The families of two residents of the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home in St. John the Baptist Parish who died during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 have filed medical malpractice lawsuits against the health care facility.
The attorney who filed the lawsuits this month on behalf of the families of residents Ras Deakles and Berlin Hebert Jr. in the 40th Judicial District said he doesn’t expect Louisiana’s COVID-19 legal liability protections granted to health care professionals to be an obstacle in the litigation.
“It’s not going to be a hurdle,” attorney Donald Hodge Jr. told the Louisiana Record.
Louisiana’s COVID-19 legal liability protections shield health care facilities from civil lawsuits unless the plaintiffs can show that they were victims of gross negligence or willful misconduct. In the case of Deakles, Hodge said a medical review panel concluded that his care reached that level of negligence.
“The first hearing panel for Ras Deakles found that the facility had breached the standard of care and that it rose to the level of gross negligence,” he said. “... (Though) Mr. Deakles was considered in COVID-positive suspicion, the staff was still bringing him into communal settings, such as bingo and dining hall.”
Both Deakles and Hebert were roommates at the veterans home as the pandemic unfolded, according to Hodge. A review panel found that Hebert’s care also breached the standards in place but didn’t rise to the level of gross negligence, he said, though the panel did not know the two were roommates when they made that assessment.
The Hebert lawsuit challenges the legality of the Louisiana law’s retroactivity. The legal liability protections took effect in June 2020, but the law retroactively extended protections to cover care from the onset of the pandemic.
“We think that’s an unconstitutional taking,” Hodge said.
The lawsuits question the care received by the veterans because their likely exposure to the virus occurred after state health officials issued directives to isolate patients who were COVID-19-positive, he said.
About 50 deaths occurred at the veterans home within the first month of the pandemic, according to the attorney.
“In this case, I think you have a group of individuals that you can point to a common issue, and that is a violation of all these directives that led to the many covid deaths, and that’s what we raised in the Deakles lawsuit,” Hodge said.