$43.5 Million Verdict Against Nursing Home Operator Whose Neglect Killed an 80-Year-Old Resident
Won by Harris Lowry Manton LLP.
A Floyd County jury awarded $43.5 million to the family of Morris Ellison, an 80-year-old man who suffered malnourishment, severe dehydration, and an untreated broken hip before dying at a Rome, Georgia nursing home whose operator had diverted Medicare and Medicaid funds from patient care.
What happened
Morris Ellison was 80 years old when his daughter, Loretta Terhune, placed him at Forum Group at Moran Lake Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in Rome, Georgia for what was intended to be a temporary recovery stay. It did not go as planned. Over the months that followed, Ellison suffered repeated falls, sustained a broken hip that went without proper medical care, and became severely malnourished and dehydrated. He died on April 17, 2007.
Terhune retained Stephen Lowry of what was then Harris Penn Lowry DelCampo (now Harris Lowry Manton LLP) to pursue a wrongful death claim against George D. Houser, the Sandy Springs attorney and businessman who operated Forum Group Corp. and its nursing home subsidiary. The case that emerged at trial was not simply about one resident's mistreatment.
Evidence showed that Houser operated three long-term care facilities in Georgia while maintaining a personal net worth estimated near $100 million. Yet testimony established that the facilities were so starved of resources that they could not reliably pay for laundry, essential supplies, or staff wages. Investigators and federal prosecutors later documented a pattern in which Houser diverted Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements away from patient care and into his own accounts. Federal fraud charges against him were filed in April 2010, months before the civil trial began.
The Floyd County jury heard the evidence and returned its verdict in early September 2010. Jurors awarded $8.5 million in actual (compensatory) damages and $35 million in punitive damages, for a total of $43.5 million. The award was believed at the time to be among the largest ever returned against a nursing home operator in Georgia history and was recognized as the state's top verdict of 2010.
Houser had filed for federal bankruptcy protection in the days before the verdict, listing assets between $20 million and $100 million. He was also held in contempt of court during the proceedings and ordered to serve 48 hours in the Floyd County jail. No information in available public sources indicates the civil verdict was appealed or reduced.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.