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NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligent Homicide

By Jeralyn, Section Huricanes Katrina and Rita
Posted on Tue Sep 13, 2005 at 07:30:54 PM EST
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The owners of the New Orleans nursing home where 34 elderly and infirm patients died have been charged with negligent homicide.

Mable Mangano and her husband, Salvador Mangano Sr., surrendered to Medicaid fraud investigators in Baton Rouge on Tuesday and were being held in a parish prison. The Manganos declined an offer from St. Bernard Parish authorities of buses to evacuate the residents of their facility, and they did not use a contract they had with an ambulance service, the state said.

The couple has been released on bond. Their lawyer says they were faced with a Hobbsian choice:

The nursing home owners had to make a difficult decision between evacuating the patients, many of them elderly and on feeding tubes, or keeping them at the home and weathering the storm, [Lawyer Jim Cobb said. "If you pull that trigger too soon those people are going to die," he said. Three people from another nursing home had died during the evacuation ahead of the hurricane.

But the Attorney General of Louisiana says:

....the nursing home had a contract with an ambulance service to evacuate the patients, but the owners didn't call the company. They also turned down an offer from St. Bernard Parish officials who asked if the nursing home wanted help evacuating, he said....."They had a duty and a standard of care to people who could not care for themselves," Foti said of the owners. "If you or I decided we are going to stay, we do it of our own free will. ... The people at the nursing home don't have that choice."

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    NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligent Homicide | 6 comments (6 topical)
    Re: NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligen (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:47 PM EST
    At the risk of being considered pedantic, I think you meant "Hobson's choice" (which is no choice at all). Unless you were punning with "Hobbsian." Actually, the defense sounds like horns of a dilemma.

    Re: NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligen (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:47 PM EST
    "Hobson's Choice" is like when Henry Ford said you could have your Model T in any color, so long as it was black. It it not having to choose from two bad alternatives.

    Re: NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligen (none / 0) (#3)
    by kipling on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:47 PM EST
    Yeah, those bad nasty owners. They were the ones. Like Lyddie England. There's always bad apples, ya know. And FEMA head Brown, well, he just wants to spend a lot more time with his family, doncha know.

    Re: NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligen (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:48 PM EST
    "In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these patients," Foti said.

    So the Brown, Chertoff, and Bush warrants are being written up as we speak?

    Re: NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligen (none / 0) (#5)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:51 PM EST
    Ahh yes, just another example of the diseased rich white culture bred for generations by the corporate welfare state.

    Re: NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligen (none / 0) (#6)
    by jimcee on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:52 PM EST
    People who take money to care for people in thier dotage or incapacitation need to be held responsible for thier actions or in this case inaction. Quite frankly they need to be incapcitated and uncerimoniously drowned as thier clients were but some how that would be cruel and unusual by contitutional standards. Too bad. Perhaps that new resident of Dallas, Ray Nagin has an opinion on that responsibilty thing.

    NOLA Nursing Home Owners Charged With Negligent Homicide | 6 comments (6 topical)