Thread: Suit: Rat died in man's mouth

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/ho ... 643771.php

Saturday, April 7, 2007
Suit: Rat died in man's mouth
Family sues troubled elderly facility Paragon Gardens
By JENIFER B. McKIM
The Orange County Register

A lawsuit that claims a 90-year-old dementia patient was found alone in his room with a dead rat in his mouth generated angry denials Friday from the Mission Viejo elder care facility named as defendant.

The allegation against Paragon Gardens Assisted Living and Memory Care facility was made in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court.

Attorneys for plaintiff Sigmund Bock alleged that staff ignored Bock's needs by allowing a rat infestation and then failing to supervise the mentally incapacitated patient.

"The defendants so literally ignored the needs of their residents, and most specifically Sigmund Bock, as to allow vermin in the form of a rat to become lodged in the mouth of Sigmund Bock and die therein,'' the lawsuit read.

Officials with Sunwest Management, the Oregon firm that operates Paragon Gardens, issued a statement Friday denying the allegations. The officials said the vermin in question was a field mouse and that it died in a glue trap, not in Bock's mouth.

"The resident evidently picked up the glue trap and was found holding the trap in his hand," said the statement, which came from Sunwest's director of risk management, Steve Stradley, and its regional operations director, Randy Cyphers.

The officials said Bock's attorney, Stephen Garcia, "is unfortunately trying to paint a bleak and untrue picture of the assisted living service profession in order to win cases in the court of public opinion."

The vermin lawsuit comes after a series of legal troubles for Paragon Gardens.

Last year, the state Department of Social Services sued to revoke the Mission Viejo facility's license, alleging that six clients were injured and one died after improper care at the home. The company appealed and a meeting is scheduled later this month to set a hearing date.

In January, attorney Garcia filed a class action lawsuit against Sunwest, saying the company provided substandard care that failed to comply with state law. Garcia also sued Paragon after another one of his clients Troy Nelms, a 71-year-old Alzheimer's patient, walked away from the facility last year and never was found.

"I've had enough of Paragon Gardens I'm hoping to shut them down,'' said Garcia. "They lost my last client. ... We want the department to step in and do something about this case."

State officials said they couldn't comment because they are in the middle of legal proceedings with Paragon and Sunwest.

The Paragon officials added this: "We take care of our residents and find this negative publicity to be a disheartening affront to our professional caregivers and most especially to our residents and their loved ones who place their trust in us and in the communities in which we are privileged to operate."

Maybe they should get PETA invilved in this?