Kyomi Williams, represented by Ed Dudensing, spoke with ABC 7 San Francisco about the death of her father Alando Williams at Windsor Healthcare Center of Oakland. Alando, a beloved Berkeley community member, was admitted to the facility in December 2022 with a clear treatment plan. In a lawsuit against the facility, Kyomi alleges staff neglected his care requirements and instead administered unauthorized doses of sedatives, such as Ativan, resulting in wrongful death.
“That’s basically chemically restraining someone, because it’s easier when they’re drugged up to supervise them. It’s a very uncompassionate way to deal with people, and it can be deadly, as it was in this case.”
– Ed Dudensing
The facility is currently managed by a parent company owned by billionaire Shlomo Rechnitz, which oversees dozens of nursing home facilities in California. Many of these facilities have recently come under scrutiny for deficient quality of care.
Alando Williams died at Windsor Healthcare Center of Oakland after allegedly being overmedicated to prevent wandering. Dudensing Law represents Mr. Williams’ daughter Kyomi in a lawsuit against the facility. Despite arriving with a treatment plan, the nursing home reportedly failed to follow necessary safety measures, opting instead to administer unauthorized doses of sedatives and opioids. Ed Dudensing spoke with The Sacramento Bee regarding the facility’s neglect and mistreatment of Williams’ father, who was known in the Berkeley community for his gentle demeanor.
Alando Williams, a long-time Berkeley staple, was admitted to Brookdale Wellness in Oakland in December 2022 and passed away less than a month later at age 64. His daughter Kyomi, represented by Ed Dudensing, alleges that, although the nursing home was aware of his medical conditions, staff administered sedatives, and left him to suffer falls, ultimately leading to his death. Ed spoke with the East Bay Times about the facility involved in this case, which has faced scrutiny for its practices and regulatory issues, including concerns over staffing and medication errors.
On June 3, CBS News covered the story of Ruby Frazier, a Dudensing Law client who was a victim of elder abuse and neglect at Oakland Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation in Oakland, CA.
Before Ms. Frazier’s admission to Oakland Heights, she was a relatively healthy 87-year-old and entered the facility in a medically stable condition and with no skin injuries.
In May 2024, Dudensing Law reached a $5.5 million settlement against an assisted living facility located in California. The settlement was on behalf of a cognitively impaired individual who, because of improper supervision and negligence, left the facility unsupervised, and died as a result.
When the 87-year-old patient was admitted to the residential care facility, she was highly functional but suffered notable cognitive impairment, including “sundowning,” a state of confusion experienced in the late afternoon and lasting into the evening. Even with noted cognitive impairment, her charts maintained by the facility did not contain a documented elopement risk nor a care plan for her cognitive decline.
Dudensing Law secured a $4 million settlement in April 2024 on behalf of a victim who died from complications related to pressure sores while under the care of a Long-Term Acute Care Hospital (LTAHC) in California.
In 2017, a 72-year-old patient was admitted to the facility at issue following a diagnosis of quadriplegia. Because of this condition, she was known to be at high risk for developing pressure sores, yet the staff failed to take proper precautions to prevent sores from developing. The staff neglected medical advice to turn and reposition the patient over 75% of the time during day and night shifts. By the time the resident was discharged from the facility and treated at a hospital, the infected sores were too advanced for her to recover from, leading to her death.
In April 2024, Dudensing Law secured $4.5 million on behalf of an elderly victim of reckless neglect by a California assisted living facility. In this case, the victim suffered an infection that led to amputation. This gruesome fate would have been wholly avoidable had the facility properly cared for Mr. Dudensing’s client.
Dudensing Law reached a $5 million settlement in February 2024 against an assisted living facility in California. The case is on behalf of a patient who suffered multiple falls in the facility, ultimately leading to his death.
The patient, a former high school teacher and assistant principal, was admitted to the assisted living facility in September 2021, following a Parkinson’s diagnosis and signs of dementia that put him at high risk for falls. He was admitted to the facility without the necessary physician assessment to understand his needs and establish a care plan. Within his first month as a resident, he suffered an unsupervised fall in which he broke his wrist. The facility failed to create an incident report for this fall.
Elder abuse attorney Ed Dudensing represents Cheryl Doe, a 79-year-old woman, and her son Robert, in a February 2024 lawsuit against the Windsor Healthcare Center of Oakland regarding the alleged rape, elder neglect, and fraud she was victim to while under its care for Alzheimer’s and dementia.
A preliminary investigation by Dudensing law found that after Robert’s mother was raped by another resident, he was not informed until days after the incident. Rather than the managerial staff at the center, a certified nursing assistant was the one who told Robert about both the assault and the center’s intentional concealing of the attack. Emboldened by the center’s inaction after the first attack, the offender again accessed Cheryl’s room where he retaliated, leaving bruises and wounds on her body.
Windsor Healthcare Center of Oakland sits under Brius Management Company, a large nursing home operator similar to others Dudensing Law has brought cases against, citing abuse of the vulnerable elderly population entrusted in their care. Widespread understaffing of nursing facilities subjects residents to dangerous conditions, and by seeking justice for victims and holding these companies accountable, Dudensing Law strives to ensure that senior citizens receive the care they deserve.
“This really strikes at the heart of the fundamental obligation of nursing homes — keep your patients safe,” said Ed Dudensing. “They have a history of failures of care that not only involves resident-on-resident abuse, like this case, but other areas of neglect as well.”
In the wake of new nursing home staffing requirements announced by the Biden Administration in April, many healthcare organizations are voicing concerns about a lack of necessary funding. Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of AHCA/NCAL which represents 14,000 nursing homes, went as far as to claim that the mandate will ultimately lead to widespread nursing center shutdowns and resident displacement.
Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Dudensing explained that the cries of poverty from the nursing home industry are easily debunked by the fact that “private equity money, venture capital” and other investments “are still flowing into these facilities at record rates… and balance sheets are very easy to manipulate.”
Earlier this year, KFF Health News reported that “for-profit groups own about 72% of the roughly 15,000 nursing homes in the United States, which serve more than 1.3 million residents.”
While representing Sam Rios, a former Sacramento State professor who died due to complications from pressure sores after residing in a nursing home, Dudensing went beyond suing just the nursing home, also naming its partner companies as defendants. He proved that this highly profitable conglomerate, including a private equity firm, paid high salaries to its top executives while the nursing homes it owned suffered from understaffing and low quality of care for its residents. In March 2024, the suit ended with a jury verdict of $5.9 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages.
With these new mandates in place, Dudensing has emphasized that it is crucial that the state of California identifies understaffed, high-risk facilities and ensures that the requirements are met. With some of the most vulnerable groups of society at risk of abuse, fraud, and injury, large for-profit groups must be held accountable in maintaining adequate staff numbers and pay in their facilities.
