San Francisco Injury Lawyer Blog

In recent months, we’ve often discussed the issue of elder abuse, including the problem of nursing home neglect. These posts contain some truly distressing information about the frequency of abuse and the utter callousness that the perpetrators show. It is good to be reminded that courts and juries are working to hold people responsible for these acts. As a Sacramento elder abuse law firm, we hope these verdicts serve to compensate victims, punish wrongdoers, and warn others that the law will hold them responsible for the mistreatment of our elderly population. In cases of nursing home abuse, we hope these verdicts remind companies that placing profits over care will not be tolerated. We also think it is important to keep in mind that these verdicts are victories, but that each one represents one or more victims of cruel acts who deserve to be remembered.

Boice v. Emeritus Corporation: Case Against Senior Care Corporation Ends in Huge Verdict

Twenty-three million dollars is a verdict people typically associate with corporate litigation, lawsuits between large companies over a business deal gone wrong. On Friday March 21, it was the amount of punitive damages that a Sacramento jury found due in a case of elder abuse. According to the Sacramento Bee, Joan Boice moved to Emeritus at Emerald Hills, an Auburn facility operated by a major senior care corporation, in September 2008. Boice, who already suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, developed bedsores while at the facility. According to the evidence at trial, a caregiver alerted a nurse to the sores, only to be told “just don’t let anybody know” because disclosing the sores would have meant Buice being removed from the facility. This was just one element of a case involving systemic understaffing and inadequate training, practices that placed profits above care. By the time Boice left Emerald Hills in December, the sores had grown serious. She died only three months after leaving the center and bedsores were listed as a significant condition leading to her death.

There are few advances as important to our society as modern prescription medication. It wasn’t long ago that people died from illnesses we now treat with a basic course of antibiotics. Many medications save lives. Others help manage severe pain and other health problems, making life more livable. However, as the news outlets often remind us, there is a huge problem stemming from prescription misuse. Abuse and addiction are followed by crimes associated with obtaining and selling medications. An often under-recognized form of this crime is prescription theft in senior care settings. Our San Francisco nursing home abuse lawyer understands this threat and is working to help victims of nursing home drug theft throughout Northern California.

One Example of a Widespread Threat: Florida Nurse Caught With 126 Pills Stolen from Elderly Patients

Nursing home medication theft is a nationwide problem that strikes communities of all size, as a recent headline demonstrates. On February 24, according to the Crestview Bulletin, the sheriff’s office in Okaloosa County, Florida received a call about a theft at The Manor of Bluewater Bay. The Manor is a 120-bed facility providing both long-term nursing home and short-term rehabilitation services in Niceville, a city of 13,000 on Florida’s panhandle. The Director of Nursing told the responding deputy that he’d observed surveillance video footage showing a nurse stealing prescription medications from patients. When confronted, 32 year-old Renee Lorraine Stern admitted to stealing the drugs. The nurse had 126 pills in her possession belonging to a number of different facility residents, including pain killers and anxiety medication. She reported that the drugs were for her own use to treat pain stemming from a prior surgery. Police charged Stern with larceny and several counts of possessing a controlled substance. They have set a court date of April 9.

As the presence of elder abuse in our society is made more aware to the public, we are finding that the problem may be bigger, and worse, than initially suspected. An increasing number of elderly citizens are put in nursing homes but there has always been a suspected underreporting of elder abuse cases. This may be because there is a lack of training on detecting abuse and the elderly themselves may be reluctant to report abuse due to fear or threat or the inability to do so cognitively. Though statistically, there is an increasing trend in reports of elder abuse, studies estimate that only 1 in 14 cases of elder abuse come to light.

New York Woman Hides Camera to Catch Abuse of Grandmother

Last week, a story came to light of a New York woman who suspected her 89-year-old grandmother Ana Louisa Medina, who suffers from both dementia and Alzheimer’s, was being abused in the Bronx nursing home she was placed in. After noticing unusual markings and bruising on her body, Diana Valentin initially inquired the administrators of Gold Crest Care Center of what was going on. She was told the injuries were incurred when her grandmother banged her hands on the bed railings. Still feeling suspect, Valenin decided to place a hidden camera inside of her grandmother’s room. Valentin says the hidden camera recorded approximately 600 hours of footage and was enough to have her send Medina to an emergency room, and later to a different nursing home.