$15.7M Verdict Against Troubled Nursing Home Chain: In February 2023, an Arkansas nursing home malpractice lawsuit resulted in a verdict in the amount of $15,706,166 against an Arkansas nursing home that included $4,706,166 in compensatory damages ($206,167 in medical expenses, $1.5 million for the resident’s pain and suffering, $1.5 million for her mental anguish, and $1.5 million for loss of life) and $10 million in punitive damages. An additional $1 million was awarded to the resident’s son and the estate of her daughter, who died during the litigation.
Zelma Grissom had been a resident of Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center in Little Rock, Arkansas from March 2016 until June 2017. She died in May 2018 from a bedsore that became infected and led to sepsis that resulted in her death.
Summary judgment was entered against defendants Highlands of Little Rock Riley Holdings LLC doing business as the Hillview Rehabilitation Center, Skyline Highland Holdings LLC, and JS Highland Holdings LLC in April 2020 after they failed to respond to the lawsuit’s allegations. The defense attorneys for the corporate defendants withdrew from the case in July 2022, allegedly due to the defendants refusing to follow their advice and failing to pay their fees.
Skyline Health Care LLC and Skyline Management Group LLC owned and operated as many as 114 nursing homes in 11 states, including 21 facilities in Arkansas, until their financial failure in 2018. At one time, Skyline Healthcare LLC owned one out of every 10 nursing home beds in Arkansas.
In May 2020, an award in the amount of $18,951,247 in compensatory damages and punitive damages was awarded to the family of Doris Faye Coulson against Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center for Coulson’s death in October 2016. Once again, the defendant did not challenge the allegations against it in the lawsuit. The Coulson family’s Arkansas nursing home malpractice lawsuit alleged that the 70-year-old Coulson suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Parkinson’s disease, and dysphagia. She was a resident of the nursing home from April 2016, when the Skyline defendants acquired it, through September 2016. The family’s lawsuit alleged that Coulson was ordered to be fed nothing by mouth but the staff fed her breakfast one morning, which caused severe choking and led to a coma. Coulson died from aspiration pneumonia 12 days after being moved to another nursing home facility.
In January 2022, the onetime New York owner of Skyline Health Care and his wife failed to respond to a lawsuit and were ordered to pay $10,017,792 to the family of 52-year-old Lois Marie Rack, which included $5 million in punitive damages and $400,000 awarded to her four siblings. The family’s nursing home malpractice lawsuit alleged that Rack was scheduled for a three-week stay during which she developed bedsores from lack of appropriate care, which led to sepsis and renal failure that caused her death in February 2018.
The onetime owner reportedly is under federal indictment in New Jersey that charges him with failing to pay $29.5 million in payroll and unemployment taxes in addition to benefit plan fraud, according to a federal indictment.
If you or a loved one suffered injuries (or worse) while a resident of a nursing home in Arkansas or in another U.S. state due to a nursing home fall, nursing home aspiration, nursing home neglect, nursing home negligence, nursing home abuse, nursing home under-staffing, or the nursing home failing to properly care for a vulnerable adult, you should promptly find an Arkansas nursing home claim lawyer, or a nursing home claim lawyer in your state, who may investigate your nursing home claim for you and file a nursing home claim on your behalf or behalf of your loved one, if appropriate.
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