had noticed he wasn't always as clean as they'd hoped."

Andrea Billups & Fran Lostys, Reader's Digest, December 2006
http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=31303

Whether you have a nursing home case against an Illinois company or a national company you must be sure to identify and sue the proper entity. Defendant corporations are becoming much more adept at the corporate shell game.

"In the last five years, most of the nation's large nursing home chains have undergone major corporate restructuring. The goal: separating the chains' real property and assets from their operations to avoid financial liability for legal claims, including those alleging negligent care or abuse of residents. States like Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas-which have significant elderly populations-have been affected most by this trend, but homes in other states are following suit. Nursing home corporate structures used to be different. In the 1990s, most of the national nursing home chains operated in a similar manner. These for-profit chains included Beverly Enterprises, Mariner, Extendicare, HCR Manorcare, Kindred, Genesis, and LifeCare. Most of them divided up the country and each state into regions, and each region contained a handful of nursing homes."

Nathan P. Carter, TRIAL Magazine, November 2006
http://www.atla.org/publications/trial/0611/carter1.aspx

In Chicago and throughout Illinois it is necessary to identify the correct corporate structure when bringing suit against a nursing home. A recent article in Trial Magazine is helpful on this subject:

After several major chains were hit with Medicare fraud investigations or were forced to file for bankruptcy protection, the business model began to change. Virtually all of these national chains have undergone extremely complex business transactions in which they were sold, merged, or parceled out into different entities—or otherwise drastically changed.

Here are some sources of information that will help identify the correct entity:

* state Medicaid cost reports/home office reports and federal Medicare contracts
* the secretary of state’s Web site and uniform business reports that include names of LLC members or corporate officers/directors
* state licensee files, including applications to the state, change-of-ownership documents, and other related documentation
* for a publicly traded corporation, Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, 10ks or annual reports, statements of corporate officers, and stock values
* the facility’s admission packet, brochures, pamphlets, and other promotional literature
* Google searches on the nursing home facility and the entities that own or manage it (Searching all the names that appear in the Medicaid cost reports is a great starting point.)
* copies of court files, especially depositions, from other cases involving the facility you are investigating, as well as other facilities owned or managed by the same entities
* conversations with other attorneys who have previously brought claims against the facility
* conversations with former employees of the facility (if your state allows)
* the local property appraiser’s office or Web site regarding the facility site

* copies of the master lease and any subleases
* copies of all management agreements, ancillary service contracts, and financial services agreements between the facility and all related entities
* all the facility’s budget information, including the annual budget, monthly reports, budget variance requests, per-patient-day (PPD) data, and the staffing budget
* the governing body documentation and information (According to 42 C.F.R. §483.75(d) (2006), all facilities must have a governing body to establish and implement policies and appoint the administrator.)
* copies of bank documentation, promissory notes, loan applications, guarantees, and any other documents that relate to the capital that was borrowed—to set up the facility and its sister facilities—as part of the entire operation’s management
* all e-mails between any and all staff in the facility and any outside entity or person

Now, it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify the entity that owns, operates, and controls any skilled nursing facility. A nursing home and its literature no longer bear the name of its owner and operator. The business model is focused on shielding the true corporate owners from liability or responsibility for their residents’ injuries.

We have handled numerous cases of sexual assault and abuse in nursing homes. Some of the cases involve attacks by other residents of the home and some involve attacks by employees. This type of injury is far more common than people realize and can be devastating to nursing home residents and their families.