A South Carolina jury sent a message to Health South, a rehabilitation nursing home hospital, by awarding $12.3 million to the family of a man whose stage four bedsores contributed to his death. The home's conduct was so outrageous that the jury awarded consisted of $8 million in punitive damages.
This South Carolina nursing home bedsore lawsuit involves 50 year old Vernon Sulton. According to news reports, Sulton suffered a gunshot wound as an innocent bystander, was paralyzed from the waist down and was sent to South Carolina's Health South Nursing Home to recuperate. While there, he developed life threatening, stage four bed sores because the nursing home staff was either too busy to turn him or simply didn't follow their own procedures. Sulton, who was suffering from a host of ailments, was transferred to a different facility and later died from complications. His family hired a South Carolina nursing home abuse attorney and filed a nursing home abuse lawsuit against the facility.
Jury members were apparently shocked to hear testimony that nurses did not follow the hospital's own procedures of turning patients on a regular basis to avoid developing bed sores – and that management also didn't seem to care that procedures weren't being followed. It was this "arrogance" which Sulton's nursing home abuse lawyer used against it to obtain a $12.3 million damages award – $8 million of which consisted of punitive damages.
Sulton's nursing home abuse attorney clearly had experience with nursing home abuse, nursing home neglect and nursing home bedsore lawsuits – which was ultimately responsible for the jury's large verdict award. Even though the verdict will likely be appealed due to South Carolina's $350,000 limit on non-economic damages, Sulton's nursing home abuse lawyer is confident that an appeals could would find that the nursing home engaged in grossly negligent and reckless conduct – which would make the $350K limit inapplicable.
There are many forms of nursing home abuse, also known as elder abuse, such as neglect, financial abuse, emotional abuse and more. Contact an experienced nursing home abuse attorney today if you or a loved one has been injured.