Estate of Finley ex rel. Jordan ex rel. Finley ex rel. Finley v. Beverly Health & Rehabilitation Services, Inc.

933 So. 2d 1026, 2006 Miss. App. LEXIS 534, 2006 WL 1985413
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedJuly 18, 2006
DocketNo. 2005-CA-00060-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 933 So. 2d 1026 (Estate of Finley ex rel. Jordan ex rel. Finley ex rel. Finley v. Beverly Health & Rehabilitation Services, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estate of Finley ex rel. Jordan ex rel. Finley ex rel. Finley v. Beverly Health & Rehabilitation Services, Inc., 933 So. 2d 1026, 2006 Miss. App. LEXIS 534, 2006 WL 1985413 (Mich. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

IRVING, J„

for the Court.

¶ 1. Verrie Jordan, administratrix of her father, Willie Finley’s, estate, on behalf of the estate and Finley’s wrongful death beneficiaries, sued Beverly Health and Rehabilitation Services, Inc. (Beverly), David Banks, and Charlie Sinclair, Jr.1 alleging wrongful death, negligence, and medical malpractice, among other claims. After discovery, summary judgment on behalf of the Appellees was granted by the Circuit Court of Hinds County. Aggrieved, Jordan appeals and asserts the following issues, which we quote verbatim:

I. Whether the trial court erred in deeming Defendants’ requests for admissions admitted.
II. Whether the trial court erred in refusing to allow withdrawal of the deemed admissions.
III. Whether the trial court erred in granting summary judgment based on the deemed admissions.
IV. Whether the nursing home administrators and licensees owe a duty of care to residents.

¶ 2. Finding no error, we affirm.

FACTS

¶3. Finley was admitted to Beverly Northwest, a Jackson nursing home facility owned and operated by Beverly, after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Finley left Beverly Northwest on March 3, 2000, and moved into the Whispering Pines Hospice, a facility designed to keep terminal patients comfortable until they expire. On April 2, 2000, Finley passed away. His death certificate indicates that the causes of death were cancer and paraplegia.

¶ 4. Jordan contends that staff shortages and other administrative problems at Beverly Northwest led to Finley being given negligent and sub-standard care. Specifically, Jordan alleges that negligent conduct caused Finley to suffer from severe pressure sores, falls, urinary tract infections, dehydration, malnutrition, pneumonia, contractures, and weight loss. According to Jordan, “[tjhese repeated insults to his health led to his death on April 2, 2000.”

¶ 5. During discovery, the Appellees proposed a request for admissions “asking the plaintiff to admit or deny whether each individual caregiver acted within the standard of care.” Jordan responded to the request with non-responsive answers. After receiving Jordan’s response, the Appel-lees filed a motion asking the court to determine whether the responses were sufficient. After the court determined that the responses were not sufficient, it ordered Jordan to file an amended response. Jordan complied, and her amended responses were also found to be insufficient. Upon motion from the Appellees, Jordan’s second set of responses were deemed admitted for failure to sufficiently respond to the request.

¶ 6. The deemed admissions conclusively established that all of the caregivers listed in the request had not deviated from the standard of care in treating Finley. Cole v. Buckner, 819 So.2d 527, 531(1113) (Miss.2002) (quoting M.R.C.P. 36(b)). Thereafter, summary judgment was granted on the basis that no caregiver had deviated from the standard of care, and Finley had therefore received adequate care while at Beverly Northwest.

¶ 7. Additional facts, as necessary, will be related during our discussion of the issues.

[1029]*1029ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE ISSUES

1. Deemed Admission of the Requests

¶ 8. Jordan alleges that the trial court erred in deeming the requests admitted, and argues that the deemed admissions “allowed Defendants to shoehorn Plaintiffs case into a theory Plaintiff did not wish to pursue.”

¶ 9. As acknowledged by Jordan: “Matters of discovery are left to the sound discretion of the trial court, and discovery orders will not be disturbed unless there has been an abuse of discretion.” Earwood v. Reeves, 798 So.2d 508, 514(¶ 19) (Miss.2001) (citing Dawkins v. Redd Pest Control Co., 607 So.2d 1232, 1235 (Miss.1992)). Rule 36 of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure, which governs requests for admissions, dictates: “If the court determines that an answer does not comply with the requirements of this section, it may order either that the matter is admitted or that an amended answer be served.” M.R.C.P. 36(a).

¶ 10. In the present case, the first answers submitted by Jordan stated:

Defendants have now propounded 176 separate request [sic] for admissions in which they simplistically ask Plaintiff to admit that every single one of Defendant’s current and former employees did not fall below the appropriate standard of care in providing care to Willie Finley. By doing so, Defendants willfully ignore the fact that Plaintiffs complaint makes it very clear that the poor care Willie Finley received at Defendants’ nursing home was a result of corporate policies and a systemic program of un-derstaffing the facility and failing to provide adequate training and supervision and hiring of staff. Defendants created an environment in which their employees could not possible [sic] perform to the required standards due to shortages of staff and basic support. Thus, the named Defendants are directly responsible for all breaches in the standards of care provided to Willie Finley. Plaintiff objects to Defendants’ Request for Admissions as a disingenuous attempt to further disrupt Plaintiffs discovery efforts, as Defendants will undoubtedly provide copies of Plaintiffs responses to the individuals referenced in the requests. Should Defendants do so, then these individuals are hereby advised that Plaintiff does not attempt to lay personal blame for the systemic failures of Defendants’ nursing home on any particular nonman-agement employee or former employee (i.e. floor nurses, certified nurses’ aides, nurses’ aides, housekeepers, maintenance workers or groundskeepers, cooks, dietary aides, etc.) It is Plaintiffs position, based on medical records, and information obtained in discovery, that nonmanagement employees could not provide the appropriate standard of care to Willie Finley because of the actions of the named Defendants. In other words, the named Defendants caused the breaches in the standard of care by any of their nonmanagement employees and are responsible for such breaches.

Each separate answer then said: “Denied based on Defendants [sic] obstruction of the discovery process.” Jordan’s amended response stated:

The injuries of Willie Finley as alleged in Plaintiffs Complaint do [sic] not happen as a result of any one individual’s failure or breach of the standard of care. Instead, these injuries were the result of the cumulative impact of acts and/or omissions. The vast majority of allegations in Plaintiffs Complaint sup[1030]*1030port this notion. The development of Willie Finley’s injuries occurred over a period of days, weeks and months. Some of these injuries were a result of acts of omission, not commission. Practically speaking no one charts their failures. Although evidence of omissions does exist in the form of blanks on grid-type charting, the lack of initials/names in these blanks makes it impossible to determine who failed to act as required. Therefore, it is impossible in a case involving long-term custodial neglect to identify any individual at fault, other than those whose [sic] implemented the policies that led to the injuries as suffered by Willie Finley.

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933 So. 2d 1026, 2006 Miss. App. LEXIS 534, 2006 WL 1985413, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-finley-ex-rel-jordan-ex-rel-finley-ex-rel-finley-v-beverly-missctapp-2006.