Six and a half million dollar verdict Against Miss. Nursing Home Tossed Over Juror's Statements
By KEVIN MCVEIGH, ESQ., Andrews Publications Staff Writer
The Mississippi Supreme Court has reversed a $6.5 million verdict awarded to the family of a deceased nursing home resident against the facility's owner and corporate parents, finding the trial court failed to investigate allegations of juror misconduct.
In a 7-2 opinion the high court said a juror allegedly told fellow jurors during the trial that the same facility neglected her relative, but she did not disclose that information to the court during voir dire.
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The trial court's refusal to investigate the allegations, which were raised by another juror after the verdict, jeopardized the fairness of the trial, the state Supreme Court held.
The family of Charles Edwards filed the lawsuit in the Leflore County Circuit Court against Mariner Health Care and its subsidiaries, including National Heritage Realty Inc., which owned the Greenwood Health & Rehabilitation Center.
According to the high court's opinion, Edwards suffered from severe mental retardation, autism, seizures, a swallowing disorder and chronic pneumonia. He entered the Greenwood center in December 1994 at age 40.
In 1997, after Edwards' refusal to eat led to a significant weight loss, Greenwood staff members inserted a feeding tube into his stomach. However, his body eventually stopped processing nutrients from the tube, and he lost 22 pounds. Despite this, Greenwood never ordered intravenous feeding, the opinion said.
Edwards died Feb. 16, 2002, from pneumonia-related cardiac arrest. The high court said the pneumonia resulted from volume depletion, a condition caused by lack of fluid in the body's cells.
Edwards' family alleged in their wrongful-death and negligence lawsuit that Greenwood's failure to start IV feeding caused his death.
In December 2003 a jury awarded the family $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages
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