Elderly woman in residential facility falls. $4.3M. Los Angeles County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  Plaintiff was admitted to Ivy Creek Healthcare and Wellness Centre in 2011 because her family could no longer provide the care she needed at home. Upon admission, she suffered from Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and dementia, and needed assistance with all activities of daily living.

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  Despite facility staff being aware through assessment information, family information as well as physician notes and orders that plaintiff was a high fall risk, the facility failed to create and implement proper care plans to prevent her from falling. As a result, she suffered eleven falls throughout her residency, with the final fall causing a leg fracture.

  Additionally, plaintiff suffered severe stage 2 pressure ulcers due to a pattern of understaffing in the facility which prevented staff from providing necessary and legally required care. In an unfortunate effort to cover-up the facility’s negligence, nurses concealed plaintiff’s conditions from her family, physician and legal representative, and deceitfully told them nothing was wrong. 

  The lawsuit asserted that plaintiff’s injuries were a result of the facility’s plan to cut costs at the expense of its residents. Integral to this plan was the practice and pattern of staffing the facility with an insufficient number of personnel, many of whom were not properly trained or qualified to care for the elders and/or dependent adults whose lives were entrusted to them. In fact, a charge nurse caring for plaintiff on the day of her final fall confirmed this reality in testimony before the jury. This mechanism to reduce labor costs predictably resulted in plaintiff suffering from prolonged abuse and neglect.

• Defendant's Contentions:

  That plaintiff was an elderly person in the end of life and no interventions would have prevented her from falling.