Belleville nursing home was negligent, suit claims

The administrator of a deceased woman's estate claims the woman suffered a broken thigh bone while a resident at a Belleville nursing home.

Annie McClatchery filed a lawsuit May 25 in St. Clair County Circuit Court against The Lincoln Home and Weiss Management Group.

McClatchery claims Wealthie Lee Lockett lived in the Belleville nursing home, where employees continuously violated her rights from Jan. 18, 2008, through her death on Dec. 18, 2008.

During her stay at the nursing home, Lockett sustained a comminuted left femur fracture, among other injuries, causing her to suffer severe and repeated pain, mental anguish and emotional distress and to become further debilitated and disabled, according to the complaint.

McClatchery says employees at The Lincoln Home failed to evaluate Lockett to ensure she received adequate supervision, failed to provide her with adequate care, failed to provide her with immediate treatment by trained personnel, failed to notify her physician of significant changes in her physical condition, failed to ensure that they established a nursing care plan based on her needs, failed to provide necessary services to maintain Lockett's highest state of well-being and failed to appropriately update her plan following her fracture.

Weiss Management, which owned The Lincoln Home, also allegedly performed a number of negligent acts, including its failure to operate the home in such a way that provided Lockett with adequate supervision, its failure to operate the home in such a way as to protect Lockett from neglect, its failure to properly monitor its employees and staff, its failure to screen and evaluate the references of nursing staff, its failure to terminate employees at the home who were known to be careless and incompetent, its failure to provide nursing personnel duties consistent with their education, its failure to prevent and correct problems at the nursing home and its failure to discharge its legal obligations, the suit states.

In her three-count complaint, McClatchery seeks a judgment of more than $100,000, plus attorney's fees and costs.

McClatchery also names Lincoln Associates as a respondent in discovery.

Staci M. Yandle of The Law Offices of Staci M. Yandle in O'Fallon will be representing her.

St. Clair County Circuit Court case number: 10-L-259.