by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Former Jacksonville Bar Association President Tom Edwards has filed a wrongful death suit on behalf of Kathy Wise and her late father Glenn Beeman. Wise is the wife of State Sen. Stephen Wise and the lawsuit names Encore Healthcare as the primary defendant of seven. Encore is the parent company of West Jacksonville Health and Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home on the Westside.
Edwards filed the suit Oct. 15 in Circuit Court and Tuesday held a press conference at his Riverside Avenue office. Edwards said Beeman died of malnutrition and dehydration — among other things — as a result of the inadequate care he received at the nursing home.
“In the hospital, his (Beeman’s) blood pressure was so low, he was nearly dead. His kidneys and other organs shut down,” said Edwards, who’s a partner in the law firm of Peek, Cobb, Edwards & Ragatz.
Edwards said he has filed suit against nursing homes before and won. However, those suits can be difficult because often the nursing home is a shell company or subsidiary of another or several companies.
“There are seven different corporate entities we have filed suit against,” said Edwards, adding he expects to start serving those companies within the next couple of weeks.
Encore is based in Columbia, Md. which is between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Encore Chief Operating Officer Matt Auman declined to comment on the phone, but did submit a statement.
“The allegations of the wife of Stephen Wise and her sister against West Jacksonville Health and Rehabilitation regarding the healthcare services rendered to Glenn Beeman, the father-in-law of Senator Wise are unsubstantiated based upon an investigation conducted by the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration,” said Auman. “On December 20, 2005 a complaint investigation regarding the care provided to the father-in-law of Senator Wise was conducted at the West Jacksonville Health and Rehabilitation Center. This investigation found that ‘the West Jacksonville Health and Rehabilitation Center is in compliance with the requirements of 42 CFR Part 483, Subpart B, Requirements for long term care facilities reviewed during the abbreviated survey’ and the complaint was not substantiated.”
Wise said she and her family admitted her father to the nursing home Aug. 23, 2005 not because he was sick, but because the family could not physically care for him anymore. Less than two months later, Beeman died.
“The nursing home did a great injustice to my daddy,” said Wise, who was accompanied Tuesday by her sister Pat Tomlinson. “His death is directly linked to dehydration. That’s why I want to hold them accountable.”
According to Wise and the suit, the nursing home was negligent in its care of Beeman. Wise said her father could go days without anything to drink, eat or an IV of fluids.
Edwards contends that many nursing homes are shell corporations for bigger companies. Through an elaborate and deceptive scheme, he said, insurance policies are ignored.
“The nursing home executives and lawyers hole up in cigar smoke-filled rooms and scheme about how to hide the money,” said Edwards. “We had to trace the assets through seven different companies to get to the one at the top.”
Edwards said a state statute allows him to file the suit without disclosing the monetary damages being sought.
“That’s usually decided as the facts play out,” said Edwards. “We are after justice for the family. Millions of dollars are being hidden.”