Evergreen Milton-Freewater Health and Rehabilitation Center and the corporation that manages it, Evergreen Healthcare Management, are the focus of a wrongful death lawsuit seeking $7.5 million in punitive damages. But the case will have to wait five more months before going to a jury trial.
Barbara Dickerson of Milton-Freewater filed the lawsuit almost three years ago, accusing the Milton-Freewater nursing home and the management company of neglecting her late mother, Alice Train. That neglected, the lawsuit claims, contributed to her death.
In addition to the punitive damages, Dickerson is suing for about $36,000 in medical costs related to her mother, another $500,000 for wrongful death and $750,000 for her mother’s pain and suffering.
The lawsuit claims Dickerson and her family put their 90-year-old mother into the Milton-Freewater nursing home on March 12, 2005, because she was suffering from dementia. Train had diabetes, but she could walk and had no injuries.
But in 49 days at Evergreen Milton-Freewater, the lawsuit said, Train lost the ability to walk on her own, dropped from 152 pounds to 136, suffered from her limbs contracting and developed a pressure ulcer in her coccygeal area that was rotting to the bone and required surgery to cut away dead tissue. Train also developed pneumonia and anemia, according to court documents for the plaintiff, and the nursing home staff didn’t regularly monitor her blood sugar levels.
Dickerson moved her mother from Evergreen to another facility, but the lawsuit said the neglect Train suffered at Evergreen contributed to her death on June 30, 2005.
Dickerson initially filed the lawsuit in January 2007. Last week, it looked like a jury was finally going to consider the case in a six-day trial starting Monday. But the management company said it needed two days more to give a proper defense. Circuit Court Judge Christopher Brauer granted that request, but lengthening the trial to eight days also meant delaying it until April 19, 2010.
The East Oregonian wasn’t able to reach Dickerson, but her Pendleton attorney, Brian Dretke, spoke about the case. He said he understands the court’s ruling, but this is frustrating for him and the family.
“Every time we get ready to go to another trial, it’s like going through it again,” he said.
Dretke said Dickerson cared for her mother until her dementia proved too much to handle. The family chose the Evergreen facility, he said, because it would allow them to visit every week.
According to court documents, it was during a visit that Dickerson saw the neglect.
“On April 21, 2005, Barb visited and found her mother sitting in a wheelchair soaked in her own urine,” court papers said. “It was dripping on the floor in a puddle underneath the wheelchair. The smell of ammonia from the urine was so strong it made Alice cough.”
Dickerson complained about her mother’s condition, the lawsuit said, and she also discovered no one had bathed her mother in seven days. Dickerson then returned a week later. While changing her mother’s diaper, she found a wound under a dressing.
Read the rest »