SOUTH FULTON, Ga. — The families of four deceased residents of a metro Atlanta nursing home are filing a lawsuit alleging reckless conduct and gross negligence.
The residents died due to complications of COVID-19 while in the care of Arbor Terrace at Cascade senior residence facility.
Last week, health officials said Arbor Terrace at Cascade had a total of 62 residents and 48 of them have tested positive for COVID-19. They also reported that 15 residents have died.
The families have filed individual lawsuits in Fulton County State Court against The Arbor Group and the company that owns and operates the facility. They are alleging reckless conduct and gross negligence on the part of their administrators and staff in their response to the COVID-19 virus, according to the attorneys of Edmond Lindsay & Atkins LLP.
The complaints allege that the administrators and staff at Arbor Terrace at Cascade were "grossly negligent in failing to protect their vulnerable residents," the attorney said.
"The families of Mrs. Ernestine Mann, Mr. Eddie Johnson, Jr. and Mrs. Blanche Johnson (husband and wife), Ms. Catherine Hendrix and Ms. Dorothy McGirt are all devastated by the sudden and tragic deaths of their elderly loved ones," the law firm said in a news release.
They claim in their complaints that the owners, administrators and staff at Arbor Terrace at Cascade were aware that the COVID-19 virus had infected some staff at the facility, but despite this knowledge, "the administrators and staff were grossly negligent and reckless when the staff were allowed to continue to have unprotected and insufficiently protected contact with the elderly residents, failed to properly quarantine staff workers and residents and failed to properly warn residents in a timely manner about the presence of the COVID-19 virus within the facility."
The virus has ravaged Arbor Terrace at Cascade. As of April 16, nearly 80 percent of the 62 residents at the facility had tested positive for COVID-19, with 16 deaths, they said.
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