Nursing Home Named Defendant in $35 Million Wrongful Death Lawsuit
The family of an 84-year-old nursing home patient who died one week after she was admitted to a hospital for infected sores is suing a nursing home for wrongful death. Their civil lawsuit is seeking $35 million from Ruxton Health nursing home and former nursing home administrator Sue Myatt.
According to the wrongful death complaint, a sore was discovered on Lorina Wiggins’s left ankle on December 27, 2007. The sore became infected and by March her bone was visible. She died on March 21, 2008 from what the plaintiffs are calling wound complications. Their lawsuit also claims that Wiggins developed seven sores over a six-month period while staying at the nursing home.
Wiggins’s son, Bob, says no one told him that his mother had an infected sore or that other lesions had developed. He couldn't visit his mother at the nursing home between January and March 2008, but he phoned the facility to check on her. His nursing home negligence lawsuit says nursing home staffers told him his mother was “fine” and there were “no problems.”
This is the third nursing home negligence lawsuit within the last year naming Ruxton Health as a defendant. The family of Lillian Funn sued the nursing home for wrongful death after she died from skin ulcers and multiple nursing home bedsores in 2008. The civil suit was settled in April.
Last August, the family of 70-year-old Roper Houston filed a $26 million wrongful death lawsuit against the assisted living facility. Houston, who was mentally handicapped because of a traumatic brain injury he sustained as a child was transported to a hospital because there was blood in his urine. However, the plaintiffs contend that nursing home workers did not tell the hospital he struck his head when he fell out of bed.
Houston had resided at the assisted living facility for 30 years. His sister-in-law Sue says that he was involved in 14 fall accidents in a year and she made it a point to post notes warning staffers to take extra precautions. She said the notes were disregarded.
Between January 2007 and April 2008, state regulatory officials received 28 complaints alleging patient negligence at Ruxton Health.
Nursing home faces another lawsuit, Daily Press, October 9, 2009
Nursing home death leads to $26M suit, WAVY.com, August 26, 2009
Related Web Resources:
Elder Abuse in Nursing Homes, Nolo
Nursing Home Overview, Medicare
