Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

Marlene Delp

Muliple defenseless nursing home residents were left to suffer in pain after a nurse caring for them reportedly stole their pain medications.

Marlene Delp was arrested and charged in August 2010 on suspicion of stealing medications from almost twenty residents of The Terraces of Roseville, a California nursing home facility. The owner of The Terraces at Roseville suspected that Delp was stealing resident medications and alerted local police, who began an investigation.

Police searched the apartment in which Delp resided at The Terraces and found a variety of medication prescribed to 28 different people, 19 of whom were facility residents. Reportedly, she was replacing the residents' painkillers with over-the-counter medications.

She has been released from jail and a restraining order forbids her from working at the facility.

A California man will spend three years behind bars for admittedly raping a defenseless 76 year-old resident on multiple occasions.

Fifty-four year old Felix Panem plead guilty to rape of an incoherent patient and elder abuse in June 2010. He was arrested in December 2009 after he was caught having sex with his victim by another employee of the El Dorado Care Center.

According to Officer David Vojtaskovic, "He told me that he came in (to her room) and cleaned her up. He changed her and had sexual intercourse with her." Panem admitted to having sex with the resident in May and November 2009. His victim described Panem as a friend but didn't recall seeing him that day and denied having sex with him.

Sexual abuse is a growing problem at nursing homes. Every day more elderly residents are subjected to sexual attacks by employees and other residents. For a nursing home abuse attorney who has had experience in handling cases of sexual assault, contact the Terry Law Firm at (888) 317-2525.

Barbara Lefforge

Barbara Lefforge was at St. Edna Subacute & Rehabilitation Center in Santa Ana, California a mere 5 1/2 hours when she was accidentally overdosed on morphine.

Lefforge went to St. Edna on September 17, 2007 after a tendon repair surgery. Her podiatrist prescribed 50 mg of morphine for pain instead of 50 mg of Demerol. According to her attorney, the medication error should have been noted by facility staff. Reportedly, the pharmacist warned that the prescribed dosage was too high. Nurses at the facility were unable to administer the full dose, so 30 mg was obtained from an office emergency kit and administered. Lefforge suffered an overdose, but no one monitored her or took her to the hospital. By the time Lefforge reached a hospital, she was barely breathing and had already suffered a brain injury.

A jury deliberated for two days before returning a unanimous verdict that St. Edna was 90% responsible for the damages fifty-seven year old Lefforge suffered and her physician, Wesley Kobayashi, was responsible for 10%. She was awarded $2 million for pain and suffering and $1.1 for medical costs. Punitive damages were also awarded and a hearing on those damages is set for August 24, 2010.

St. Edna Subacute & Rehabilitation Center is one of 25 California Covenant Care facilities.

Pilgrim Haven, a northern California nursing home, has been fined $100,000 in the death of one of its residents. The eighty-five year old man sustained a severe head injury in a December 2009 fall and died the following day.

Reportedly, on December 7, 2009, the elderly man was found on the floor of his room where he had fallen. Although he denied hitting his head, the man was given a neurological exam that appeared normal. Later, when he turned pale and began vomiting, facility staff failed to assess him for head injuries and did not notify his physician for approximately two hours because there was no registered nurse on duty that evening.

The man was transferred to a local hospital, where he died the next morning. CT scan results found that the man suffered bleeding in the brain.

Frankly, the nursing home employees appear to have failed "head injury symptoms 101" in their response. Any time someone suffers a head injury, there are certain symptoms to watch for. If you notice any of these symptoms, call for help:

- Nausea that won't go away
- Vomiting
- Worsening headaches
- Change in behavior
- Weakness or numbness in legs or arms
- Increasing paleness
- Seizures

The nursing home employees at Pilgrim Haven should have recognized these obvious signs of head injury and contacted a physician or had the resident transferred to a local hospital for treatment.

Six former employees of Valley View Skilled Nursing facility were arrested last week and charged with one misdemeanor count of causing injury to an elder or dependent adult, battery committed on an elder or dependent adult, conspiracy, and battery committed while on hospital property for their roles in a vicious "prank".

The employees reportedly coated seven dementia residents at the facility from head to toe with ointment so that they would be "slippery" for employees on another shift. Four of the former employees applied the ointment and two failed to report the abuse.

Since the incident, the facility's executive director has been replaced.

Sadly, we hear about nursing home residents being the object of pranks, assaults and neglect far too often. We work hard at making a difference in cases of Missouri and Illinois nursing home abuse and neglect. There is no room for this kind of disrespect in nursing homes.

A California nursing home operator has been hit with a $671 million verdict in a class-action lawsuit filed in Humboldt County Superior Court.

A jury imposed maximum damages against Skilled Healthcare in a class-action lawsuit on Wednesday, July 7, 2010. The lawsuit alleged that the company violated a California statute that requires a minimum of 3.2 nursing hours per resident per day from 2003 to 2009. The alleged negligence affected approximately 32,000 residents at 22 facilities statewide.

In response to the lawsuit, the jury awarded $613 million for statutory damages and $58 million in restitution. Next week, the jury will decide whether to impose punitive damages on the company. Judge Bruce Watson will also rule whether the court will impose an injunction against the company to require it to maintain the required staffing levels.

Five people have been charged in connection to a deadly 2008 retirement apartment house fire in Vallejo, California that killed three men after authorities determined that the fire alarm system at the facility was faulty.

The owners of Casa De Vallejo, Ruben Islas and Jules Arthur, were charged with two counts of elder abuse causing death, two counts of manslaughter, and one count of elder abuse in connection to the deaths of three men living at the facility. Three others are also facing charges in connection to the deaths: Martha Islas-Enriquez, CEO of Vallejo Housing Partners, Jeremy Turner, Director of Construction Management, and Michael Hagigeorgio, the project manager for the fire alarm installation at the facility. Currently, four of the five people have been taken into custody and are being held on $250,000 bail each.

The August 15, 2008 fire was determined to be accidental and started with a "careless and negligent act(s)", not limited to smoking near oxygen tanks". Fire investigators found that 68 year-old Robert Bennett, who lived in Room 606, either fell asleep, became intoxicated and lost consciousness, or suffered a incapacitating medical event and died. Bennett's room was the origin of the fire that displaced more than 100 residents and caused $6 million in damages at the seven story complex probably suffered 'a medical event' in Room 606. The coroner found that Bennett's blood alcohol level was 0.28, more than three times the legal limit. Seventy-four year-old John Argente and sixty-one year-old Harold Fortune also died in the fire.

Reportedly, the manual fire alarm system was being upgraded at the time of the fire to add strobe devices and a new fire alarm control panel.

Sixty-five year old Anita Ramirez was admitted to LifeHouse Parkview in Bakersfield, California after being cared for at Bakersfield Heart Hospital for blood pressure problems for treatment for a bed sore. Ramirez's bed sore required her to be turned every two hours and have an IV antibiotic. Within two weeks of her admission, something was obviously wrong and her daughters called police.

With police assistance, Ramirez was released from LifeHouse and taken to the emergency room at the Heart Hospital for treatment. After an examination, physicians reportedly determined that Ramirez was suffering from burns all over her body. According to her daughter, Patricia Dias said, "She literally has no skin left on parts of her body." Her daughter further said, "The doctor said this should have been looked at a long time ago...They believed that it was a reaction to all the antibiotics she's been on for the last year."

Ramirez is in critical but stable condition at San Joaquin Hospital burn center. A detective with the Bakersfield Police Department will be assigned to investigate the case.

On July 1, 2009, emergency responders received a call about a dependent adult at an unlicensed board and care home in Solano County, California.

Sixty-two year old Charles Frank was a ward of the state and reportedly died at Sutter Solano Hospital from starvation and dehydration. His autopsy found evidence of severe neglect.

On May 26, 2010, after an investigation, the care home's manager and business owner were arrested. Patricia Ronquillo and Gene Bambo were booked into the Solano County Jail on $25,00 bail each. Police expect to make more arrests in the case.

A California nursing home resident sustained a head injury after falling from a mechanical lift. The 87 year-old resident, who resided at the Motion Picture & Television Fund nursing home (MPTF), required a lift for transfers from her wheelchair to her bed. According to facility protocol, two or more staff members are to assist during lift transfers. The resident slid out of the lift sling and fell on the floor during a transfer utilizing one nursing assistant. The resident cut her forehead and required stitches. The facility was fined $7,500 for failing to prevent the resident's head injury. The nursing assistant received counseling and the resident did recover.

We previously blogged about the abuse Cesar Ulloa heaped on unsuspecting, defenseless nursing home resident that ultimately resulted in the killing of one resident at Silverado Senior Living, an upscale nursing home facility located in Calabasas, California.

Ulloa, 22, was found guilty of torture and seven counts of elder abuse in April 2010. He was arrested in October 2008 after an eleven month investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. An anonymous call to the widow of Elmore Kittower, who had died in November 2007, told her that Kittower had died of abuse. The ensuing investigation found that Kittower had suffered abuse at the hands of Ulloa for months prior to his death.

Fifty-six year old Julio Mestre, a registered sex offender, reportedly sexually molested two nursing home residents on May 8, 2010.

The women were roommates at Creekside Health Care Center, a nursing home located in San Pablo, California. On the day of the attack, a nursing home worker reported that a man entered the room of a 66 year old resident, who was unable to speak due to a stroke, and groped and sexually assaulted her. The man allegedly walked into the room and stood behind the curtain partition of the victim. Her roommate, a 79 year old woman, began hitting her call button in an attempt to summon help. An attendant located the man in the room and took him to the nurses' station, but the man, who was later identified as Julio Mestre, left before police could be summoned. The woman was treated at a local hospital and returned to the facility.

The sixty-six year old woman could convey enough information to police to describe her assault but did not know the man. Her roommate told police that the same man had assaulted her in January 2010. Although the January attack was reported to nursing home staff, police never received information of the attack and therefore, it was never investigated.

On May 9, Mother's Day, the attacker returned to the facility with his wife to deliver Communion to the residents from a nearby church. A staff member recognized Mestre and called police.

Mestre was charged with multiple felonies and booked into the County Jail. He remained in jail in lieu of $700,000 bail.

Mestre drives a charter bus. While he was working for Muni in San Francisco in 2005, he reportedly molested a woman in a hospital bed in Laguna Honda Hospital while wearing his work uniform. As part of his plea deal in that case, Mestre was required to register as a sex offender in San Pablo, where he lives.

Police continue to investigate this matter, but have not found any other victims.

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".

Frances Tanner

Seventy-nine year old Frances Tanner was mobile and involved in life admitted to the Colonial Healthcare nursing home in March 2005, suffering from mild dementia. Seven months later, she died from an infected bedsore after falling and breaking her hip.

Her family filed a lawsuit against Colonial Healthcare and its parent company, Horizon West of Rocklin, alleging the entities were responsible for her untimely death. This week, after deliberating less than two days, a jury agreed and awarded $1.1 million in damages for her pain and suffering and her daughter's loss of companionship. After deciding that the facility's conduct was "malicious, oppressive, or fraudulent", the jury will hear further testimony about the corporation's finances before deciding on punitive damages.

Colonial Healthcare, which was formerly known as Hilltop Manor, has had a history of problems in caring for its residents. Frances Tanner's case was the fourth case in recent time in which the facility was cited for the death of a resident.

Resident Oliver Shrock died after falling at the former Kindred Healthcare Center of Orange in July 2009. His family is seeking justice for his death.

Oliver Shrock moved into the Kindred facility on May 10, 2009 for rehabilitation. Among his ailments, he suffered from coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and congestive heart failure. He needed assistance with dressing, eating, washing, and using restroom facilities.

After a fall, Shrock was assigned and wore a bed alarm to help prevent future falls. The bed alarm would sound when Shrock would get out of bed without assistance so that his nurses could assist him. Padded mats were also placed on the floor for his protection.

Shrock's daughter, Kathleen Sakoguchi, frequently found her father without his bed alarm and the protective floor mats were removed after one week. Shrock, who was working towards returning home, fell on July 14, 2009. Bleeding from his head, he was found on the floor by a nursing assistant, who did not know how long he had been lying there. He died four days later.

On January 20, 2010, the California Department of Public Health fined the facility $85,000 for a July 14, 2009 incident. The company is appealing the citation. Shrock's family flied a lawsuit against Kindred Healthcare Operating, Inc. and Kindred Nursing Centers West, LLC on Tuesday, April 6, 2010, alleging that facility staff failed to adequate steps to prevent Shrock from falling, among other things.

The facility was sold in October 2009 and is now known as Orange Healthcare and Wellness Center.

A California man has been arrested and charged in connection with three sexual assaults at a California nursing home facility.

On February 16, 2010, twenty year old Christopher Richardson allegedly broke into the Heritage Rehabilitation Center in Torrence, California between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. through an unlocked window and attacked the three residents. He was arrested a week later in connection with a similar assault.

Richardson faces charges of lewd acts against elderly, burglary, and elder abuse.

We discussed Caesar Ulloa and his alleged abuse of defenseless nursing home residents in previous blogs. Ulloa, who is only 21 years old, was charged with one count of torture and seven counts of elder abuse. If convicted, he faces life in prison.

Reportedly, Ulloa preyed on defenseless nursing home residents under his care at the Silverado Senior Living facility in Calabasas, California. A co-worker, Adelina Campos, testified that she watched in horror while Ulloa jumped from a dresser onto a male resident, landing with his knees in the resident's stomach. Another former co-worker, Luz Alvarez, saw Ulloa punch a combative wheelchair-bound resident in the stomach while asking "Haven't you had enough?" Ulloa reportedly also attacked a 78 year old woman by body-slamming her and encouraging two wheelchair-bound residents to fight.

Ulloa finally came under suspicion in the death of resident Elmore Kittower. The day after Mr. Kittower was buried, his widow received a call from Aldeina Campos' mother, who told Mrs. Kittower that her husband had been beaten to death. His body was exhumed and several broken bones were discovered. An autopsy found that blunt force trauma contributed to cause his death.

Ulloa, a former employee of the month, was fired from the facility in 2008 for reasons unrelated to resident abuse and has been in jail since his 2008 arrest.

According to a recently released report entitled "Dangerous Caregivers", the State of California failed to implement a 2006 law that required state regulators to establish a centralized database for background checks. Senate Bill 1759 required the Department of Social Services to set up a centralized database of negative administrative actions, such as license revocations. The database would have enabled six state entities that license and regulate caregivers to check each other's records before clearing applicants for hire. The excuse? Reportedly, the department did not seek the estimated $500,000 funding needed due to budget problems in California.

An investigation into the Office of Oversight and Outcomes exposed a minimum of twenty cases in which caregivers who were decertified due to misconduct were allowed to work in another state-licensed facility. Some of the cases discovered included:

A worker was decertified for slapping a defenseless 83 year old nursing home resident and pulling her hair because the resident struggled with her while changing her diaper. One month later, the same worker was cleared to work at another elderly residential care facility. The employee told the oversight office that no one had asked her about her previous incident.

A pharmacy tech was stripped of her registration in 2007 after she reportedly stole 11,000 tables of a prescription painkiller to give to her husband, who was disabled. The theft occurred over a period of seven years. Two years after her discipline, she was cleared to work in an assisted-living facility.

A nurse assistant was decertified after stealing a blind resident's ATM and withdrawing money. While she was fired from her position as a nurse assistant, she was later allowed to work in the same facility's kitchen. She has quit that position but remains on the clearance list for employment with the elderly.

A former California nursing home employee was charged Tuesday, March 23, 2010, with the murder of an eighty-seven year old female resident.

Allegedly, thirty-two year old Maximo Fajardo, Jr. smothered the resident using a pillow. He was employed at Convalescent Center Mission Street, located in San Francisco, California. March 22, 2010 was the first time he was allowed to spend time alone with residents unsupervised and reportedly, the resident's death was reported to police around 10:24 a.m. The Medical Examiner's Office is trying to locate the resident's family and has not released her name.

Fajardo was charged with murder with the special allegation of using a dangerous or deadly weapon, felony elder abuse, two counts of felony carjacking, and one count of attempted felony carjacking. He also faces three other counts: hit-and-run causing property damage, hit-and-run causing injury, and escape.

The other charges stem from Fajardo's behavior after the alleged murder and while undergoing questioning surrounding the resident's death. First, Fajardo ran from the scene before police arrived and reportedly carjacked a Toyota Camry. He crashed the automobile into a Nissan Pathfinder. He abandoned the Camry and tried to steal another SUV, but was unsuccessful and ran. Two witnesses to the crash chased Fajardo and held him until police were able to arrive.

Fajardo also attempted to run from the interrogation room after being questioned by a homicide inspector and CSI officer. He was tackled to the ground.

A former California nursing home administrator has been charged with kidnapping an 85 year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Reportedly, Carnell Williams was moved into the home of Concepcion "Connie" Pinco Giron in approximately August 2008. Giron began cashing the pension and social security checks of Ms. Williams. Giron told a supervisor at Elmwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where she was the assistant administrator, that Williams was being transferred to another care home. Williams was located at Giron's home in August 2009 unharmed. She had been fed and cared for.

Giron has also been accused of opening bank accounts at Citibank for five other residents in 2008. She reportedly transferred funds from those accounts into her own bank account for personal use. She wrote checks to herself and used their ATM cards. She also allegedly stole money from residents' trust accounts at the nursing home facility. She also convinced the son of one of the victims that he needed to pay an extra $600 per month in cash to keep his mother at the facility. The son made those payments for 18 months and Giron kept the money.

Giron was arrested on Monday and charged with kidnapping to commit another crime, false imprisonment, elder abuse, and six counts of theft. She is being held on $365,000 bail.