19 May 2022: NJ Murphy Administration Faces New Claims Over COVID Deaths in State-Run Veterans Nursing Homes

Taxpayers on hook for more vets home COVID deaths? New claims filed against Murphy admin

New Jersey taxpayers may have to pay out several more millions of dollars in damages over how Governor Phil Murphy and his administration operated nursing homes for veterans in the state during the period Murphy's copycat version of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. Here's a excerpt from this report:

Lawyers for families of those who died at New Jersey's three veterans homes during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic have filed almost 70 more claims against the Murphy administration claiming that negligence led to their loved ones' demise.

The claims, which need to be approved by a judge to move forward, come six months after the Murphy administration agreed to settle 119 similar claims for $53 million.

The Murphy administration has repeatedly said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The new batch of claims are from families of victims who died in the first months of the pandemic at the Paramus, Menlo Park and Vineland veterans facilities, which were among the hardest-hit nursing homes in the U.S.

More than 200 residents and two staff members died from COVID-19, the vast majority of them at the Paramus and Menlo Park homes. There are three separate investigations ongoing into the deaths after reports by NorthJersey.com and other publications about poor planning, questionable decisions and lax infection control at the facilities during the height of the pandemic.

We came across this story while searching out the latest news for those three investigations, one by the federal government, one by the state attorney general, and the third by New Jersey's State Commission of Investigation that was launched just a few weeks ago. We found no updates for the U.S. DOJ and state attorney general's investigations, which is a cause for concern because the lawyers conducting these probes have gone months without demonstrating any signs of progress.