Philadelphia Jury Awards $6 Million Over Fatal Bedsores After Hospital and Nursing Home Care
After trial: The trial court remitted the punitive damages from $5 million to $1.5 million total and entered judgment in November 2010. Jeanes' owner said it would appeal, and an appeal was docketed in the Superior Court.
Won by The Maher Law Firm.
A Philadelphia Common Pleas jury found Jeanes Hospital and Hillcrest Convalescent Home equally responsible for the pressure sores and infections that led to Joe Blango's death in 2008. It awarded $1 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The trial court molded the compensatory award to $1,029,722.30 and remitted the punitive awards to $500,000 and $1 million, leaving about $2.53 million.
What happened
On May 21, 2006, Joe Blango, 74, was admitted to Jeanes Hospital in Philadelphia's Fox Chase section after his family found him unable to move or speak. Five days later he was moved to Hillcrest Convalescent Home in Wyncote, where he stayed about ten days. He went back to Jeanes for three days in early June and then returned to Hillcrest. By then he had developed severe pressure sores.
The court record describes a decline over those weeks in the two facilities. Blango's weight fell from 190 to 168 pounds. He did not receive adequate nutrition or regular repositioning, and he contracted urinary tract and wound infections. His family's lawyers argued that Jeanes missed the urinary tract infection and that staff at both places let the bedsores worsen without proper treatment. On June 13, 2006, he was transferred from Hillcrest to Abington Hospital, where staff found an infection in the bedsore at the base of his spine.
Care at home, with a wound care nurse and regular repositioning, did not reverse the damage. The court record says the infected sore caused chronic sepsis for the rest of his life; a kidney was later removed, and he died in April 2008. His widow, Shirley Blango, sued Jeanes Hospital, which is owned by the Temple University Health System, and Hillcrest, owned by Genesis HealthCare. Steven R. Maher represented her.
The case went to trial in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court in February 2010. The jury found both defendants equally responsible and awarded $1 million in compensatory damages in early March, split between the survival claim and the widow's loss of consortium claim. Because it also found willful or reckless disregard for the patient's wellbeing, the case went to a second phase on punitive damages. Two weeks later the jury added $5 million in punitive damages: $1.5 million against Jeanes and $3.5 million against Hillcrest.
A Temple spokeswoman said there was no evidence of liability on Jeanes' part and that the hospital would appeal. Maher told the Inquirer that in about 25 years of nursing home cases it was only the second time a jury had awarded punitive damages. A nursing home litigation specialist said he knew of no earlier Philadelphia nursing home case in which a jury had reached punitive damages.
After arguments on September 13, 2010, the trial court denied the defendants' request for a new trial, set the compensatory award at $1,029,722.30 (half against each defendant), and reduced the punitive awards to keep them in proportion to it. Jeanes' share went to $500,000, a 2-to-1 ratio, and Hillcrest's to $1 million, a 3-to-1 ratio. The court found evidence of reckless indifference to the patient's rights, including failures in nutrition, skin assessment and repositioning. Judgment was entered on November 16, 2010, for a combined $2.53 million.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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