Long-term care facility pays $2.5 million to victim of elder abuse
January 15, 2012 — Dudensing Law announced that it has secured a $2.5 million recovery against a multi-facility nursing home chain on behalf of a vulnerable elder who suffered elder abuse while residing in their facility. Among other things, the victim acquired two stage IV pressure ulcers and suffered a broken neck while under defendants’ care.
Mr. Dudensing took over forty depositions in the case and demonstrated that the failures in care at issue were the product of a deliberate corporate plan to maximize profits at the expense of patient care.
Failure to protect plaintiff from suffering a fall causing traumatic brain injury brings $2.5 million recovery
March 21, 2011 — Nursing home abuse attorneys from Dudensing Law announced they had secured a $2.5 million recovery against a multi-facility nursing home chain on behalf of a vulnerable elder who suffered elder abuse while residing in their facility.
Settlement against large nursing home chain for elder abuse
December 29, 2010 — The plaintiffs in a nursing home elder abuse action venued in Sacramento County have settled out of court with a large nursing home chain for $950,000. The case involved an 86 year old woman who was admitted to a skilled nursing facility for short-term rehabilitation. The facility failed to provide adequate care, failed to follow doctor’s orders, failed to keep her hydrated, and failed to treat a urinary tract infection. The cause of death was septic shock secondary to sepsis and urinary tract infection. Once again, Mr. Dudensing uncovered widespread falsification of records during his prosecution of this case.
Plaintiff secures substantial recovery relating to nursing home’s failure to prevent and properly treat pressure sores
October 26, 2010 — Plaintiff secures substantial recovery relating to nursing home’s failure to prevent and properly treat pressure sores
Mr. Dudensing has secured a $2 million recovery on behalf of an elder in connection with a facility’s failure to prevent and properly treat multiple pressure sores on the victim’s lower legs and feet. Ultimately, the plaintiff died as a result of these avoidable injuries. The evidence showed that the facility’s failures were the product of a corporate plan by this large nursing home chain to maximize profits at the expense of patient care. “The only thing that these corporate owners respond to is civil lawsuits that hit them in the pocket book. This case is a classic example of how corporate greed caused immeasurable pain, suffering and death to a vulnerable elder,” Dudensing explained.
In a strongly worded ruling, a Sacramento Superior Court judge has upheld a $29 million verdict against a Rocklin nursing home company in the 2005 death of an elderly patient.
Judge Roland Candee on Tuesday rejected Horizon West Healthcare’s arguments for a new trial or significantly reduced damages in the case involving Stockton native Frances Tanner.
Candee said “overwhelming” and “devastatingly powerful” evidence in the trial in May supported the jury’s verdict and damage awards against Horizon, which owns 33 nursing homes mostly in Northern California.
Make them feel it, attorney Ed Dudensing urged Sacramento Superior Court jurors who were weighing whether to financially punish a Rocklin nursing home company they had earlier found guilty of elder abuse.
Dudensing told the panel Thursday to hit Horizon West Healthcare hard so company leaders would think twice about understaffing facilities and providing substandard care.
The jury listened. In an award believed to be the largest of its kind in Sacramento County history, the panel awarded $28 million in punitive damages in the death of 79-year-old Stockton native Frances Tanner.
A Sacramento Superior Court jury on Wednesday found that an Auburn nursing home committed elder abuse in the death of a Northern California woman in 2005.
For the fourth time in recent years, an Auburn nursing home is on the hot seat in the death of an elderly patient.
In a civil case playing out in Sacramento Superior Court, Colonial Healthcare is fighting accusations that it put profits before good care in the death of Stockton native and longtime civil servant Frances Tanner.
Tanner was a spirited 79-year-old woman who suffered from mild dementia when she moved into the home in March 2005, according to testimony before Judge Roland Candee. Seven months later, after a fall that resulted in a broken hip, she was dead from an infected bedsore.
Nursing home’s egregious elder abuse results in policy limits settlement
January 23, 2009 — Ed Dudensing has settled a case for the policy limits of $1,000,000 today in connection with the death of an elder as a result of elder abuse and neglect by a health care facility. The case involved an elder who developed a massive pressure sore on her right foot and lower leg that ultimately resulted in the foot falling off while in the nursing home.
More than a quarter of nursing homes in the capital area fared poorly in a five-star rating system introduced by the federal government on Thursday.
Only four facilities in Sacramento County garnered the top rating — five stars — while 11 were deemed as “much below average” by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Agency.
Ratings are no longer just the domain of restaurant and movie critics or travel guides. The government hopes its rating system — available online at www.medicare.gov/nhcompare — will give consumers a snapshot of whether nursing homes have stellar or not-so-stellar performance based on state inspection records, staffing and other measures of quality.
In his 2025 Rutter Group treatise “Elder Abuse Litigation,” Founder Ed Dudensing highlights what many advocates call the "Golden Rule" of elder care.
Under federal regulations, every nursing home resident is legally entitled to the highest quality of care that enables them to attain or maintain their highest practicable physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being.
Ed emphasizes that if a facility fails to provide the necessary services to meet this standard, it is a direct regulatory violation.
ICYMI: Our Founder Ed Dudensing, was interviewed by Hunterbrook as part of a major investigation into The Ensign Group, the largest operator of skilled nursing facilities in the United States.
Hunterbrook examined millions of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) datapoints and thousands of pages of documents, finding that Ensign facilities failed to meet minimum state staffing requirements in California, Washington, Tennessee, and Kansas on more than 18,000 cumulative days between 2020 and 2025.
This summer we welcomed Gavin Bowen as one of our four summer clerks.
Gavin is a rising 3L at UC Berkeley School of Law, where he competes on the Alternative Dispute Resolution team and served as an article's editor for the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law. He also led the Animal Law and Advocacy Project at Berkeley.
Gavin graduated with a degree in psychology and arrived at plaintiff-side litigation as the place where advocacy and integrity align.
Dudensing Law is now on Substack! Founder Ed Dudensing will be sharing legal analysis, case insights, and commentary on the issues shaping elder care in California and beyond.
If you have ever wanted to understand elder abuse cases, what the law requires of care facilities, and why corporate structures matter, this is the place.
Some nursing homes are not medicating residents to treat them -- they are using medication to sedate them.
Founder Ed Dudensing has seen this pattern throughout his career: facilities that are chronically understaffed turn to sedatives and antipsychotic medications as a substitute for adequate care.
Ed wrote about the risks of weakening federal oversight of sedative use in nursing homes in an op-ed for the Daily Journal.
