Prosecutors in Great Falls, Montana have charged former nursing home employee Jennifer Allgrunn with drug possession and elder abuse. The theft of medications allegedly went on for several months, during which time residents might not have had enough medications for their needs. Although the underlying alleged offense is essentially theft and a drug offense, the fact that it directly harmed the nursing home’s elderly residents led to a criminal charge for elder abuse.
Police arrested Allgrunn on Friday, May 4, 2012, after staff at Goldstone Assisted Living Home complained about ongoing and routine drug thefts. Allgrunn had worked at Goldstone since December 2011. Police found nine prescription pills on Allgrunn’s person, including the painkiller hydrocodone, as well as additional medication packaging. Goldstone administered all of the medications in Allgrunn’s possession. She reportedly admitted to police that she had been regularly stealing drugs from the nursing home since December.
Prosecutors charged Allgrunn with elder abuse and criminal possession of dangerous drugs. Court documents filed by prosecutors allege that her thefts harmed the elderly residents of the nursing home by depriving them of medication, and therefore sufficient medical care.
]]> Allgrunn made her first court appearance on Tuesday, May 8, 2012. She was reportedly already on probation for a felony theft case. The court set her bail at $10,000. If she is convicted, the court could order her imprisoned for up to ten years.The law often imposes serious penalties for acts of elder abuse or neglect. Maryland law specifically prohibits “abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult,” with “neglect” generally defined as failure to provide food, clothing, medical care, and other physical needs. “Abuse” generally consists of maliciously causing pain or injury that compromises a vulnerable adult’s health or well-being. A “vulnerable adult” is an adult who cannot provide for his or her own daily needs because of a physical or mental disability. This definition includes elders who require living assistance and medical care. This law applies to any caregiver, family member, or other person with a legal duty to care for the person, and it prohibits any act of neglect or abuse that might cause “serious physical injury” or death, or that involves sexual abuse. Since Allgrunn’s alleged thefts deprived residents of medications that were possibly necessary for their care, prosecutors have deemed it a form of elder abuse.
Media reports do not indicate whether or not any nursing home residents suffered injury as a result of the thefts. The question of whether or not the nursing home could be liable for injuries in a situation like this is an interesting one. A business is generally liable for the actions of its employees when the employees are acting on behalf of the business. This becomes complicated when an employee is accused of a crime. If an employee commits a crime in the course of, or perhaps in lieu of, performing the employee’s job duties, the employer could still be held liable under certain circumstances.
The Maryland nursing home lawyers at Lebowitz and Mzhen represent people who have been injured due to abuse or neglect by staff members. Contact us today online or at (800) 654-1949 for a free and confidential consultation.
More Blog Posts:
Owner of Nursing Home Charged with Neglect for Second Time in Eight Years, Maryland Nursing Home Lawyer Blog, April 20, 2012
Proposed Maryland Legislation Would Increase Criminal Penalties for Elder Abuse, Maryland Nursing Home Lawyer Blog, March 16, 2012
Nursing Home Addresses Safety Concerns, Deals with Allegations of Sexual Abuse, Maryland Nursing Home Lawyer Blog, February 21, 2012
Photo credit: 'Hydrocodonebtibu75200' by Rotellam1 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
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At a press conference on March 28, 2012, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for reauthorization of the Older Americans Act (OAA), legislation that provides support for American elders. The terms “elder” and “older person” here refer to people aged 65 or older. Fourteen other senators joined Sanders in calling for reauthorization, including Maryland Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski. Sanders introduced a bill reauthorizing the OAA on January 26, titled the “Older Americans Act Amendments of 2012.” The bill currently has no cosponsors and is pending in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid , has launched an initiative to promote reducing the use of antipsychotic medication in nursing home patients. The goal of the initiative is to spotlight the misuse of these medications in nursing homes, improve their monitoring and regulation, and promote non-drug treatments for certain conditions in nursing home residents. Nursing home staff often use antipsychotics to treat dementia symptoms, which may include agitation and aggressive behavior. Use of antipsychotic medications in dementia patients can have serious side effects, however, increasing their risk of complication and even death. The CMA’s initiative is the latest in a series of government efforts to curb antipsychotic use.
A recent study found that elderly women residing in nursing homes may face greater rates of mortality if they are not getting enough vitamin D. The study will appear in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, a publication of The Endocrine Society. Researchers at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, looked at a sample group of 961 residents. Members of the sample group had an average age of 83.7 years. The study found that, not only does vitamin D deficiency carry a greater risk of death, but that vitamin D deficiency may be common in nursing homes. This could have important implications for the nutritional care that female residents receive in nursing homes.
A bill that would increase criminal penalties for people who engage in elder abuse has met with unfavorable reports in the judiciary committees of both houses of the Maryland Legislature. The bill, known as the John H. Taylor Act, has been introduced in the Legislature several times, and its supporters are not likely to give up. The bill’s namesake, was ninety years old when he suffered several severe beatings by an in-home caregiver in 2007. He was recovering from multiple strokes at the time. One of the beatings was caught on tape, and his daughter, Jacqueline Taylor, learned that he had suffered three more beatings from his caretaker that month. She showed the video to the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing in January and testified in support of the bill.
Prosecutors in Northfield, Minnesota have charged a 46 year-old assisted-living facility resident with arson after he allegedly set fire to clothing in his closet, displacing forty other residents for several days. William Jerald Kelly reportedly came forward to admit he started the fire. The criminal complaint, filed in Rice County District Court in late February, says that Ryan claimed he started the fire because he was “tired of people being mistreated and being bullied.” He allegedly told an officer after the fire that he did not tell anyone of his concerns because “it wouldn’t have done any good.” Police put Kelly on a psychological hold the day after the fire and sent him to a local hospital for evaluation. The Northfield Deputy Police Chief told the media that Kelly “likely has a mental disability.” He is scheduled for his first court appearance on April 3. The felony arson charge carries a penalty of up to twenty years in prison, a fine of up to $20,000, or both.
Suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair, 94 year-old Florida nursing home resident Elvira Nunziata needed near-constant supervision. Still, she managed to pass through a door that should have been locked, falling down a stairwell and sustaining fatal injuries in 2004. Her son, Richard Nunziata, knew someone at the nursing home had made a fatal mistake.
A Rhode Island nursing home faced an ultimatum from the government in January: fix various problems by February 1 or lose its status as a Medicare and Medicaid provider. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency tasked with managing both programs, sent a letter to Hebert Nursing Home in Smithfield, Rhode Island on January 19 outlining infractions of seven regulations that the nursing home needed to address. The regulations in questions dealt with issues of mistreatment or neglect of residents, residents’ dignity and respect, residents’ well-being, administration of the facility, and the medical director’s responsibilities. A CMS spokesperson called the alleged infractions “serious” and said they posed “immediate jeopardy” for residents, but could not disclose many specific details of the allegations.
A former staffer at a Timonium, Maryland nursing home pleaded guilty late last month to abuse of a vulnerable adult in the second degree. This Maryland Nursing Home Lawyer Blog previously reported on the case of Shirleen Diane Sheppard when prosecutors first indicted her last year. Sheppard worked as a geriatric nursing assistant at Stella Maris. According to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, Sheppard was attending an 82 year-old female resident on October 17, 2010. She became angry and slapped the patient’s face. She also reportedly refused to put ointment on the patient’s rash and kept the assistance call button away from the patient.
A Maryland podiatrist, Larry Bernhard, was sentenced by a U.S. District Judge in Baltimore to fifty-four months in prison, plus three years’ supervised release, for a series of fraudulent bills to Medicare totaling more than $1.1 million. He pleaded guilty to charges that included health care fraud and identity theft. His scheme involved misrepresentation of podiatric services in billing statements to Medicare, and theft of nursing home patients’ names and identities in order to bill for services never actually rendered.
A jury in Pinellas County, Florida rendered a $200 million verdict against the parent company of a nursing home. The lawsuit stemmed from the 2004 death of a resident who fell down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair. The case is particularly interesting not only because the verdict might be the largest in Florida history, but also because no one appeared at trial on behalf of the defendant.