Appeals court orders do-over of punitive phase that originally led jury to stick nursing-home operator with $29.8M in damages

The Tennessee Court of Appeals has sustained most of a $4.1 million damage award against Murfreesboro-based nursing home operator National Healthcare Corp., while denying the company's bid to relieve it of any punitive damages.

In an opinion filed yesterday and released this afternoon by the Administrative Office of the Courts, three appellate judges let stand all but $75,000 of the compensatory damages that a Warren County jury awarded after a trial two years ago. The Appeals Court also ruled that the trial judge erred in throwing out punitive damage claims against NHC.

The heirs of a man who died in 2005 after allegedly being neglected at NHC's McMinnville nursing home sued the company for negligence, medical malpractice and wrongful death. At trial in February 2007, the judge awarded NHC a directed verdict ruling out punitive damages, but he went on to conduct a punitive damages phase to put the matter on the record in case he was overruled on appeal. 

After returning the compensatory verdict, the jury deliberated further and announced a punitive award of $29.8 million. The judge, finding the huge amount unwarranted, immediately cut it to $163,000. Now the Appeals Court has set aside that decision and ordered a retrial of the punitive phase back in Warren County.

Former Nashville Chancellor Richard Dinkins delivered the court's opinion. The plaintiffs were represented by Lisa Circeo, Susan Nichols Estes and Deborah Truby Riordan of the Tampa-based firm Wilkes & McHugh, which specializes in nursing home litigation. Representing NHC were John Curtis, Cherie D. Jewell, and Bruce D. Gill of Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan out of Chattanooga.

Neither lead attorney had yet seen the ruling when contacted this afternoon.