South Milwaukee Wrongful Death Case Settled with Nursing Home
On behalf of Milwaukee personal injury attorney Ric Domnitz of Domnitz & Domnitz, S.C. posted in Wrongful Death on Friday, November 2, 2012.
A settlement was recently reached regarding a wrongful death case out of a nursing home in South Milwaukee. A 90-year-old resident was reportedly raped by another resident that was also 90-years-old, and known to be acutely sexually aggressive, in Jan. 2009. It appears that 18 days after the attack, the victim died.
The attacker was transferred to an alternate nursing home, and was deemed mentally incompetent and therefore not criminally charged. However, it is reported that before this resident attacked the victim, he was shortly before prevented from assaulting a separate resident. After the first attempted attack was thwarted, the sexually aggressive resident was left unattended by the residing nurse.
The family of the victim that died after being sexually assaulted filed a wrongful death claim on the grounds that the South Milwaukee nursing home did not provided their nurses and other staff with adequate training regarding sexual assault between residents, which resulted in a sequence of events transpiring that ultimately lead to their family member’s death.
The case went before a jury for four days before a settlement was reached. Both sides declined to comment on the terms of the settlement so the exact figure is not presently public knowledge. While financial compensation will not erase the pain the family endured knowing this was the end their loved one suffered, hopefully the settlement can bring some sense of closure. Additionally, hopefully this tragic case will raise awareness and prevent similar instances from occurring in the future in Wisconsin or elsewhere.
Source: Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, “Nursing home rape case settles mid-trial,” Bruce Vielmetti, Oct. 16, 2012
Our firm has experience handling similar cases. For more information, please visit our Milwaukee nursing home wrongful death page. If you need legal representation for the wrongful death of a loved one, contact a Milwaukee personal injury attorney with Domnitz & Domnitz, S.C. for a free consultation.