On January 24th, a Sacramento jury returned verdicts totaling in excess of $30 million against the owners of Pine Creek Care Center and their various corporate entities. The Superior Court jury returned a verdict of $5.9 million in compensatory damages, and a $25 million verdict for punitive damages. Elder abuse attorney Ed Dudensing argued that the facility and its owners prioritized profits over patient care, implementing staff cuts that made the nursing home unsafe for residents.
“We hope and pray that both the nursing home and the private equity industries will receive the message sent by the jury that it is simply wrong to prioritize profits over patient care,” Dudensing said.
In what one elder abuse advocate says is the largest verdict of its kind in Sacramento history, a jury has awarded $42.5 million in punitive and compensatory damages to the family of a woman who died after being sent to live in Eskaton’s assisted living facility in Orangevale.
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.
“Part of the problem with the information that has been previously available is that it hasn’t always been useful, because it hasn’t always been accessible. It was hard to do a comparison,” said Ed Dudensing, a Sacramento elder abuse attorney who specializes in nursing home cases.
A 22-year-old North Highlands man was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in prison for the hit- and-run collision that killed a nurse who weeks earlier had lost his daughter in another car crash.
A 61-year-old man was sentenced Thursday to two life terms in prison with a possibility of parole for arson and the attempted murder of five Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies.
A former Sacramento property manager was sentenced Friday to 100 days of community service for her conviction on misdemeanor hate crime charges against a black family.
