Novato Personal Injury Lawyer

Last week, I wrote about Emmanuel Health Care, a California nursing home that was fined $80,000 in the death of one of its residents. Now, its parent corporation, Pleasant Care Corporation, is selling 30 California nursing homes, including Emmanuel, as part of a bankruptcy proceeding (Santa Cruz Sentinel, June 23, 2007). The auction will take place this coming Monday and Tuesday, July 2 and...

A nursing home is guilty of neglect when it fails to fulfill its duties to its residents. These obligations can range from providing special diets to taking a frail, elderly person to the toilet at appropriate times. Refusing to answer a resident's page or failing to call his or her doctor may also be neglect. A bedridden nursing home resident should be repositioned at least every two hours to...

Emmanuel Health Care Center, a nursing home in Norwalk, California, was fined $80,000 for its role in the death of a 54-year-old resident almost two years ago. The man had fallen and hurt his head, but the nursing home staff did not call his doctor until a full day had passed. At that time, he was transferred to a hospital, where he died from his injuries."If somebody died because of neglect,...

Many California consumer groups are supporting AB 399, a state bill that would require nursing home complaint investigations to be completed within 40 days, and ensure that those who file the complaints receive a written summary of the findings. The proposed legislation would also give the complainant 15 business days, rather than the current 5 business days, in which to request an informal...

Former Louisville funeral director Nathaniel Anderson has his troubles. Although his license was suspended in 2006, he was arrested last February for storing a corpse without refrigeration at his business, Anderson Funeral Services. A customer identified the deceased as her mother, and said that the body was supposed to have been cremated, according to Channel 32 News, WLKY, in...

A recent state audit criticized the California Department of Health Services (DHS) for not doing an adequate job of overseeing the quality of nursing homes. Some DHS employees overlooked or underestimated nursing home violations, the audit said. Also, the timing of inspections was quite predictable, so it was too easy for a nursing home to prepare for the visit and hide deficiencies.The DHS...

Reese Funeral Home in Washington, DC, was cited for allegedly not storing the bodies of the deceased at appropriate temperatures to prevent decay and for not having a licensed funeral director. The DC Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) also took enforcement actions against five other local funeral homes for not having proper licenses. Three of the funeral homes did not even...

When it comes to quality care for the elderly, California nursing homes have a mixed record. Some deliver good service, but too many have been cited for serious deficiencies. In 2005 alone, for example, the California Department of Health Services (DHS) received 21,388 complaints, and this may be an understatement of the problem.Wouldn't it be helpful to know about a nursing home's history of...

In 2006, one in five nursing homes received citations for violations that could seriously harm residents. This figure comes from recent studies by the GAO (Government Accountability Office), which has been tracking nursing home performance for the last decade and reporting back to Congress at least once a year.Sadly, the GAO found that some nursing homes repeatedly violated federal and state...

Three funeral home directors and four employees of a biomedical supply company are accused of stealing body parts, organs and tissue from corpses awaiting cremation or burial. Other charges include opening graves, unlawful dissection and fraud. The defendants allegedly sold the parts to medical tissue banks, which provided them to hospitals and doctors for use in transplants and other medical...