Steven L. Procaccini of Procaccini Law Group LLC successfully defended a $450,000 jury verdict on appeal in a closely watched New Jersey nursing home negligence case, Santo v. Meadowview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
Procaccini represented William Santo, acting as executor of his mother Margaret Santo’s estate, in a case brought under the New Jersey Nursing Home Residents’ Rights Act. The suit alleged that Meadowview’s staff negligently allowed Margaret’s room to become dangerously cold, so cold that the responding EMT described it as an “icebox,” leading to a hypothermia diagnosis and her death two weeks later, in 2018.
Following a six-day jury trial in Atlantic County, jurors found in favor of the Santo family, awarding $450,000 in damages for the violation of Margaret’s rights as a nursing home resident.
Meadowview appealed, arguing there was insufficient proof that the room was actually cold enough to cause hypothermia. A two-judge Appellate Division panel rejected that argument and affirmed the verdict in full, agreeing with Procaccini’s position that the plaintiff’s medical and nursing experts didn’t need to know the room’s exact temperature to establish that the facility’s negligence caused Margaret’s death. The panel also upheld the trial court’s decision to allow the EMT’s firsthand “icebox” observation into evidence, even though he wasn’t designated as an expert witness.
The result reaffirms the accountability nursing homes can face under New Jersey’s Nursing Home Residents’ Rights Act when facilities fail to provide residents with a safe living environment.