California Nursing Home Slapped With $28 Million Punitive Damage Award
Yesterday, we discussed a $1.1 million verdict for pain and suffering and loss of companionship handed down by a California jury for the wrongful death of seventy-nine year old Frances Tanner while a resident at Colonial Healthcare, a nursing home owned by Horizon West Healthcare. The jury was to decide punitive damages after that.
After the attorney for the Tanner family urged them to "make them feel it", a California jury opted to financially punish Horizon West Healthcare for reportedly understaffing its facility and providing substandard care when it awarded the Tanner family $28 million in punitive damages, the largest elder abuse award in Sacramento County history. The attorney for the Tanner family provided the jury a view into the inner workings of a nursing home network and advised the jury that Horizon West was worth approximately $200 million.
Horizon spokesman, Dan Niccum, said the company "will vigorously contest the verdict", based on "constitutional guidelines that were ignored".
