An elderly, 90-year-old woman, with dementia and suffering from severe anxiety, was enrolled in an assisted living facility in California because it had a memory care unit. About three months later, the woman escaped into an interior courtyard of the facility through a door that was supposed to be locked with an alarm. The woman fell in the courtyard and it was almost an hour before she was discovered. In the fall, the woman sustained fractures to her face, a displaced fracture of her right wrist and a subdural hematoma. She was taken to the hospital, but died as a result of her injuries two weeks later.
The woman’s daughter sued the facility and during the trial her attorney made these claims regarding the facility’s negligence in caring for the woman. He asserted that before being admitted to the facility, the woman was not assessed, which is in violation of the law, and she was also prescribed anti-anxiety medication that she was never given while in the facility. He further asserted that the facility deliberately did not assess the woman because it had a custom and practice of not assessing in order to increase their census; and if properly assessed, the woman would not have been admitted. It was also asserted that the facility had a custom and practice of violating the law regarding medications, and that if the woman had been given her prescribed anti-anxiety medications, she would not have been trying to escape the facility.
Further assertions were that the facility tried to cover-up the incident by destroying a video of the fall and preventing multiple eyewitness reports.
The jury found that the defendants were negligent and awarded damages totaling $5 million.
