A Polk County judge has dismissed one of the central claims in a wrongful death lawsuit involving a Pleasant Hill nursing home.
Parkridge Specialty Care of Pleasant Hill is being sued by the estate of Maris Bergis in Polk County District Court. The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages from the home’s corporate owner, Care Initiatives of West Des Moines, for alleged dependent adult abuse, recklessness, negligence and wrongful death.
The lawsuit alleges Parkridge “negligently cared for Bergis and violated numerous regulations, laws, rights, and industry standards, causing (him) personal injury, illness, harm, and a decline in health.”
According to the lawsuit, Bergis was admitted to Parkridge on Sept. 1, 2023, for what was initially planned to be a 48-hour stay following his hospitalization for pneumonia. Upon admission, he was allegedly alert, awake and oriented, and Parkridge was tasked with providing physician-prescribed breathing treatments and monitoring him for difficulty with breathing and any signs of anxiety, confusion or restlessness.
During the course of Bergis’ stay at Parkridge, the staff at the home allegedly failed to administer the breathing treatments. The Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing subsequently cited Parkridge for its care of Bergis, finding that it had delayed providing necessary medical care and treatment.
The lawsuit claims the “gross negligence, and/or recklessness” of Care Initiatives and Parkridge “were the cause of Bergis’ decline in health, injuries, damages and untimely death.”
In recent case filings, Bergis’ widow, Leila Bergis, recounted in a sworn affidavit her version of what transpired at Parkridge during her husband’s four-day stay at the facility. She recounted instances in which she allegedly found her husband unbathed and “soaked in urine,” and also described the physician-ordered breathing treatments her husband was to receive.
“The Parkridge staff did not set up Maris’ breathing treatment equipment or have the albuterol — the medication — in his room,” she alleged. “The equipment sat unplugged underneath the TV. Because of this, Parkridge did not give Maris the breathing treatments that were ordered by his physician. Even if I wanted to help give him a breathing treatment while he was at Parkridge, I couldn’t. This is because Parkridge did not have any albuterol in the room.”
She said that one day she arrived at the facility and found her husband “partially out of his bed and struggling to breathe. I demanded he be taken by ambulance to the hospital. When the paramedics arrived, Maris was barely breathing. At that time, a nurse attempted to cover up Parkridge’s neglect by administering a breathing treatment as if it was part of their routine care. This was the first and only time Parkridge ever attempted to provide him with a breathing treatment.
“When Maris arrived on September 1, 2023, his prognosis was to come home. However, in about three days, Parkridge treated him so poorly and neglected him so badly — by letting him soak in his own urine and failing to give him prescribed treatment — that we had to rush him out of Parkridge by ambulance to the hospital.”
Facility owner denies any wrongdoing
Care Initiatives denied any wrongdoing and argued the case should be dismissed due to the plaintiffs’ failure to file a certificate of merit signed by an expert witness who could attest to Parkridge’s alleged failure to meet the standard of care expected of a nursing home.
In response to that argument, the Bergis family’s attorney, Matthew M. Sahag, filed a brief with the court arguing that Care Initiatives was claiming “you need an expert to say it’s wrong to strip a man of his dignity — leaving him to sit in his own urine while he struggled to breathe. The Iowa Supreme Court says otherwise. So does common sense … They stripped Maris of his dignity and now ask this court to believe that ordinary Iowans cannot understand that.”
Recently, Polk County District Court Judge Sarah Crane issued an order dismissing claims against Parkridge except for the allegations tied to the home’s reported failure to provide proper hygiene and bathing care. In doing so, Crane noted that the Iowa Supreme Court has recognized that “some professional breaches are so blatant that expert testimony is not required for them.”
In the Bergis case, the family has alleged two types of negligence: a failure to provide proper hygiene and bathing care, and a failure to provide physician-prescribed breathing assistance. As to the hygiene and bathing care, Crane found no expert witness was needed.
“Letting an infirm individual sit in a urine-soaked diaper or clothing, refusing to assist a continent patient in accessing the restroom and insisting they simply wear a diaper, and failing to clean and bathe an individual who has been sitting in urine-soaked clothing are allegations of a failure to provide nonmedical and routine care,” Crane ruled. “Understanding how to prevent someone from sitting in urine does not require specialized knowledge and is well-within the knowledge of lay persons.”
But as to the alleged failure to provide breathing assistance, Crane found expert testimony was needed on that claim and that mere reliance on the state inspectors’ findings was not sufficient.
“It is not within a layperson’s knowledge what the standard of care is for how frequently a patient in a skilled nursing care facility should be assessed for difficulty breathing, what symptoms would have indicated that Maris’ respiratory condition required a breathing treatment, and how often the breathing treatment should be administered,” Crane ruled.
The judge’s dismissal of those claims is with prejudice, meaning those specific claims cannot be raised again in the case.
A trial in the matter remains scheduled for Oct. 4, 2027.
