It was painful to read the news reports about the Emeritus guilty verdict. After reading the first article about the case a few weeks ago, I assumed Emeritus was going to get dinged on this one, but it was unclear how bad it would be. I first wrote about it in this article: Case Study – “Suit: Facility let woman ‘waste away’”.
It was painful to read the news reports about the Emeritus guilty verdict. After reading the first article about the case a few weeks ago, I assumed Emeritus was going to get dinged on this one, but it was unclear how bad it would be. I first wrote about it in this article: Case Study – “Suit: Facility let woman ‘waste away’”.
According to the story in the March 6, Sacramento Bee Story, the jury found Emeritus to be guilty, finding that “that an employee, officer, director or a managing agent acted with recklessness, malice, oppression and fraud.” The family was given an initial award of more than $4,000,000 which will likely be reduced to around $250,000 because of statutory pain and suffering limits.
Then on Friday the jury awarded an additional $23 million in punitive damages. In the damage story, it came out that Emeritus had made a pretrial settlement offer of $3.5 million suggesting that from the very beginning they were expecting to get hurt.
What it Means
Emeritus is not known as a company that scrimps on resident care. In fact the Emeritus people I know have a huge commitment to providing quality care and services to their resident. It seems pretty clear this was an isolated problem at one community, with one resident . . . something that happened 5 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I do think it was probably not unreasonable that Emeritus pay something.
That being said . . .
- To take one single incident and use it to imply “recklessness, malice, oppression and fraud” is a huge stretch. This is particularly true because in Emeritus is a good company and runs good senior communities.
- It is particularly frustrating that the Sacramento Bee was essentially a shill for the plaintiff attorneys. They ran at least 3 stories that were heavily slanted against Emeritus. Most egregious is it appears that the article on closing arguments only covered the plantiff’s side and not the Emeritus defense. That is not reporting.
- To be honest, it appears there were some real problems with this particular situation:
- Several people have wondered if this woman should have ever been admitted. It is a good question, but without seeing the specific facts, it seems to me that it was a reasonable, better quality of life for the resident, decision.
- It sounds like this woman was frail and was probably assisted with bathing, so the fact that the decubitus ulcers were not caught, documented, reported and addressed earlier is problematic.
- This has to be the worst nightmare for operators, because assuming there was a problem, it could very well come down to one or two staff members who didn’t do the things should have done.
- It seems unlikely that whatever happened had a substantial impact on the resident’s longevity which makes the $23 million look ridiculous.
- There seem to be several “facts” that proved Emeritus provided substandard care, that even if true, don’t seem to have substantive relevance to the case. The one that really caught my eye was the allegation that on at least one occasion, there was no dedicated night shift memory care staff member (or at least no record of it). This seems to be mostly emotional smoke without fire; surely not an ideal thing, but the implication that somehow this caused the community to miss the skin problems makes no sense
- I feel particularly bad for all the hardworking dedicated Emeritus team members who work hard each day providing great care for their seniors that have now been tainted.
- It suggests it is now open season, at least in California, for assisted living providers. Again something that will make it harder to provide great care for seniors.
In truth, this week and in the weeks to follow, the fine providers of assisted living, including those who work for Emeritus will continue to provide quality compassionate care to seniors in the state of California.
This case and the on-going threat of litigation will force senior communities to be more careful, to expend more time and energy on protecting themselves from predatory attorneys. This in turn means higher costs.
What do you think of the verdict and of the amount of punitive damages?
Steve Moran
As a former senior living risk manager, I do not find the judgment surprising, That being said, I have problems with the amount of the judgment based on the facts as we believe them to be. Unfortunately in today’s environment, and particularly in cases of this type, jurors tend to experience guilt and think “that could have been my relative”. There is also the tendency to “stick it to” the big bad corporations that provide exceptional care under difficult circumstances.
Jay what you say makes sense. I think the attorney did a really good job of painting Emeritus as this big bad evil corporation which resulted in the size of the judgement being what it was.
Steve
I do not find this surprising in the least bit. Emeritus communtities that provide excellent care are in my opinion the exception. Coming from the Bay Area, I’ve found their management lacking and their promises of quality care often go unfulfilled. I lost 3 residents from my memory care due to finances and they each went to Emeritus communities that did not have a specialized unit. Those 3 families each came back after they found their loved ones consistently soil ed,
From LinkedIn Groups
As an attorney, I know the outcome of jury trials is often driven by sympathy. There’s always more to the story than the media reports. Let’s see if the trial judge or court of appeal knocks down the verdict.
By Lorie Eber
From LinkedIn Groups
Steve, thanks for taking time to provide a detailed look at the Emeritus verdict. Perhaps your linked article can be posted in the Sacramento Bee to offset the negative reporting you mention? (At least an opinion piece.) We recently experienced another situation in a California care home whose leadership and staff refused to perform CPR. Hmmmmm. (Steve, I see you also posted this in your “Wait a minute” discussion item in this group.)
By Brenda Avadian, MA
For thirty years we have fought for elder dignity. Emeritus is and will always be a real estate company with the side role of caring for our loved ones. Rather then always looking at that bottom line look under the sheets for signs of bedsores.
Glad to know that Harris (Carol Herman) has no clue about who Emeritus is or does. She is solely focused on trying to discount all the wonderful passionate caring people that have dedicated their lives to making a difference with seniors. Somehow big is supposed to equate to bad. simply not true. Senior Housing demands tremendous resources and Emeritus Senior Living is dedicated to providing quality care to its residents and employees. Time for someone to point out that 30 years does not mean you know it all.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/09/5248716/sacramento-jury-slams-assisted.html
Here is the article.
Thanks again, Steve, for the good conversation about this trial and verdict. You’ve encapsulated beautifully what the Sacramento Bee refused to write about. Obviously, we adamently disagree with this verdict and are appealing. So many details about this care have not been publicized and, as much as we’d like to offer our side of this story, it’s honestly not our place to sacrifice Mrs. Boice’s privacy and dignity by getting into all her extensive care details in a public forum. We absolutely stand behind our caregivers and the care they provide. Anyone who has spent even an hour observing care at an Emeritus community will be overwhelmed by the compassion and attention that our caregivers offer our seniors. Yes, we operate in an industry of human beings caring for human beings – extremely fragile ones at that. And for every comment we get from the “BCs” of the world, we get hundreds more from residents and families who are incredibly grateful for the care they receive from Emeritus. In fact, throughout this trial, Emeritus has been flooded with support from our residents and families who are upset by this lopsided trial coverage and wanted to offer their support and thanks. I also have to take exception to Harris’s comment. Emeritus is far from a real estate company. Our top six executive leadership team members have more than 120 years of senior living and healthcare experience – with the least amount of experience being 15 years. They are in this business for all the right reasons and their vision, care and leadership is apparent in everyone of Emeritus’s communities. After sitting in hundreds of quality improvement and assurance meetings, I can say I have never seen such dedication, persistence and intelligence in my 20 year career in healthcare.
Again, thank you for having this conversation and allowing us to comment.
I work at an Emeritus community and I am so surprised that this is verdict that came down. One isolated incident and your “reckless”. NO. The people that I care for are fragile and can deteriorate rapidly. People who have never had a loved one live in an Emeritus community have no idea what they are talking about. The staff at these communities go out of their way to do extra things all the time because they care about them. Until you have seen first hand what it’s like to be in an Emeritus family you will never understand. My team absolutely cares about each and every resident as if they were their parent. Just because one family does not understand that people’s bodies can deteriorate quickly doesn’t mean that all Emertus communities are bad. Give us a chance, we will make you part of our family.
The lawsuit is an example of the care at Emeritus facilities. They deserved more. I had my mother at Emeritus and was horrified at the care she was given and took her out of there. They were terribly understaffed and not qualified in many cases from staff, nurses to director. Attitudes were horrible. My mom was given wrong medications even when directed to correct them several times, but no one really cared. She was being forced to swallow 9 pills at a time even when having stomach issues. They refused to call an ambulance until I stepped in. I went in one night to see the staff sitting in the lobby with their feet up on the tables and desks. I went to my mom’s room and rang the bell for help for 30 minutes to see how long it would take them to get there and no one came, they were watching TV in the lobby. She was not getting bathed even though I paid for it. If you are defending them than you have not had your loved ones there. Fortunately I was observant and pulled my mother out before any real harm came to her. Unfortunately, a lot of people trust them for care and are not observant. Perhaps if they pay out enough on lawsuits like this they will change, but I doubt that they will as the attitude is so arrogant and callous. I can only hope that the word gets out to people and they will not take their loved ones there. But in fairness to Emeritus they are not the only terrible assisted living facility, many others are as bad and worse. That is what happens when large profits get in the business of healthcare. The alternative are the nursing homes and they are awful too. I saw a lot of terrible things during my mom’s illness and stays at both. This is what we have to look forward to in our old age as well and that includes the decisions makers at these facilities. I have to wonder how they will like getting the same terrible care when they are old that they so adamantly defended during their career.
As a former employee of Emeritus, I can assure anyone reading that the only thing they care about is the bottom line. Our building was bought out by Emeritus in 2010, and the first thing they did was cut staffing to untenable and unsafe levels. Resident care suffered tremendously as a result.
Furthermore, as they were cutting staff and staff hours, they started to receive more and more residents who are obviously candidates for nursing care, ie residents with limited or no mobility, residents who are already exhibiting signs of dementia (yet not admitted into “memory care”).
In the meantime, every department suffered through massive turnovers. My department went through 6 different directors within the first year; the Executive Director title was held by no less than 5 individuals through the first 14 months!
I have never worked for, or could even have imagined, a company that deserved a big lawsuit judgment more than Emeritus Senior Living. The 2 years I stayed was a living hell of constant emergencies, morally bankrupt decision-making, and sheer incompetence.
The problem my clients have had with Emeritus is much like Silverado Senior Living, banning family members from visiting for making complaints about neglect or telling others about it up to and including threats of jail for criminal trespass. We just sued Silverado Senior Living Sugarland’s facility in federal court for civil rights violations, false imprisonment, battery, conspiracy, etc. State and Federal Court. They are very abusive with the POA or guardians.