Current Cases/News

Louisiana Jury Awards $1 Million in Nursing Home Neglect Case

November 6, 2007

Tallulah, LA - After a five-day trial, on Friday, November 2, 2007, a 12-person jury rendered a verdict awarding $1,000,000 to the plaintiff in a nursing home neglect and medical malpractice case.

Nix, Patterson, & Roach, LLP, a national plaintiffs' law firm representing Louisiana residents in a number of nursing home neglect cases, filed suit on behalf of the estate of Leon Nelms in the 6th Judicial District Court in Madison Parish. Mr. Nelms was an 84-year old resident of Olive Branch nursing home, who died on November 22, 2004, just six days after leaving the nursing home to go to the hospital. Before Mr. Nelms went to the nursing home, his daughter cared for him at her home without significant incident for nearly two months with the same conditions with which he entered the nursing home. After only 26 days in the nursing home, Mr. Nelms went to the hospital suffering from infected pressure sores, weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration. The cause of Mr. Nelms' death was his infected pressure sores, one of which was so deep it went to his bone and was infected with his own feces.

The jury found that the Olive Branch Senior Care, which was owned and operated by Brown Development, Inc. and D. Brown Enterprises, Inc., committed medical malpractice. It awarded $250,000 in survival damages and $500,000 in wrongful death damages. The jury also found that the nursing home was negligent in failing to timely clean Mr. Nelms of his own bodily waste and awarded a separate award of $250,000.

NPR trial attorneys, Kim Ramsey Norris, Chris Johnson, and Brady Paddock, proudly represented Everline King, the surviving daughter of Mr. Nelms, in this suit against the nursing home.