Elder Abuse: Failure to Provide Appropriate Pain Management for a Terminall

In a follow-up to the Bergman verdict (See above) the firm represented the surviving spouse and daughter of an 85 year-old man dying of mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer which is incurable.  Despite the severe pain associated with this disease, none of the decedent’s caregivers made a serious attempt to manage his pain.  Suit was brought under the Elder Abuse statutes against an acute care hospital where the gentleman was hospitalized, against the physician charged with his care there, against a nursing home to which he was subsequently transferred, and against the nursing home physician who was responsible for caring for him in his last days.  The family argued that none of these caregivers responded to the dying man’s pain with the kind of around-the-clock consistent pain management which should be available to all dying patients.  Unfortunately, the gentleman died in severe and unnecessary pain.

All of the defendants settled in amounts which are the subject of a confidentiality clause.  One of the physicians was ultimately censured by the California Medical Board, the first such discipline as a result of poor pain management known to have occurred in California.