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Becca Thomas Nursing Home Neglect | Video Transcript
MALE VOICE: She was a sweet person, very sweet. She was an angel in my book. So Becca is same as my mother.
NARRATOR: 2001, Becca Thomas became the victim of a dangerous pattern of intentional institutionalized neglect at the Logan Health Village.
NARRATOR: The failures of this nursing home to give Becca not only medical care but also its failures to use simple common sense in caring for Becca Thomas led inexorably to a painful and untimely death.
NARRATOR: Becca Thomas received shocking care. In fact, nurses at Logan Health Village could hardly remember taking care of anyone who had as many as three urinary tract infections in one year, while Becca Thomas had an unbelievable five.
NARRATOR: Nurses openly admitted that they failed to chart at all for two weeks for residents with UTIs and that this was the policy of the home.
CHARLOTTE A. SOUTHARD: Actually, we don't usually chart on them for just having a, a UTI.
MALE VOICE: Oh, you don't?
CHARLOTTE A. SOUTHARD: No, not just for having that, no.
MALE VOICE: Why not?
CHARLOTTE A. SOUTHARD: That's just not our policy.
MALE VOICE: Okay. How many urinary tract infections during the course of a year would you consider to be problematic for any resident?
CHRISTINA D. ADKINS: I don't, I don't know.
MALE VOICE: Well more than one during the course of a year?
CHRISTINA D. ADKINS: Yes.
NARRATOR: What will shock the jury the most in this case, Becca Thomas died because Logan Health Village failed to do what any decent person would do for an elderly resident.
NARRATOR: Make sure she had help in using the bathroom and that she stayed clean and dry.
NARRATOR: Becca Thomas had at least five urinary tract infections during the last year of her life at Logan Health Village.
NARRATOR: The nature of the infections was such that they were clearly the result of contamination of her bloodstream from urine and feces.
MALE VOICE: Failure to provide prompt and adequate incontinent care meets the definition of negligence. Would you agree with that now that you've heard a definition read?
CHARLOTTE A. SOUTHARD: Yes.
MALE VOICE: Yes, is that what you're saying?
CHARLOTTE A. SOUTHARD: Yes.
MALE VOICE: Okay.
NARRATOR: The jury's outrage will be exacerbated in this case when it learns that Becca Thomas was verbally abused by other residents in a sexual manner and that the nursing home's response was not to address the violator but instead to move Becca Thomas to another room.
DAVID STAFFORD: I have a problem with the fact that, number one, they, they allow this to happen. That, that another resident can walk in a room unsupervised and become sexually inappropriate and, and abusive to her. And number two, to me; it's a violation of her, of her rights. They moved her away from this gentleman, which means that he's still in the facility. Is he going to abuse somebody else? Is he going to be sexually inappropriate with other residents? I don't see any--that they take any action to prevent that from happening, which is directly a violation of the abuse, abuses regulations.
NARRATOR: The worst nightmares of any elderly, or even older person, is to be trapped in a nursing home that not only neglects its residents but actively defrauds them, their families, and the government by making out false records.
NARRATOR: In this case, the jury will hear about charting parties.
NARRATOR: Where Logan employees would simply make up records out of whole cloth to satisfy state regulation.
NARRATOR: Not only was this type of fraudulent recordkeeping detected by the plaintiff's experts, it was actually admitted to by the defendant's own employees.
NARRATOR: What ties all of the failures together in this case is a consistent disregard by the corporate owners of this facility for the safety and well being of the residents.
NARRATOR: This is manifested in the terrible outcomes for Becca Thomas in this case.
NARRATOR: But is seen even more clearly in the lack of oversight.
NARRATOR: Most of all, it is seen in the pervasively low staffing ration available at the facility.
NARRATOR: At the trial of this matter, the jury will be asked to provide redress against the corporate owners of the Logan facility for failing to act to prevent Becca Thomas's awful death.
FEMALE VOICE: I can't believe she had to live a horrible life like she did, the pain that she went through.
NARRATOR: As an initial matter, since this case began, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has decided Boggs versus Camden Clark Memorial Hospital. In this case, handled on appeal by Bordas and Bordas, the Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that the old cap of $1 million applied to cases, even if technical failures to comply with the certificate of merit process would have prevented their filing before the new lower cap became available.
NARRATOR: The only caps on damages in West Virginia are caps on compensatory awards for noneconomic damages.
NARRATOR: Punitive damages for the willful, wanton, and intentional misconduct of the defendant are uncapped.
NARRATOR: This mediation represents the defendant's chance to avoid a record-setting verdict in a nursing home negligence case.
NARRATOR: Bordas and Bordas has already obtained a $50 million verdict in a nursing home case in West Virginia. Bordas and Bordas has also obtained record verdicts and settlements across multiple areas of law and multiple areas of West Virginia.
NARRATOR: For example, Bordas and Bordas has obtained individual settlements over $10 million in bad faith insurance cases.
NARRATOR: In addition to its record-setting $50 million verdict against a nursing home, Bordas and Bordas has verdicts believed to be among the largest in West Virginia history in single plaintiff tort cases lender liability cases soft tissue injury cases and deliberate intent cases.
NARRATOR: Frequently, Bordas and Bordas has been forced to try cases because no verdict has ever been returned in a county as high as the settlement demand.
NARRATOR: If the defendant refuses to settle this matter at mediation, there is no realistic limit to its risk at trial.
NARRATOR: The only certainty is that a jury will ensure that justice is done by exacting a substantial financial penalty on the defendant.
