28 March 2022: NY Nursing Home Case Involving COVID Death Will Move Forward

Nursing home case involving COVID death will move forward

This report is from 21 March 2022. This is the first lawsuit we've seen involving a nursing home resident who became infected and died from COVID-19 during the period Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect.

A judge has ruled a lawsuit against a Buffalo nursing home, for a COVID-19 patient death, can move forward.

A complaint was originally filed in April 2021 by Cecelia Robertson on behalf of the estate of her sister.

64-year-old Annette Herron died of COVID at the Humboldt House and Rehabilitation Nursing Center in April 2020....

The nursing home attempted to have the complaint tossed out, arguing the state's Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act provided "immunity" to health care providers from potential liability from COVID.

But State Supreme court Justice Jeannette Ogden rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.

“The defendants argued that the case should be dismissed because they were protected by the immunity law. We argued that they weren’t. That it was repealed and that it intended to be retroactive as well as the fact that our claims for gross negligence was not included under the immunity law even if it did still exist,” Ciaccio remarked.

One year ago, March 2021, the state senate voted to repeal the immunity law and it was signed by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo last April. That was around the same time the Cuomo administration was facing a federal investigation over nursing home deaths.

In stripping away the legal immunity that Andrew M. Cuomo gifted to hospital and nursing home operators, this case represents a bellwether event for families seeking justice for what happened to the loved ones they lost. We're surprised the story hasn't yet been covered by larger news outlets - we discovered it during our weekend sweep of stories from smaller outlets.

While the case focuses on alleged neglect and abuse at the nursing home, it will be interesting to see how long it will be before Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly directive is named as a contributing factor. We can see where either the plaintiff or the defendant might make that connection in arguing their sides of the case.

If that happens in one case, it will happen in all the others that follow it. One might say "like fire through dry grass", if we borrow Andrew M. Cuomo's turn of phrase from 29 March 2020, just four days after his deadly directive and four days before he gifted legal immunity to the powerful political lobby of hospital and nursing home operators.