$2M Assisted Living Wrongful Death Settlement: On May 25, 2023, a wrongful death lawsuit filed against an Arkansas assisted living facility was settled for $2 million. The wrongful death lawsuit alleged that Brookfield Assisted Living LLC, which operated an assisted living facility in Bella Vista, Arkansas, was the temporary home of a resident who wandered off from the facility and was not found until her lifeless body was discovered a quarter mile away from the facility nearly two weeks later. The lawsuit alleged that Brookfield was negligent by failing to implement measures to prevent the resident from wandering off, by failing to implement appropriate policies and procedures to address the resident’s needs, by failing to properly supervise its employees, by failing to comply with state regulations governing assisted living facilities such as Brookfield, and by failing to provide a safe environment for the resident.
The resident, 74-year-old Barbara Doyle, wandered off from Brookfield on August 12, 2021. She had been admitted to Brookfield for what was supposed to be a three-day stay so that her husband could attend the first communion of two of their granddaughters in Ohio. Doyle, who suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, allegedly was left unattended within three hours of her admission to the facility. She exited the facility by opening a door, which caused an alarm to sound. The lawsuit alleged that a Brookfield employee heard the open door alarm and observed Doyle exit the facility by herself but failed to determine if Doyle was a resident or a visitor. The employee reportedly locked the exit door through which Doyle had left the facility and did not notify anyone at Brookfield regarding the incident.
The local police and emergency services were notified of the incident at 4:45 p.m. on August 12, 2021. Doyle’s body was found by a member of a local search and rescue team on August 25, 2021, in the woods near a church. The official cause of death was reported as environmental heat stress.
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