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Jury slaps Sutter for treatment of senior

$1.4 million is awarded after care found negligent, abusive.

By Ramon Coronado -- Bee Staff Writer

Published 2:15 am PST Saturday, March 25, 2006

Story appeared in Metro section, Page B1

A Sacramento Superior Court jury has slapped one of the largest skilled nursing operators in the region with a $1.4 million judgment for medical negligence, elder abuse and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Constance Virginia Dilley, 85, suffered from a grapefruit-size bedsore in 2004 that took two years to heal.

The jurors also found that Sutter Health Sacramento Sierra Region acted with "oppression, malice or fraud." Punitive damages will be decided in a separate phase of the trial scheduled April 3.

"We sympathize with the patient and her complicated medical condition. Our number one priority is always to provide good and caring treatment for our patients," said Nancy Turner, Sutter's spokesperson.

After a three-month trial, jurors Monday found that Dilley and her daughter, Eileen Dancause, suffered past and future pain and suffering due to Dilley's care at Sutter Roseville Medical Center and later at the Transitional Care Center inside Sutter General in Sacramento.

Jonathan A. Corr, one of the attorneys representing the health providers, didn't return a telephone call Friday to comment on the verdict.

Lesley Ann Clement, who represents Dilley and her daughter, declined to discuss the case because the punitive phase is pending.

The jury found that wrongful conduct was committed by "officers, directors or managing agents of the defendant acting in a corporate capacity."

Also found responsible for medical negligence and elder abuse was Dilley's physician, James Lett, who is the medical director of the transitional center. But a majority of the jurors said he did not inflict intentional emotional distress.

Dilley was first admitted at Sutter Roseville Medical Center on Oct. 12, 2003, after a fall and a urinary tract infection. She was transferred six days later to Sutter General where she stayed for 96 days.

The bedsore festered during her stay at the transitional care center, which is a skilled nursing facility. It wasn't until after she was transferred to another skilled nursing facility in Roseville that surgery for the inch-deep bedsore was performed in August 2004.

In court papers, lawyers for the health providers said the bedsore was formed after the fall in Dilley's home when she couldn't get up and was forced to spend the night on the floor before a neighbor discovered her.

The wound was difficult to heal, and nurses, as part of their normal practice, would reposition Dilley. She was suffering from depression and "refused any and all treatment offered her," hospital lawyers wrote.

The wound had dressing changes and was regularly cleaned, Sutter said.

Clement said in her trial summaries that during Dilley's first two days at the Roseville Medical Center she was not repositioned in her bed. After she was transferred to Sutter Hospital in Sacramento, Dilley wasn't told she had a bedsore until three days later.

"In the 96 days at Sutter Roseville and Sutter Transitional Care Center Mrs. Dilley received one shower and one shampoo," Clement wrote.