ReinanLaw Obtains $660,000 Wyoming Nursing Home Jury Verdict

ReinanLaw Obtains $660,000 Wyoming Nursing Home Jury Verdict

Jerome Reinan and the ReinanLaw firm obtained a $660,000 jury verdict following a one-week trial in Gillette, Wyoming against The Legacy, a county-run nursing home. The case involved the abuse and neglect of a 90-year-old woman with dementia.  Our client, the Plaintiff, was the representative of the Estate of the decedent, who alleged her mother was abused at the Legacy by a traveling nursing aide who was working temporarily at the nursing home as a contract employee. The decedent also suffered 56 falls while a resident at the Legacy, several of which caused her to suffer physical injuries.

The Legacy defended claiming that the traveling nursing aide assailant was an independent contractor and not an agent, and that the county-run facility was immune from liability for the conduct of a non-agent that was taken outside the course and scope of her employment. The jury agreed with the Plaintiff and found that the traveling nurse was an agent, not an independent contractor, and that her conduct was negligent, conduct for which we argued the Legacy/Campbell County are vicariously liable.

The Legacy also defended claiming that because the victim/resident suffered from dementia, the abuse she endured did not cause her psychological harm. Our geriatric psychiatry and dementia expert explained to the jury that persons with dementia who are abused indeed suffer harm, and that for a nursing home caring for dementia residents to believe or argue otherwise was fundamentally troubling.

The jury awarded $660,000 to the Estate on Plaintiff’s Survival Claim, which was the sole claim for relief brought and tried.