After more than three years of waiting, former patients of disgraced nursing home owner Bob Dean will soon receive between $10,000 to $50,000 in payouts for a botched Hurricane Ida evacuation that left several hundred suffering in a Tangipahoa Parish warehouse.
About half of the 843 patients who were part of the ordeal -- or their surviving family members -- filed claims as part of a class-action lawsuit, leaving 428 of them to split slightly less than $9 million of Dean's insurance proceeds. The case stalled several times, and more than one in four former patients died during the long wait, while others simply tried to moved on from their initial furor.
The pot of money available for them also dwindled by $3 million with attorney's fees and administrative costs taken out. The judge overseeing the process acknowledged that the final amount is far from adequate in light of the conditions they were made to endure.
Dean's former patients or their surviving family members have received letters within the last week or so telling them for the first time what their share of the remaining money will be. Court filings say checks should be sent on Saturday.
Patients from seven Dean nursing homes were transported to an unequipped, understaffed Tangipahoa warehouse ahead of Ida's landfall in August, 2021.
Nurses and state inspectors later reported that elderly and infirm residents cried out for help from mattresses on the floor sodden with excrement. Water leaked into the facility, there weren't enough toilets and patients reported that they did not receive their correct medicines and developed other problems -- like pressure sores -- because they were forced to remain in one position for too long.
Dean wound up in the throes of dozens of lawsuits from his patients, was criminally charged with cruelty to the infirm and had his nursing home licenses revoked. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint accusing him of violating Federal Housing Administration rules, while creditors swarmed him with foreclosure and seizure orders.
Gerald Ayo, whose mother-in-law, Ella Mae Alario, was among Dean's former patients, said it seemed like the process was designed to whittle away as much money from the patients as possible. Alario was hospitalized for days and needed surgery after the evacuation. She died about a year later.
"There's no money that can replace her," he said. "Everybody's making money on it and the poor people are getting nothing."
The letters list two pots of money that the patients will receive checks from: civil penalties under the Nursing Home Bill of Rights Act and general damages related to suffering "as a result of the improper actions of Bob Dean, his employees and his entities," they say.
Until now, the claimants have received at most $2,750 each, all of it in penalties under the act. They'll receive another $5,000 each in those penalties through the offers sent out recently.
Beyond that, the amounts allotted for total damages top out at $55,000, according to attorneys who represent Dean's patients. Retired Judge Rusty Knight, the special master overseeing the payouts and who sent the letters, grouped patients into categories based on the extent of medical complications that they developed during and after the evacuation.
Those who were awarded the most money required amputations, multiple surgeries or endured other experiences that often led to death, according to their attorneys.
Most recipients are on the lower end of the range, the lawyers said. Knight declined to detail the range of damages he awarded in the case, or the rationales behind them, until after the challenge period, which ended Friday.
"Frankly, no one will receive an adequate amount to compensate them for what they have endured," Knight's letter states.
It's unlikely that all the patients will receive the full amounts listed on their allocation letters because many still owe attorney's fees.
Judge Michael Mentz of the 24th Judicial District Court previously approved a 22.5% rate in attorney's fees for the class counsel attorneys who pushed for a quick settlement, translating to more than $2 million. But some former nursing home patients say their attorneys have already told them to expect that they'll be paying more based on their original contracts.
Knight said he does not have the authority to regulate clients' contracts with their lawyers.
Few objections lodged, patients ready for closure
The allocation letters say that Dean is "currently in bankruptcy court with over $40 million in claims against him by various creditors," though some attorneys argued that they should have spent more time trying to track down Dean's various accounts.
And though there's little money left for the patient settlement, the allocations aren't the end-all for Dean's former patients. Those who believe they are owed more can file written objections with the court, which will be evaluated at a Jan. 16 hearing.
Despite the size of the settlements, few of Dean's former patients or their families are planning to challenge them, according to attorneys for the bulk of those clients.
"We are receiving very, very few objections," Knight said in an interview Thursday. "That tells me the work we did ..is all acceptable and reasonable."
Matthew Hemmer, who represents the majority of Dean's former patients and their families for the Morris Bart Law Firm, said that out of his nearly 200 clients, most of their cases were accurately grouped and they've only filed five objections.
"In a lot of ways, their fight has just been beaten out of them," Hemmer said, adding that more than half of his cases now involve next-of-kin.
Hemmer said there are a handful of cases where he told family members they could probably receive a different classification -- and more money -- by lodging an objection. Most of those families still declined to object.
Hemmer said they've reduced their usual attorney's fees to 17.5% on the class action awards.
Jonathan Lemann, an attorney for Couhig Partners who represents about 50 clients in the case, said he also only had a few clients who considered lodging objections. He declined to comment on whether their clients owe additional attorney's fees.
"Nobody, I think, is truly happy with the amount of time it took," he said.
Patients believe Bob Dean 'got off easy'
Dean's empire has been left in tatters with his seven nursing homes shut down, his antique car collection auctioned off and both criminal and civil legal troubles entangling him.
Despite pleading no contest to eight counts of cruelty to the infirm, five counts of Medicaid fraud and two counts of obstruction of justice over the warehouse evacuation, he has avoided prison time. He was sentenced in July to three years of probation and a deferred a 20-year prison sentence.
"A lot of people feel like Bob Dean got off easy," Lemann said. "They understand he was insolvent and the class action was able to collect all that was there to be collected. But a real sour pill for them is he got no jail time, and in their minds, has not really been held to justice."
Dean's attorneys have said he has dementia, and he has not been forced to testify in court. His attorney did not return a message for this story, but previously said Dean "lost everything" and did not benefit in any way from the class action settlement.
Some families also never received Knight's initial payments of $2,750. Generally, those patients received medical care after the evacuation that was paid for by Medicare, which is run by the federal government. Medicare requested to claw back some of the settlement money to reimburse the care they paid for.
Knight's allocation letters said they have cleared Medicare's claims for money from the settlement.
Medical malpractice claims still being sorted
Some of Dean's former residents may have more payments to come that are separate from the claims related to the Nursing Home Bill of Rights and general damages.
Outside of the class action suit, many filed medical malpractice claims against Dean's nursing homes, alleging that their errors in medical judgment exacerbated injuries and other problems.
Those cases are largely still working their way through the courts. Similar problems may arise, however, with Dean's portion of the potential payouts.
Health care providers are responsible for the first $100,000 in medical malpractice payments before the Louisiana Patient's Compensation Fund pays out the remainder of the award. It's unclear whether Dean would be able to come up with the $100,000 for those claims.