$1,000,000 Settlement – Negligence Resulting in Subdural Hematoma (Key West)

Nursing homes are supposed to be places that care for the elderly and vulnerable. When they don’t, tragedy occurs.

An elderly woman was neglected at a Key West nursing home. The neglect became so serious that the woman fell and hit her head numerous times, eventually causing a subdural hematoma (brain bleed). John Elliott Leighton filed a lawsuit against the nursing home and showed that the staffing was inadequate and the treatment was negligent. Mr. Leighton demonstrated through discovery that the nursing home had a long history of violating regulations. Staffing was negligent, because the more staff they had, the less profit the facility made. Therefore, the residents were abandoned. Care in nursing homes was affected. It was a case of profits over safety.

Our client was repeatedly ignored and did not receive the proper attention she needed. With early onset dementia, she required care and was recognized as a fall risk. In fact, the nursing home had even identified their fall risk by putting a notice on their door to alert all staff of their risk. That warning was ignored. When she finally suffered her most serious fall (which caused a brain hemorrhage), the staff that should be on duty was half of that reported to the State. When she received treatment, her brain hemorrhage became a fatal injury.

After thoroughly deposing the staff involved, Mr Leighton extracted facts which included calls from nursing staff to management requesting additional staff because the limited number of staff were insufficient to provide safe care to patients. Mr. Leighton also learned that staff were moved from one facility to another when regulators conducted inspections to make it appear they had more employees and staff than were actually there.

This wonderful woman lost her life…but we were able to expose safety violations that resulted in a safer nursing home for the future.

Mr. Leighton obtained a settlement for the institution’s total policy limits of $1,000,000. B.J. v. XYZ Nursing

 

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