Nursing home pays $1.5M to settle wrongful death suit

A nursing home accused of using morphine to keep difficult residents sedated has paid $1.5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit after offering to settle for $100,000 during mediation, according to a plaintiff’s attorney.

The son of a former resident brought the suit on behalf of his mother, who had Alzheimer’s and had stayed in a locked unit at the nursing home. He alleged that she was so heavily sedated that she fell on her face, became bedridden as a result of her injuries and later died.

An attorney for the son and his family, Anne Duvoisin Fisher of Henson & Fuerst in Blowing Rock, said the settlement agreement prevented her from identifying the parties in the suit.

Fisher, who worked on the case with her co-counsel Carma Henson of the firm’s Raleigh office, said her client’s mother died in a different nursing home after being discharged from the hospital following her fall.

According to Fisher, the nursing home contended that no one could prove the woman was given unprescribed morphine or link the drug to her death. The home did not admit liability in settling the case.

Fisher added that the home and its trial attorney had offered to settle the case for $100,000 during mediation and also had “informed the plaintiff that they anticipated a directed verdict at trial.”

But a few weeks later while Fisher and Henson were preparing to depose the home’s CEO and owners, the defense agreed to settle the suit for $1.5 million – 15 times the initial offer.

In an unusual move, the home had hired another attorney who negotiated the settlement without the original trial attorney or the home’s in-house counsel, according to Fisher.

Fisher has spent the last 14 years suing nursing homes in collaboration with other lawyers throughout the country. She said she has noticed a “national pattern” of nursing home owners taking Medicare and Medicaid money that should be going toward patient care – and opting to settle lawsuits before their misdeeds are brought to light.

“I have observed on multiple occasions that these cases often settle right before depositions at which the final nut is about to be cracked and plaintiff’s counsel is about to document the nature and extent of the profit taking,” Fisher said.

 Follow Phillip Bantz on Twitter @NCLWBantz

NURSING HOME ABUSE – WRONGFUL DEATH

Case name: Confidential

Court: Confidential

Date of settlement: July 17

Amount: $1.5 million

Attorneys for plaintiff: Anne Duvoisin Fisher and Carma Henson of Henson & Fuerst, Blowing Rock and Raleigh, respectively

Attorneys for defendants: Confidential