Contact

(916) 444-9323

FAX (916) 444-9324

Postal address
2209 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95816

Electronic mail
General Information: clementlaw@msn.com
Webmaster: Email

Case History Bretz v. Covenant Care As is the case with many people when they get to be 80 years old, Ben Bretz began to demonstrate diminished mental capacities and could no longer be cared for at home. His family placed him at Covenant Care skilled nursing in June of 1991 with faith that he would receive the care he needed and would be kept safe from harm. Throughout his four year stay at Covenant Care we found that they were over-medicating him with psychotropic drugs, were not feeding him properly then falsifying their records to cover it up, he became dehydrated, and he suffered multiple falls unbeknownst to his family and his treating physician. On Feb 18, 1996, it was discovered that Ben had mysteriously broken his femur, the strongest bone in the body, in three places. There was no documentation as to how, when, or where this happened. When he was finally taken to the hospital, it was also discovered that he was so malnourished and so dehydrated that the hospital was unable to perform surgery to properly fix his leg. His family chose to place him in another facility, one recommended by the staff at the hospital that tried to fix his leg. He was transferred to Valley Skilled Nursing in the hopes that he would receive proper nutrition and the attention he needed to heal from his horrific stay at Covenant Care. Sadly, the nightmare only got worse. While at Valley Skilled he developed bedsores that became necrotic due to lack of attention by the staff. Every time his daughter came to visit he was sitting in a urine soaked bed with feces caked in his wounds. In June of 1997 he seriously injured the same leg that was broken at Covenant Care, and once again it went completely unnoticed and undocumented by the staff. His daughter had to demand that he be taken to the hospital, where they found he had broken his tibia. All in all Ben Bretz suffered an 80 lbs weight loss and had a crooked leg for the rest of his life. Could all of this had been prevented? Ben spent the remainder of his life at a non-profit skilled nursing home, where he gained back 30 pounds and all of his wounds healed. Clearly this is a simple case of neglect brought about by over-worked and under-paid employees who just don’t seem to have enough time to perform simple tasks to prevent malnourishment, dehydration, and skin breakdown. We brought both Covenant Care and Valley Skilled to court and prevailed with a grand total of 1.85 million dollars. While the money cannot relieve the pain and loss of dignity Ben Bretz suffered while at these facilities, it brings the ramifications of understaffing and substandard training into terms administrators of such facilities can understand: MONEY.