She Could Not Turn Herself Over in Bed. The Bedsore That Followed Killed Her, and the Chain That Owned the Home Stopped Defending the Case Entirely.
After trial: Final and entirely uncollected. Liability was established by summary judgment in April 2020 after the defendants stopped defending, and damages were fixed by the Pulaski County Circuit Court in February 2023, so this is a judgment rather than a jury verdict. Joseph Schwartz's attempt to overturn it, on grounds of poor health and lack of notice, was unsuccessful and the judgment stands. No cap applies: Article 5, Section 32 of the Arkansas Constitution forbids the legislature from limiting damages, and the punitive cap was struck down in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer (2011). ProPublica reported in 2026 that Schwartz, who pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud and tax evasion and was subsequently pardoned, has paid none of the Arkansas judgments against him, and that counsel for the affected families lack the asset information needed to enforce. The figure here is what the court ordered, not what the family received.
Won by Reddick Law, PLLC.
Zelma Grissom was wholly dependent on staff at Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center to turn her in bed, which has to happen about every two hours to prevent pressure injury. Staff did not. She developed a bedsore, it became infected, and she died of sepsis in May 2018 at 81. Her family won $15,706,166. Not a dollar of it has been paid.
What happened
Zelma Grissom lived at Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center in Little Rock from March 2016 until June 2017.
She could not turn herself over. Preventing a pressure injury in a resident in that condition is not complicated medicine: someone has to reposition her roughly every two hours, and that is what the staff were there to do. They did not do it. She developed a bedsore. It became infected. She died of sepsis in May 2018, at 81.
Her family sued the facility's operator, Highlands of Little Rock Riley Holdings LLC. That company was part of Skyline Health Care, the nursing-home chain assembled by New Jersey businessman Joseph Schwartz, who had been buying homes across the country at speed and whose Arkansas operations then collapsed.
The case did not end in a jury verdict, because the defence ended first. In April 2020 the Pulaski County Circuit Court granted summary judgment on liability after the defendants stopped defending the case. That left only damages, which the court fixed at a hearing.
In February 2023 Judge Cara Connors entered judgment for $15,706,166. It is itemised: $206,167 in medical expenses, $1,500,000 for pain and suffering, $1,500,000 for mental anguish, $1,500,000 for loss of life, $10,000,000 in punitive damages, and $1,000,000 divided between her son Levester Ivy Jr. and the estate of her daughter Mary Ivy Vines, who died before her mother's case was decided.
John Landis and Adam Freyaldenhoven of the Reddick Firm represented the family.
Arkansas cannot cap any of it. Article 5, Section 32 of the state constitution forbids the legislature from limiting recoverable damages, and the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the statutory punitive cap in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer in 2011. Schwartz later tried to have the judgment set aside, arguing poor health and lack of notice. That failed. The judgment stands.
What has not happened is payment. ProPublica reported in 2026 that Schwartz, who pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud and tax evasion and was later pardoned, has paid none of the Arkansas judgments against him, and that the families' lawyers do not have the asset information they would need to enforce. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has said publicly that Schwartz still owes the state time.
The judgment is sound, final and unpaid. Those three facts are all true at once, and a directory that prints the first two without the third is not telling you what happened.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Arkansas Democrat-Gazette / NWA Online, 19 February 2023: the $15.7 million judgment in Pulaski County Circuit Court before Judge Cara Connors; the itemised award; Zelma Grissom's residence at Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center and her death from an infected pressure injury; the beneficiaries; and plaintiffs' counsel John Landis and Adam Freyaldenhoven of the Reddick Firm
- 2.ProPublica, 2026: Joseph Schwartz's Skyline Health Care chain, his guilty plea to Medicaid fraud and tax evasion and subsequent pardon, the failure of his attempt to overturn the Arkansas judgments, and the reporting that none of the Arkansas judgments against him have been paid because the families' lawyers lack asset information to enforce
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