Jury Awards $1.28 Million to Wheelchair User Burned When Left Alone to Smoke at Virginia Nursing Home
After trial: The Free Lance-Star reported that Carriage Hill was evaluating an appeal after the verdict. We found no appellate opinion or other record of an appeal, and could not confirm whether the award was paid.
Won by The Cochran Firm (DC).
A Spotsylvania County, Virginia jury awarded the estate of Joseph Roberts $1.28 million, plus about $170,000 in interest, against Carriage Hill Health & Rehab Center in August 2013. Roberts, a wheelchair user, was left alone outside the nursing home to smoke on June 3, 2011, and his clothes caught fire, causing second- and third-degree burns. The jury cleared the home's parent company, Commonwealth Care, of negligence.
What happened
On June 3, 2011, Joseph Roberts, a wheelchair user living at Carriage Hill Health & Rehab Center in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, was taken outside to smoke and left alone. His sweatpants caught fire. Nursing staff found him on the ground with his clothes burning, and he was admitted to the intensive care unit at VCU Medical Center in Richmond with second- and third-degree burns.
Roberts sued the 150-bed nursing home in November 2011. His complaint said a staff member had escorted him outside knowing he intended to smoke, then walked away. His medical history included back problems, strokes, arm paralysis, leg numbness and poor safety awareness, and the suit said he was taking pain medication that impaired his judgment and physical abilities. With limited ability to move, he had little chance of getting away from the flames.
The suit also reached up the corporate chain. Roberts had stayed at the home earlier in 2011 and had not followed its nonsmoking policy. According to the complaint, an employee of the home's parent company, Commonwealth Care, directed the facility to readmit him anyway, knowing of his smoking addiction and the danger it posed to him and other residents. Inspectors later cited the home for failing to consistently enforce its no-smoking policy and for not giving a resident the supervision needed to prevent injury.
The dispute at trial was how the fire started. The plaintiff's account was that a burning ember fell from his cigarette, possibly into the mulch at his feet, and spread to his clothing. The defense argued that cigarette ash and cigarettes cannot engulf clothing in flames within minutes, that the pants were cotton and polyester made to meet federal flammability standards, and that Roberts, given his mental health history, may have set the fire himself with a lighter.
A Spotsylvania County Circuit Court jury returned its verdict on a Friday in early August 2013, awarding $1.28 million against Carriage Hill, plus about $170,000 in interest. The amount fell below Virginia's cap on medical malpractice awards for 2011 events, so the cap did not reduce it. The jury cleared Commonwealth Care of negligence. Roberts had died in June 2013, at 49, of unrelated health problems, so the award was expected to go to his close relatives.
W. Charles Meltmar of The Cochran Firm in Washington represented Roberts. He told The Free Lance-Star that the verdict sends a message to other nursing homes and elder-care facilities. Juliane Miller of the Hudgins Law Firm in Alexandria represented Carriage Hill, and the home said it was evaluating an appeal.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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