Hylla
An Edwardsville nursing home's appeal of a nearly $150,000 verdict entered against it last year is on hold.
According to an order from the Fifth District Appellate Court in Mount Vernon, Rosewood Care Center of Edwardsville will have to wait until the question of the plaintiff's attorney's fees in the case is settled.
Madison County Circuit Judge David Hylla is set to hear arguments on that topic May 26 at 1:30 p.m.
Once that is settled, according to the appellate court's April 29 order, the clock can begin running on the defendant's time to file supplemental materials in its appeal.
Rosewood lost a retrial of a 2003 suit brought by plaintiff Paul Graves as executor of his father, Alfred Graves' estate April 24, 2009.
Paul Graves sued Rosewood for allegedly failing to protect his father from a fall that caused him to injure his hip during an overnight stay in January 2003.
The first trial in the case ended in a mistrial after a jury deliberated for more than 10 hours and could not reach a verdict.
After several days of testimony, the second jury deliberated late into a Friday night before awarding Paul Graves $149,115.13.
His attorney filed for statutory attorney's fees under the state's Nursing Home Care Act shortly after.
Hylla denied a move by Rosewood for a new trial and refused to set aside the second jury's verdict. Defense attorney Dennis McCubbin had argued that a St. Louis-based personal injury attorney on the jury misrepresented himself.
Rosewood filed to appeal the verdict March 18 of this year.
Robert Gregory represents Paul Graves.
Gregory and McCubbin have become familiar rivals in the various suits pending against Rosewood.
Each has won a Rosewood trial in the last year.
McCubbin won a verdict for the nursing home most recently, in a suit filed by the widow of a patient.
That trial ended in February. Gregory represented the plaintiff, Martha Flanary, in that suit.
The Graves case is Madison case number 03-L-1166.