Man Sues Vermont Nursing Home for Sewage Flood of His Home
Failure to maintain a safe sewage and wastewater system may cause an emergency incident with serious threats of infection and other potential hazards to a facility’s residents and external community, resulting in regulatory and life safety code violations with penalties.
Compliance Perspective – Sewage System
Policies/Procedures: The Compliance and Ethics Officer with the Administrator and Maintenance Director will review policies and procedures involving maintenance of the facility’s sewage and wastewater system.
Training: The Compliance and Ethics Officer, as well as every department head, will ensure that staff are trained to respond in a timely manner to concerns about sewage and wastewater maintenance and function within the facility.
Audit: The Compliance and Ethics Officer with the Maintenance Director should personally conduct an audit of the facility’s scheduled sewage and wastewater system inspections to determine if they are being conducted on a regular basis and if the system is functioning properly.
A Vermont man was awakened abruptly when he realized that raw sewage was flowing up from his bathroom’s toilet, sink and bathtub, flowing through his home, and flooding the basement. Recently, the man filed a civil lawsuit against a nursing home located up a hill from his home. The lawsuit seeks fair compensation for injuries and punitive damages and alleges that the sewage problem was caused by a backup at the nursing home due to an inadequate septic system.
The nursing home has paid for the hotel costs ($130 night) for the plaintiff until just recently as “a good neighbor” gesture. A spokesperson made the following statement about discontinuing that payment: “Unfortunately, we cannot indefinitely underwrite the cost of his hotel, but we remain open to working with the homeowner and his attorney to address damages caused by the incident.”
Town officials have been concerned about the sewage problem ever since the facility was built in the late 1960s. The town recently approved a new septic system design for the nursing home that is expected to be constructed in the spring.
The owners of the nursing home offered the plaintiff $17,500 to repair his home provided he would not hold the nursing home liable for any future damages. The plaintiff contends that offer is not enough to cover the damage.
The plaintiff’s home is valued at $60,000. In 1995, while the house was still owned by the plaintiff’s parents, it was also flooded with sewage from the nursing home.
When that occurred, the town installed a catch system and a manhole on the plaintiff’s property to block the sewage, and according to the plaintiff, the nursing home agreed to maintain the manhole on a regular basis, but has failed to do that.
Neither the town nor the nursing home are accepting any responsibility for the sewage flood.
