Jury awards $$$$$$$ in lawsuit

Jury awards $$$$$$$ in lawsuit

by Richard L. Smith

July 15, 1997 - The Orange Leader

An Orange County jury awarded a woman $$$$$$$ last week for abuse and neglect that occurred during her stay in a Vidor nursing home.

The jury in the 260th District Court found for plaintiff Pete Marie Eaves.

Eaves, 83, left the Green Acres nursing home in Vidor on Jan. 13, 1996 by ambulance and was diagnosed at a hospital with a severely displaced compound jaw fracture.

Clay Dugas, Eaves' attorney, said the evidence showed his client had been under the care of abusive nurse's aides when the fracture occurred and that expert testimony indicated the jaw fracture came from an assault.

Eaves now receives her meals through a feeding tube because of the fracture, Dugas said.

"She was blind in one eye and was completely disoriented. She didn't have any pleasures and the one remaining pleasure she had was being able to eat," Dugas said.

He said that because the jury found the nursing home's conduct to be malicious, the jury could have gone into a punitive phase and could have awarded punitive damages. However, the parties agreed to settle for the $$$$$$$ amount within 30 days.

Dugas said the major issues in the case revolved around a lack of supervision and personnel at the nursing home.

"Two of the women in charge of Mrs. Eaves had been abusive to other patients," he said. "You have to wonder about their selection of personnel."

Also, Dugas rejected what he said was the nursing home's defense of not being able to provide the same level of care as a hospital because the home is owned by Living Centers of America, the fourth-largest company of it's kind in the nation.

"Their defense is we've got too much to do and do the best we can," he said. "But if you look at the figures, they went from 25,000 to 30,000 employees in one year. They are a billion-dollar corporation and are doing well. It's interesting they take the defense that you can't expect the kind of care in a nursing home that you would get in a hospital. Why not?"

Carl Parker, an attorney for the defendant, was unavailable for comment today.