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Law360 (December 16, 2020, 11:05 PM EST ) A woman alleging she caught the coronavirus at a Los Angeles assisted living facility sued Tuesday claiming corporate greed and negligence led to an outbreak of COVID-19, joining two others who recovered and the families of three deceased residents and one deceased staff member who also recently filed suit against Silverado Senior Living.
Resident Joe Ann Clack, along with her guardian ad litem Zoanne Clack, filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court. The Clacks share counsel with the others who filed similar suits last week.
The suits over the outbreak at Silverado Senior Living - Beverly Place name the facility's site administrator, its corporate parent Silverado Senior Living and CEO Loren Shook as defendants, and focuses on the decision to allow a new patient to enter the facility in March after families of the current residents were barred from entry due to COVID-19 safety precautions.
Joe Ann Clack suffers from dementia and relied on the facility's staff to care for her, according to the complaint, which said she "did not get infected with the coronavirus due to some unforeseen act-of-God. Rather, she became infected because the corporate decision-makers chose to skirt safety and infection control standards."
Echoing the language of the other complaints, the Clack suit added, "This case is about the decisions made by the corporate directors of Silverado Senior Living - Beverly Place that invited the coronavirus to walk through its proverbial front doors (or through the elevator from the parking garage, as the facts will show)."
According to the complaint, 13 residents of the facility and one staff member have died from COVID-19 complications and nearly 100 others have been infected. The infections make the facility the site of one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks for an assisted facility in California to date, with only one out of the 395 in California having more infections, according to the suit.
The alleged "elevator entry" occurred on March 19 — four days after all family visitors were barred from entry for the safety of residents — when the facility admitted a new patient who arrived from New York via a commercial airliner and also allowed family members who flew from London to enter.
The complaint calls the man "Patient Zero" and says the day after he arrived he came down with severe coronavirus complications and was taken to a hospital, where he tested positive for COVID-19. A facility nurse who cared for him, Brittany Bruner-Ringo, later died from COVID-19, according to the suit. Bruner-Ringo's family filed suit last week.
There were no documented cases of COVID-19 in the facility before Patient Zero was allowed entry, according to the complaint.
"This decision to admit Patient Zero put at risk each of the existing residents and staff, for no other purpose than to make money," the complaint said. "It was undertaken with knowing and conscious disregard of the risk of harm" to the residents and staff of the facility.
The Clack complaint includes causes of action for elder abuse and negligence while seeking unspecified damages. Some of the other suits include additional causes of action such as fraudulent misrepresentation, wrongful death and willful misconduct.
"The lawsuits seek compensation and accountability for Silverado's willful disregard of the risks associated with the virus and its failures to either close its doors to new residents, or to take precautions to properly screen and quarantine new residents, if they are admitted," the plaintiffs in the cases said in a statement \last week.
In a statement emailed to Law360 on Wednesday, Silverado Senior Living said that "[o]ur hearts go out to the families for their tragic loss. Our policy is to refrain from comment on active litigation."
Clack is represented by Jody C. Moore, Gregory L. Johnson and Joanna A. Hutchins of Johnson Moore.
Counsel for Silverado Senior Living was not immediately available.
The case is Joe Ann Clack et al. v. Silverado Senior Living Inc. et al., case number 20STCV47881, in Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.
--Editing by Michael Watanabe.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
