Pennsylvania AG Files Consumer Protection Suit Against Golden Living Nursing Homes
On July 1, 2015, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General filed a complaint in the Commonwealth Court against Golden Gate National Senior Care LLC (GGNSC) which manages and operates Golden Living Centers nationally. The AG’s suit focuses on 14 facilities in Pennsylvania. From the AG’s press statement:
The legal action asserts Golden Living violated the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law by deceiving consumers through its marketing practices.
The company advertised it would keep its residents clean and comfortable while providing food and water at any time. But its facilities were understaffed, leaving residents thirsty, hungry, dirty, unkempt and sometimes unable to summon anyone to help meet their most basic needs, such as going to the bathroom, the legal action asserts.
According to the AG’s office, evidence comes from residents’ family members and former employees of Golden Living, including certified nursing assistants. The allegations focus on an alleged “widespread pattern of understaffing and omitted care.”
Further, the AG makes the following specific allegations:
- Continent residents left in diapers because they were unable to obtain assistance going to the bathroom.
- Incontinent residents left in soiled diapers, in their own feces or urine, for extended periods of time.
- Residents at risk for bedsores from not being turned every two hours as required.
- Residents not receiving range of motion exercises.
- Residents not receiving showers or other hygiene services as required.
- Residents being woken at 5 a.m. or earlier to be washed and dressed for the day.
- Residents not being timely dressed in order to attend their meals.
- Residents not being escorted to the dining hall and sometimes missing meals entirely.
- Long waits for responses to call bells or no responses at all.
- Staff, under the direction of management or fear of management, falsifying records to indicate residents received services when in fact they did not.
- Improved staffing when state inspections occurred, leading to deceit about the true conditions at the facility.
- The investigation also included a review of staffing levels self-reported by Golden Living facilities and deficiencies cited in surveys conducted by the state Department of Health.
According to one news source, Golden Living responded to the suit with a statement expressing the company’s confidence that the “claims made by the Attorney General are baseless and wholly without merit,” and further alleging the suit is the “unfortunate result of Kathleen Kane’s inappropriate and questionable relationship with a Washington D.C.-based plaintiff’s firm that preys on legitimate businesses and is paid by contingency fees.” (For those of you not privy to the local news on Pennsylvania politics generally and AG Kathleen Kane specifically, I think it is fair to say that the press frequently refers to her as the “embattled AG.” She first took office in January 2013).
The Pennsylvania AG’s suit comes on the heels of a broader report released in June by Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, asserting that from 2012 through 2014 the Pennsylvania Department of Health under former Governor Corbett’s administration, failed significantly to conduct proper investigation of complaints about a large number of nursing homes (not limited to Golden Living) and failed to enforce existing regulations designed to protect residents.
For Golden Living, allegations are not limited to Pennsylvania. For example, in June 2015, claims about chronic understaffing of 12 Golden Living Center nursing homes in Arkansas were certified to be litigated as a class action.
Hat tip to Douglas Roeder, Esq., for bringing the latest Pennsylvania AG’s suit to my attention. Last month I reported on the A.G.’s suit for unfair trade practices filed against a law firm that was alleged to be improperly using Pennsylvania’s filial support law as a basis for collection demands against family members of the debtor.