Kenwood Nursing Home Settlement

NEWS RELEASE, April 16, 1999 - The Dallas Morning News
Nursing home suit settled - Kenwood to pay record $172,500 in state case
By Charles Ornstein

AUSTIN - Texas Attorney General John Cornyn said Thursday that his office has settled one of its three lawsuits against Kenwood Nursing Home in Dallas for $172,500 the largest such nursing home settlement in Texas history.

The 1994 lawsuit accused Kenwood of neglecting its residents, particularly a 44-year-old quadriplegic woman who developed severe bedsores and lost 13 percent of her weight in one month.

The state still has two pending lawsuits against the 70- resident home, which is owned by Cantex Healthcare Centers of Dallas. The settlement did not require Cantex to admit any wrongdoing, and the company denies allegations made in all the lawsuits.

Attorney Carla Cox of Austin said it was cheaper to settle the 1994 case than to proceed with a jury trial in Travis County District Court. "It wasn't an easy decision for the client to make," Ms. Cox said. "They struggled long and hard with wanting to have their day in court to demonstrate that their actions did not warrant the monetary penalties. But in the end, there were just too many uncertainties involved in a jury trial."

Paul Carmona, chief of the attorney general's elder-law section, called the allegations against Kenwood "stunningly egregious." The state accused Kenwood of violating minimum standards relating to care, nutrition, infection control, training and equipment. State lawyers had sought $350,000 plus attorney fees in the case filed by former Attorney General Dan Morales.

" A reasonable person would ask why would they pay the largest settlement in Texas history for a nursing home case if there wasn't something going wrong there," Mr. Cornyn said. "This is the beginning of what you will see is a trend in terms of our increased efforts to protect senior citizens in nursing homes."

The 1994 case focused on the quadriplegic woman who entered Kenwood with two bedsores but developed nine more sores within five weeks. Kenwood said the woman was a terminally ill patient who received hospice care.

" Those patients are not going to be in good physical condition, and they're not going to get better, and they're not going to go home," Ms. Cox said. "That's the unfortunate thing about it."
The second lawsuit against Kenwood, filed in 1997, accuses the nursing home of more than a dozen patient-care violations, including failure to prevent and treat bedsores. The lawsuit was dismissed by a Dallas County judge in May 1998, but the state has appealed. In the third lawsuit filed in October, the state said Kenwood failed to intervene after two patients showed signs of injury, leading to their deaths.

The suit also stated that poor conditions at the facility had put residents in "immediate jeopardy." A court-appointed trustee took control of Kenwood, located at 2918 Duncanville Road, for two weeks in response to the state's allegations. At the time, Ms. Cox accused state officials of trumping up the new charges to help the state's other lawsuits against the nursing home. Kenwood officials said Thursday that their top priority is resident care.

" We believe Kenwood is a lovely facility," said Kim Daugherty, Cantex's director of risk management. "We encourage the public to come visit it and look for themselves. Our doors are always open to them."

NOTE: Jeff Rasansky represents the families of six former residents of Kenwood Nursing Home.

Copyright (C) 1999 / The Dallas Morning News

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