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Supreme Court hears arguments in nursing home lawsuit Friday, Jun 15, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A lawyer for a Fort Smith-based nursing home company argued Thursday before the state Supreme Court that a Batesville woman should not be allowed to sue the company on behalf of nearly 500 nursing home residents. In June 2005, Annette Thomas sued a Batesville nursing home, Batesville Nursing & Rehabilitation, alleging that while she was a resident of the facility her health deteriorated because she received substandard care. The suit alleges Thomas developed bedsores so severe that one of her legs had to be amputated. Also named as a defendant in the suit is the nursing home's parent company, which was known in 2005 as Beverly Enterprises. Beverly changed its name to Golden Horizons in late 2006 following the company's purchase by Golden Gate National Senior Care. An Independence County circuit judge certified the suit as a class-action suit, allowing Thomas to sue on behalf of everyone who was a resident of the facility between Sept. 13, 2000, and June 30, 2004. The defendants appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments Thursday. Little Rock attorney Sam Jones, representing the defendants, said 489 people lived at the facility during the four-year period specified in the suit, and the level of harm allegedly suffered would vary from person to person. "You're not going to have uniformity," Jones told the justices. "You're not going to have homogeneity. You're going to have a mixed bag." Philip Bohrer of Baton Rouge, La., attorney for the plaintiff, said the suit alleges breach of contract and violations of state statute, not medical negligence. The damages sought are for violations that would have affected all residents, so certification as a class-action suit is appropriate, he said. "It's better ... than having over 400 individual trials on the same issue and the same evidence," he said. Justice Donald Corbin asked Jones to explain his argument. "Why wouldn't understaffing be common to all 400-plus residents?" Corbin asked. Jones said the alleged understaffing - which he said resulted from people failing to show up for work, not corporate decisions - would not have affected residents uniformly. "The difficulty is generalizing about a nursing home with different wings, different shifts, different common areas," he said. Jones said that if the plaintiffs ultimately prevailed in a class-action suit, awarding damages would be impossible without determining how much harm, if any, each person suffered. Corbin asked if the case could be "decertified" when the point of determining damages was reached. Jones said the result would be more time-consuming than holding separate trials. "Why waste that time from the get-go?" he said. Bohrer said damages could be determined according to the number of days a person occupied a bed at the facility. He cited a New York case in which "bed days" were used as a standard in determining damages. Noting that the nursing home residents in the case are elderly and infirm, Bohrer said a class-action suit is "the only way to protect the rights of these people." The court did not issue a ruling Thursday. |
