Foothill Ranch-based nursing home operator Skilled Healthcare Group recently lost a court battle with trial lawyers but irregularities with the jury has the company demanding a new trial.
Brought to court over a claimed administrative violation of the number of healthcare professionals that are to be on duty per patient, the plaintiffs were awarded a $671 million award.
Skilled Healthcare, however, was made aware that one of the jurors in the case had not told the court of her connections to both the prosecution and a Skilled Healthcare facility casting her impartiality into serious doubt.
The company wants the previous case thrown out and a new trial.
In the meantime, the company has entered mediation over the $671 million award. Skilled Healthcare cannot pay such an extreme amount and will likely be forced into bankruptcy if they can’t come to a mediated settlement.
The company has a market share of $100 million and a credit line of only $94 million. Skilled Healthcare also reports $2 million cash on hand but its insurance wont cover the exorbitant award.
If the company is forced to declare bankruptcy its 22 facilities and 32,000 patients and workers face an uncertain future, including the hundreds of Orange County based employees whose jobs are at risk.
Boy, good article Martha, I’m convinced, those poor, poor persecuted executives at Skilled Healthcare Group.
Imagine being sued by “trial lawyers”;
“Skilled Healthcare Group recently lost a court battle with trial lawyers..”
Did these “trial lawyers” even have clients? I’m sure Skilled Healthcare Group wasn’t represented by “trial lawyers”, no, I’m sure the choir boys did their best, but there is NOTHING you can do when faced with “trial lawyers” at a trial.
And what’s all the fuss anyway, it was just a “claimed administrative violation of the number of healthcare professionals that are to be on duty per patient”, everybody knows what that means. A bunch of spoiled demanding old folks not getting their morning Bloody-Mary the moment they wake-up.
Oh sure, I bet the “trial lawyers” claimed that old people were SITTING IN THEIR OWN FECES and getting BEDSORES and other made up crap, like UNNECESSARY PAIN and SUFFERING.
And I’m sure that it was ONLY this one juror who was APPALLED and ANGRY, it’s not like you have to get 9 jurors to agree or anything and HUGE MONEY VERDICTS aren’t meant to punish, no these silly jurors must of thought that kind of money was a slap-on-the-wrist.
All in all, I think it’s obvious that Skilled Healthcare Group has been treated badly by the mean and nasty “trial lawyers” and I think people like Martha should show solidarity and when the time comes, put her loved ones in a Skilled Healthcare Group facility.
To anonster, the blogger before me, YOU REALLY ARE A MONSTER AREN’T YOU? To say Martha Montelongo would be brave enough to place her parents in a Skilled Healthcare skilled nursing facility is frankly ridiculous after this verdict.
Numbers don’t lie. The staffing was either adequate or not.
My mother, Evelyn Calvert, was fatally harmed in a Sun Healthcare Group Inc skilled nursing facility called Sunbridge in Newport Beach, California, in 2003 when they under staffed severely and used known broken equipment (HVAC and b/p monitors), all in violation of their 2001 California state injunction not to. But the DOJ -BMFEA turned a blind eye and instead pursued the hispanic employees of an Escondido Sun facility for not placing eye drops in a patient’s eyes, later dropping all charges. What is going on here is called C O R R U P T I O N! A DOJ agent told me weeks ago after reading my emails he’s surprised someone isn’t in jail yet.
Will there be a REAL investigation of corruption? Jerry Brown, President Obama, are you listening???
http://www.sunhealthcaregroupinc.blogspot.com
Deborah Calvert, Newport Beach, California
Deborah,
I am so sorry about the loss of your mother. This is a long overlooked problem. With so many baby boomers retiring, this is only going to get worse. The government clearly needs to get a handle on this!
Deborah,
I guess my sarcasm was a bit too subtle, I am fully supportive of the massive award AGAINST Skilled Healthcare Group. Large money awards are MEANT TO PUNISH and in this case may even put these bastards out of business.
It sounds like the Sun Healthcare Group abuse took place in 2003, Jerry Brown was elected AG in 2006, I don’t know what the statute of limitations is on a case like this.
It’s too bad that a class-action lawsuit wasn’t brought against Sun, while it wouldn’t diminish the pain and suffering your mother experienced, it would have given you some satisfaction and like the huge judgement brought against Skilled Healthcare Group, it might have served as a warning shot that would’ve reverberated throughout the elder-care industry.
It seems Debbie and Art got a gripe with Skilled Healthcare, and our righty apologist blogger Martha Montelongo, NOT anonster.
Vern,
? I have no particular gripe with them – but I think what happened to Ms. Calvert’s mother sucks. Something should be done about this issue.
Art,
It is easy to say “Something should be done about this issue”, but the REALITY is that it takes GOVERNMENT WORKERS to INSPECT these facilities on a regular basis and GOVERNMENT WORKERS to ENFORCE COMPLIANCE and GOVERNMENT WORKERS to PUNISH facilities who continue to violate the laws.
As a LIBERTARIAN where do you stand on this?
anonster,
I have always said I was a small “l” Libertarian. In fact my disagreements with doctrinaire Libertarians are sufficient that I recently changed back to Decline to State.
I work with OSHA inspectors frequently. They are under-funded and overworked but they play an important role in keeping workers safe. So to do health inspectors. You will find no argument from me on these issues.
Jerry Brown needs to look into the DOJ’s Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse and why Claude Vanderwold refused to prosecute Sun Healthcare Group Inc for violating their Calif State Injunction in 2003 in a Newport Beach, Calif, Sunbridge skilled nursing facility by fatally harming 4 patients including my mother, Evelyn Calvert.
I sued my former late corrupt attorney, Daniel Leipold for the malpractice of dropping wrongful death. That corrupt attorney even met with a local reporter for The Orange County Register within weeks of my mother’s harm and yet never printed an article about our eyewitness accounts of these deaths. Why?
C O R R U P T I O N.
We were cheated of our compensation for wrongful death and her nine months of pain & suffering by the CEO of SUNH when I was taken advantage of after a pancreatic tumor surgery. 3 coincidences? I think NOT. Rick Matros should resign, admit his criminal activities and be placed in jail with other criminals