Nursing home fall nets $6.5M verdict

A Roanoke City jury returned verdicts totaling $6.5 million for an 84-year-old woman injured in a fall at a nursing home.

With an award of $5 million in punitive damages, the jury evidently sought to punish the owner of the home for a policy that discouraged the use of bed alarms to signal when a patient is getting out of bed.

With reduction of the punitives award to the statutory limit of $350,000, the woman could get a judgment for $1.85 million.

When she fell in her bedroom, Virginia Crouse was a resident of Stanleytown Health Care Center in Henry County, owned by the Roanoke-based Medical Facilities of America, Inc. She had been receiving therapy to boost her mobility after a stroke. The fall broke her shoulder and hip and left her with permanent impairment, particularly in the use of her left arm.

Staff members testified a bed alarm was use and sounded, but the staff was unable to help Crouse before she was injured. Her lawyer, Robert W. Carter Jr. of Appomattox, presented evidence that no bed alarm was in use, even though her care plan called for one.

Carter said family members testified they never saw a bed alarm, and EMS providers reportedly saw no bed alarm when they were called because of Crouse’s fall. Crouse’s expert said there were no indications a bed alarm was in use.

A bed alarm is an “early warning device” that signals the staff when a patient is moving in a manner that might lead to a fall, Carter said.

Carter found training materials used by MFA that – he said – discouraged the clinical staff from using bed alarms. The “restraint reduction” training materials, Carter said, “created the fiction of characterizing bed alarms as restraints.”

“MFA essentially invited its staff to discontinue the use of safety devices because it would mean less work,” Carter said.

Carter said he also sought to show there was insufficient staff to respond to patients who might be in danger of a fall.

The trial, presided over by Roanoke Circuit Judge Charles N. Dorsey, was split into two sessions. In the first, the jury was asked to decide liability and compensatory damages. The second session was to consider punitive damages.

In the initial three-day session, the jury clearly accepted that there was no bed alarm in use, despite staff testimony to the contrary, Carter said. The jury considered Crouse’s damages, including $72,000 in medical and special care expenses, and awarded her the $1.5 million in compensation.

In the punitive damages portion of the trial, Carter said he introduced evidence that MFA discouraged the use of bed alarms throughout its chain of 31 Virginia nursing homes. Carter said he used inspection reports from the Virginia Department of Health to show a number of cases where bed alarms were absent, contrary to the patients’ care plans.

The punitive damages evidence brought the $5 million verdict. Carter noted the six-woman, one-man jury included a nurse. “I was out of strikes at that point,” he said with a smile.

Carter said MFA never made an offer in the case. “When a nursing home essentially gives you the thumb to the nose and doesn’t make an offer, your choices are limited,” he said.

Douglas M. Coleman of Alexandria represented MFA at trial. He said his client viewed the verdict as unusual and excessive. Coleman will file post-trial motions to set aside or reduce the verdict.

Post-trial motions are set to be heard on May 30.

Read the Verdict & Settlement Report

Update: Judge emphatic: no case comparisons to reduce verdict