antiquity
12-14-2002, 10:37 PM
Saturday, December 14, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Neglected man to get $1 million settlement
By Jonathan Martin
By the time police rescued Freddie Watkins from his basement, his bedsores reached nearly to the bone. He was encrusted with feces. Flies circled.
Yesterday, a lawsuit alleging government negligence of his in-home care was settled, awarding the 39-year-old quadriplegic nearly $1 million.
The city of Seattle, which was responsible for monitoring Watkins' care through a state contract, will pay $830,000, city officials said yesterday. The state Department of Social and Health Services, which cut the checks to his caregivers, had earlier agreed to pay $150,000.
Neither entity admitted fault. Both said they were powerless to stop severe neglect by Watkins' wife, Sarah, and her daughter, Charleana Hedgemon, who were caring for him at his South King County home. Each was convicted of criminal mistreatment and Medicaid fraud, and sentenced to five months in prison.
City officials said the case prompted them to improve training for case managers in the COPES program, which the city oversees for people in King County who are at risk of going to a nursing home. Case managers now also are more closely in touch with doctors and other professionals who may be able to spot abuse or neglect, said Stephanie Cirkovich, a department spokeswoman.
Watkins became brain-damaged and paralyzed while drag racing in Louisiana in 1997. Sarah Watkins moved to Washington with him a year later in hopes of getting better medical care, then decided to take him out of a nursing home and to receive in-home caregiver pay.
Freddie Watkins' attorney said the settlement will help with his extensive medical needs; he is being treated in a Seattle nursing home. When police rescued him in September 2000, Watkins' hands and feet were curled so tightly upon themselves that tendons had to be severed, said attorney David Moody.
"This is a tremendous settlement for a man who needs more medical attention than he's currently receiving," said Moody. "This is another stark example of poor case-management services being administered to our state's most vulnerable citizens."
DSHS officials, however, described their payout as vindication in a case that had been described by some in the media as comparable to the Linda David case, which Moody also handled. DSHS paid the Edmonds woman $8.8 million in 2000 after she was allegedly beaten and neglected aboard her husband's sailboat.
The settlement with Watkins is no more than the cost of taking the case to trial, said Bernie Friedman, DSHS risk manager. "I don't think we did anything wrong here," said Friedman.
In addition to the $150,000, DSHS paid the Seattle law firm Keating Bucklin & McCormack $358,000 to litigate the Watkins case on behalf of the state.
Last winter, Moody offered to let DSHS out of the lawsuit in exchange for officially shifting blame to the city of Seattle, Friedman said.
"We weren't willing to do that," said Friedman, contending blame in the case should lay with Sarah Watkins and Hedgemon. Keating Bucklin billed for $142,800 after the offer, money paid out of a state risk-management account.
Freddie and Sarah Watkins married in 1993 and have five children together. In December 1999, after their move to Seattle, Sarah Watkins arranged for her husband to come to their home in Algona.
Because the program won't pay a spouse for care, Hedgemon, Sarah Watkins' daughter by another man, was the paid caregiver.
A state contract with the city of Seattle required a city case manager to check up on Freddie Watkins.
During a required visit in April 2000, a case manager found Watkins in good shape but noted that Hedgemon wasn't around. According to court records, Hedgemon left for Louisiana several months after Watkins came home. Sarah Watkins, meanwhile, cashed $9,280 in state checks to pay for his care.
In a statement as part of her guilty plea earlier
this year, Sarah Watkins said she became overwhelmed and "tired of caring for him and my children by myself" during the summer of 2000. She admitted to investigators that she didn't get her husband care for bedsores out of fear that his Seattle family would take him away.
Freddie Watkins' brother asked police to check on him in September 2000. An Algona police officer found him in a stinking, fly-infested basement room, with bedsores so deep a doctor later considered amputating limbs. He was sent to a Seattle nursing home, where he remains today.
Deputy King County Prosecutor Page Ulrey, who prosecuted Watkins' caregivers, said the case was notable because of his "complete and utter vulnerability. Had the police not gotten in there when they did, who knows how much longer he'd survive? He had no ability to call for help. He had no ability to defend himself."
Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jonathanmartin@seattletimes.com.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134595728_dshssettlement14m0.html
[This message was edited by seneca on Dec 15, 2002 at 06:52 AM.]
Neglected man to get $1 million settlement
By Jonathan Martin
By the time police rescued Freddie Watkins from his basement, his bedsores reached nearly to the bone. He was encrusted with feces. Flies circled.
Yesterday, a lawsuit alleging government negligence of his in-home care was settled, awarding the 39-year-old quadriplegic nearly $1 million.
The city of Seattle, which was responsible for monitoring Watkins' care through a state contract, will pay $830,000, city officials said yesterday. The state Department of Social and Health Services, which cut the checks to his caregivers, had earlier agreed to pay $150,000.
Neither entity admitted fault. Both said they were powerless to stop severe neglect by Watkins' wife, Sarah, and her daughter, Charleana Hedgemon, who were caring for him at his South King County home. Each was convicted of criminal mistreatment and Medicaid fraud, and sentenced to five months in prison.
City officials said the case prompted them to improve training for case managers in the COPES program, which the city oversees for people in King County who are at risk of going to a nursing home. Case managers now also are more closely in touch with doctors and other professionals who may be able to spot abuse or neglect, said Stephanie Cirkovich, a department spokeswoman.
Watkins became brain-damaged and paralyzed while drag racing in Louisiana in 1997. Sarah Watkins moved to Washington with him a year later in hopes of getting better medical care, then decided to take him out of a nursing home and to receive in-home caregiver pay.
Freddie Watkins' attorney said the settlement will help with his extensive medical needs; he is being treated in a Seattle nursing home. When police rescued him in September 2000, Watkins' hands and feet were curled so tightly upon themselves that tendons had to be severed, said attorney David Moody.
"This is a tremendous settlement for a man who needs more medical attention than he's currently receiving," said Moody. "This is another stark example of poor case-management services being administered to our state's most vulnerable citizens."
DSHS officials, however, described their payout as vindication in a case that had been described by some in the media as comparable to the Linda David case, which Moody also handled. DSHS paid the Edmonds woman $8.8 million in 2000 after she was allegedly beaten and neglected aboard her husband's sailboat.
The settlement with Watkins is no more than the cost of taking the case to trial, said Bernie Friedman, DSHS risk manager. "I don't think we did anything wrong here," said Friedman.
In addition to the $150,000, DSHS paid the Seattle law firm Keating Bucklin & McCormack $358,000 to litigate the Watkins case on behalf of the state.
Last winter, Moody offered to let DSHS out of the lawsuit in exchange for officially shifting blame to the city of Seattle, Friedman said.
"We weren't willing to do that," said Friedman, contending blame in the case should lay with Sarah Watkins and Hedgemon. Keating Bucklin billed for $142,800 after the offer, money paid out of a state risk-management account.
Freddie and Sarah Watkins married in 1993 and have five children together. In December 1999, after their move to Seattle, Sarah Watkins arranged for her husband to come to their home in Algona.
Because the program won't pay a spouse for care, Hedgemon, Sarah Watkins' daughter by another man, was the paid caregiver.
A state contract with the city of Seattle required a city case manager to check up on Freddie Watkins.
During a required visit in April 2000, a case manager found Watkins in good shape but noted that Hedgemon wasn't around. According to court records, Hedgemon left for Louisiana several months after Watkins came home. Sarah Watkins, meanwhile, cashed $9,280 in state checks to pay for his care.
In a statement as part of her guilty plea earlier
this year, Sarah Watkins said she became overwhelmed and "tired of caring for him and my children by myself" during the summer of 2000. She admitted to investigators that she didn't get her husband care for bedsores out of fear that his Seattle family would take him away.
Freddie Watkins' brother asked police to check on him in September 2000. An Algona police officer found him in a stinking, fly-infested basement room, with bedsores so deep a doctor later considered amputating limbs. He was sent to a Seattle nursing home, where he remains today.
Deputy King County Prosecutor Page Ulrey, who prosecuted Watkins' caregivers, said the case was notable because of his "complete and utter vulnerability. Had the police not gotten in there when they did, who knows how much longer he'd survive? He had no ability to call for help. He had no ability to defend himself."
Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jonathanmartin@seattletimes.com.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134595728_dshssettlement14m0.html
[This message was edited by seneca on Dec 15, 2002 at 06:52 AM.]