Nursing Home Resident With Violent History Attacks Roommate

In the third largest nursing
home verdict in U.S. history, a Texas jury awarded $160 million to the family of an elderly man who was severely beaten by his violent and mentally ill roommate.
After a two-week trial, jurors ruled against a West Texas nursing home accused of negligently pairing the aggressive roommate with Tranquilino Mendoza, who died three years after the 1997 beating.
“Their position was: He was beaten. He recovered. End of story,” said Thomas J. Rhodes, an attorney for the plaintiff. “But our position was that he never really recovered because of the problems related to that beating. He was a broken man. He was never himself again.”
Although Mendoza recovered from the physical injuries, his family said he
never healed psychologically. The roommate knocked him to the floor and attacked him with a water pitcher, a glass and his fists, beating him about the face and head.
Jurors found that the Burbank, California-based Summit Care Corp., its Texas subsidiary and two nursing home employees were at fault for the beating that sent Mendoza to the hospital for days.
Defense attorneys have appealed and filed their initial briefs.

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