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Brian Roberts filed the class-action suit against Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II Tuesday in Superior Court of Sussex County, NJ.com reports.
Roberts’ uncle, Albert Roberts, died at the facility from the virus on April 1. The nursing home violated the consumer fraud act and federal nursing home laws, Roberts alleges in the suit.
“Despite the very serious risk of an outbreak at the Facilities, and the dire consequences that would result if one were to occur, Defendants failed to take reasonable or adequate precautions to protect their residents and/or patients against the potential spread of COVID-19,” the suit says.
Roberts further states that despite having a one-star rating from the federal agency, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the facility advertised itself as a compliant and high-quality place of care — ads that turned out to be “false promises, misrepresentations and deceptive statements.”
In the past five years, CMS, which rates and assesses long-term care facilities, cited Andover I for two dozen regulatory violations. Andover II, meanwhile, faced four dozen.
“Roberts and the Decedent would not have chosen the Facilities for Decedent’s nursing home/rehabilitation services, or would not have paid what they did had they known Defendants' representations regarding the quality and safety of the Facilities were false and deceptive,” reads the suit.
Nursing home owner Chaim “Mutty” Scheinbaum, who is named in the suit, told NJ.com that sick patients were separated, social distancing was enforced and other steps were taken to prepare residents in the pandemic’s early stages.
“We monitored and complied with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines,” Scheinbaum said. “Despite all our efforts, the virus made its way into our facility, as it did in the majority of long-term care facilities across New Jersey. We took every possible step to handle this crisis internally while simultaneously making dozens of outreaches to local, state, and federal agencies for help.”
Another class-action suit was filed in May by Joseph Maglioli, the son of another resident, who also alleges negligence and malpractice, the report said.
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