OAKLAND, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – A putative class action filed in
September by senior citizens against a residential care facilities
chain alleging fraudulent practices that deprived them of needed care
and exposed them to risk of injury as part of a scheme to maximize
revenue is on its way back to a California state court.
The case,
Lollock, et al v. Oakmont Senior Living, had been moved from Alameda County Superior Court following a
notice of removal
filed Oct. 16, moving the case to the U.S. District Court for
California's Northern District. That move was reversed Oct. 31 when
District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White granted a stipulation in the case
and remanded it back to Alameda County Superior Court.
The clerk's notice of the case being remanded back to Alameda County was filed the following day.
White's decision followed several motions filed in the case,
including motions to dismiss the complaint and to strike class action
allegations filed by Oakmont Senior Living on Oct. 24.
The lawsuit was filed Sept. 13 in Alameda County Superior Court
against Oakmont Senior Living by named plaintiffs Donald Lollock, Zareen
Khan, Frank Pearson, Jo Ella Nashadka and Jane Burton-Whitaker, as part
of the proposed class in the action. Lollock’s wife Kathleen is listed
at guardian ad litem on his behalf.
The suit claims defendants in the case, Oakmont Senior Living and
Does 1-100, engaged in a scheme to defraud seniors, persons with
disabilities and family members.
The alleged scheme worked by "falsely representing to all residents
in its admissions contracts that each resident will be provided the
case services (through facility staff) that the resident need as
determined by the resident assessment conducted by facility personnel,"
the lawsuit said.
"This is false and misleading because the results generated by
Oakmont's resident assessment system are not used to set staffing at
each facility. Instead, as a matter of corporate policy, Oakmont
allocates expenditures for staff at each facility based on predetermined
and statistic budgets designed to maximize revenue."
Maximized revenue being the goal, Oakmont's facilities lack
sufficient numbers of trained staff to provide care promised to its
residents, the lawsuit said.
"Oakmont conceals and fails to disclose this material fact to current and prospective residents," the lawsuit said.
With few staff members to look after Oakmont’s elderly residents,
residents often do not receive the care they require and have been
promised, the lawsuit states. Residents have been found on the ground,
sitting in their own waste and at least one suffered an unexplained
injury, according to the lawsuit.
And Oakmont spokeswoman
told another news outlet when
the case was initially filed that one of the plaintiff law firms had
brought cases against other large California assisted living providers,
including Brookdale Senior Living, Atria Senior Living and Aegis
Living.
Plaintiffs' counsel listed in the case are Stebner and Associates
in San Francisco; Schneider, Wallace, Cottrell, Konecky Wotkyns in
Emeryville, California; Dentons US in San Diego; Arns Law Firm in San
Francisco and Janssen Malloy in Eureka, as well as Callahan, California
attorney Michael D. Thamer.
In October, the state's
Department of Social Services began an investigation
following evacuation of its Santa Rosa facilities ahead of wildfires in
the area that burned down Oakmont's Villa Capri building.
Look at all the time wasted in the back and forth.
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