Disturbing details influence significant punitive damages
Successful plaintiff Sheila Whitney (center) with members of the Reddick Law team, (l-r): Shona Spencer, Brian Reddick, Matthew Swindle, and Heather Zachary.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Feb. 6, 2025) – A seven-day trial concluded in Camden on Tuesday, Feb. 4, with Plaintiff Sheila Whitney winning a $6.6 million verdict against the operators of Ouachita Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, a local nursing home, for causing the death of her 77-year-old mother, Lillie Whitney in 2016.
Certified nursing assistants (CNAs) from the nursing home testified about deplorable working conditions and short staffing at the facility that prevented them from performing their duties and caring for nursing home residents, including Lillie Whitney, who resided there from January 2015 until her death in August 2016. Sheila Whitney’s lawyers, Brian Reddick, Matthew Swindle, and Heather Zachary of Reddick Law Firm in Little Rock, demonstrated to the jury how those horrible working conditions resulted in severe dehydration and malnutrition to Ms. Whitney’s mother. The jury heard evidence that Lillie Whitney developed 18 bedsores over her body as a direct result of the lack of care. Evidence was presented that the bedsores on Lillie Whitney’s body had also become infested with maggots, but that the nursing home failed to report this incident to the Office of Long Term Care, an agency of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, claiming that the maggots did not cause Lillie Whitney any harm. The jury heard evidence that the nursing home had similarly failed to report a previous incident involving maggots and a different resident the year before.
“This is an important day for justice,” Brian Reddick, principal of Reddick Law Firm, said. “This case was filed in 2017, and the defendants did everything they could to avoid facing the consequences, including taking an appeal in 2019, claiming that the nursing home was a ‘charity,’ that couldn’t be sued.” That appeal set the case back approximately three years and explains the lengthy delay between the case being filed in 2017 but not reaching trial until 2025.
After hearing all the evidence, the jury found in Ms. Whitney’s favor and returned a verdict of $2.2 million in compensatory damages and $4.4 million in punitive damages for the defendants’ failure to improve conditions in the facility despite numerous warnings from workers, residents, and the state that care in the facility represented a danger to residents. The Camden facility is one of many Arkansas nursing homes operated by a group of companies headquartered in Alexandria, La.
The case is Sheila Whitney v. Camden-Progressive Eldercare Services, Inc., et. al., Ouachita County Case No. 52CV-17-158.