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Our client, an 89-year old gentleman who lived in a nursing home due to dementia, died after being brutally beaten by his roommate in a nursing home. The attack took place within three days of the nursing home forcing our client to share a room with a dangerous man. This physical attack was foreseeable as the nursing home staff was aware of other instances of physical violence that the roommate had displayed toward staff and others, and more importantly, had been made aware of a threat made by the roommate against our client within 24-48 hours of the assault, yet no preventative actions were taken. The roommate suffered from a serious mental illness that resulted in aggressive and violent behaviors towards others, and was difficult to control. Despite this knowledge, the nursing home allowed the dangerous resident to reside in the nursing home without proper supervision and care, and failed to protect others, including our client, from abuse. Through extensive discovery, Carma Henson, Rachel Fuerst and Thomas Henson established that these failures were a direct result of negligent management and control exacted by the parent corporation. The parent corporation established and enforced unsafe budgets at the nursing home that required the nursing home to understaff the facility while at the same time requiring them to admit residents that they were incapable of properly caring for in order to generate a large profit. In addition to claims of abuse and neglect, this lawsuit included claims of administrative and corporate negligence, as well as punitive damages. The name of the parties, the defense lawyers, the insurance carriers and the location of the lawsuit are confidential.

The case was defended by defense counsel representing the defendants and their insurance carrier. The settlement was reached after suit was filed, depositions were taken, a mediated settlement conference, and shortly before trial was scheduled to begin. The settlement amount was fully collectible.

Our client suffered a series of falls at a nursing home facility and was diagnosed with a serious head injury. She later died which her family contended was a result of her fall-related injuries. Attorneys Rachel Fuerst, Jordan Godwin, Carma Henson, and Thomas Henson, Jr. handled the case and settled the lawsuit in March 2023 for $4.25 million dollars. The medical malpractice lawsuit included claims of administrative/corporate negligence and punitive damages. The names of the parties and location of the lawsuit are confidential.

The case was defended by defense counsel representing the defendants and their insurance carrier. The settlement was reached after suit was filed, depositions were taken, a mediated settlement conference, and with trial pending. The settlement amount was fully collectible.

We represented the estate of an elderly man who was diagnosed with end-stage terminal bone cancer. Medical experts involved in the case testified that end-stage bone cancer is one of the most painful conditions, and patients in this condition are incapable of becoming addicted to pain medications. The pain was so bad for our client that his doctors had prescribed liquid morphine.

The nursing home and one of our client’s primary care nurses decided to withhold pain medication from our client to save money for the nursing home and to keep him from becoming addicted to the pain medication in his final days of life. The nurse gave him a placebo—essentially water—while letting our client believe that he was receiving the prescribed pain medication.

The defendants and their lawyers vigorously defended their actions, arguing against both liability and damages.

At the time of the $15 million verdict, this was the largest nursing home verdict in the state of North Carolina and was reported in newspapers across the county from the Wall Street Journal to the San Francisco Chronicle. After the verdict, the case was later settled for a confidential amount of money. The settlement for our client was fully collectible.

Carma Henson and Thomas W. Henson, Jr. announce the settlement of a case against a nursing home, its owners and managers; the medical director of the nursing home who was also the resident’s attending physician; and the wound care physician who was tasked with ordering and providing proper wound care to the resident for the total sum of $2,200,000.00.

Plaintiff’s decedent was eighty-eight years old. She was admitted to the nursing home due to dementia, but was still able to walk. Less than two months after her admission, she was injured by a wander guard bracelet, which caused a small blister bruise on her ankle. That blister bruise never healed, but instead continued to worsen over the next three months, such that by the time she was sent to the emergency room just over 3 months later, 80% of her right lower leg was decomposing, according to the hospital treating physicians.Plaintiff brought claims against the nursing home and its owners and managers for medical negligence, corporate negligence, and punitive damages.

Plaintiffs alleged that the nursing home was negligent in failing to ensure that the resident and her worsening condition was properly assessed and treated. Instead of ensuring that the patient was assessed by a registered nurse, the owners and managers allowed a licensed practical nurse who had recently been placed in the treatment nurse job position without adequate training to perform assessment and treatment. This LPN implemented inappropriate treatments without physicians’ orders to do so, and then proceeded to violate physician’s orders when they were issued. This LPN failed to recognize that this non-healing wound indicated that this resident had underlying venous and arterial insufficiency which needed to be evaluated and treated.

Additional allegations of poor care resulted from systems failures that reached the highest level of the corporate chain. The owners/managers of the nursing home did not have systems in place to ensure that wounds were being properly assessed, monitored and treated at the local facility nor at the corporate level, and did not ensure that their nursing staff received adequate training. This was established through the depositions of the Director of Nursing as well as the Corporate Wound Care Director, both of whom admitted the absence of systems and adequate oversight.

Plaintiff also alleged that the facility was understaffed, which was directly related to the poor care received by this resident. In addition to low staffing levels overall, plaintiff also alleged that the facility chose to employ significantly more licensed practical nurses than registered nurses, despite the fact that registered nurses are the health care providers allowed to perform a nursing assessment under North Carolina law. Plaintiff’s claims against the attending physician/medical director and against the wound care physician were based on their failures to properly treat this resident when it was clear that she had underlying arterial and vascular compromise that was preventing the healing of her wound.  The attending physician testified that he knew the patient’s arterial system was compromised, but yet failed to implement proper treatments. Plaintiffs alleged that the wound care physician, who was new to the wound care world and received inadequate training in that field, was negligent in that he failed to recognize that her wounds were worsening due to the arterial and vascular compromise, failed to order the testing necessary to determine such, and  failed to refer the resident to a physician who could assess and treat the underlying arterial insufficiency, which would have allowed her wounds to heal. By the time the resident was sent to the emergency room from the nursing home, she was severely dehydrated and malnourished, and too hemodynamically unstable to undergo any surgical procedures that would have been necessary to save her life.

The case was defended by three different law firms representing three insurance companies and the defendants. The settlement was reached after suit was filed, depositions were taken, and a mediated settlement conference occurred. The settlement amount was fully collectible.