He stayed at a Northern California nursing home then died. Why jury awarded huge verdict

A Sacramento jury has returned verdicts totaling more than $30 million against the owners of a Roseville nursing home after a prominent retired Sac State professor died following a brief stay at the home.

The Superior Court jury returned a verdict of $5.9 million in compensatory damages last week, and a $25 million verdict for punitive damages Tuesday after a lawsuit was filed against the Pine Creek Care Center and various corporate entities, veteran elder abuse attorney Ed Dudensing said.

The verdicts came after a 79-day trial in which Dudensing argued that the nursing home and its owners prioritized profits over patient care and cut staffing until conditions were unsafe for residents such as Sam Rios Jr., an 86-year-old civil rights activist who spent two weeks at the home in 2017 and later died after developing pressure ulcers on his heels.

“We hope and pray that both the nursing home and the private equity industries will receive the message sent by the jury that it is simply wrong to prioritize profits over patient care,” Dudensing said.

The Rios family sued Pine Creek and a number of other corporate entities, including owner Plum Healthcare Group, after Rios died from what Dudensing described as an agonizing death at home.

“The Plum organization is truly the most profit-driven nursing home chain I have ever encountered in my 20 years prosecuting elder abuse,” said Dudensing, who won a $42.5 million verdict in 2019 against the Eskaton care center in Orangevale, a verdict believed to be the largest of its kind in Sacramento at the time.

Pine Creek and Plum’s owners did not immediately respond to messages Tuesday.

Rios entered facility recovering from broken hip

The Rios saga began with a simple fall at home on April 11, 2017, that fractured Rios’ hip and led to him being treated at a Kaiser Permanente facility, then sent to Pine Creek for short-term rehabilitation, court records say.

Upon admission at Pine Creek, Rios was noted to have redness on both heels and was identified as “high risk” for breakdown of his skin, court filings say.

“He arrived at Pine Creek with heel protectors that he had been using at Kaiser,” Dudensng’s trial brief states. “Pine Creek staff put the heel protectors in the closet and never used any heel protectors on him.”

The nursing home’s care plan for Rios did not document the need to prevent him from developing pressure sores and he was re-positioned just once in the 42 shifts during which he was at Pine Creek, court filings say.

Dudensing told the jury in opening statements in November that Rios should have been re-positioned in bed every two hours and every hour that he was seated in a chair.

“It’s not difficult, it’s not rocket science,” Dudensing told the jury, which included three registered nurses.

Ulcers discovered two days later

Rios was discharged from Pine Creek on April 29, 2017, without his heels being checked and with no instruction to the family about how to prevent pressure sores on his heels, court records say.

On May 1, when two home health nurses arrived to check on Rios they found “two enormous pressure ulcers on Mr. Rios’ heels,” court records say.

One of the heels had turned black, a development that “had not magically appeared during the 48 hours that Sam was at home,” the trial brief states.

“From May 1, 2017 to the date of his death on March 16, 2018, Sam Rios had to live with a painful to-the-bone right heel pressure sore, which stripped him of his ability to walk, share a bed with his wife of forty years, and ultimately substantially contributed to his death,” the trial brief says.

Rios was an Air Force veteran and former Sacramento State football player who spent 30 years as director at the university’s Chicano Studies program, earning the nickname “El Profe” from his students before retiring in May 2011, court records say.

In addition to the punitive and compensatory damages, Dudensing said attorneys fees are expected to total between $4 million and $7 million.

State regulators were told of neglect

Carole Herman, founder and president of Sacramento’s Foundation Aiding the Elderly, said Tuesday that she had filed a complaint against Pine Creek with the state Department of Public Health over Rios’ treatment in 2018, alleging he had suffered numerous falls, developed pressure sores and was not cared for properly.

She said DPH “unsubstantiated” her complaint and that later appeals failed.

“To me, it’s unfortunate that the consumers have to go to legal action in order for these facilities to be held accountable when DPH should have sanctioned this facility back in 2018 and they did not do it,” Herman said. “The consumers should not have to be filing lawsuits against the industry.

“The failure of DPH to hold these facilities accountable is why these people are suing.”