This coming February, a jury in Shasta County is scheduled to hear a case against Windsor Redding, which is accused of negligence in the 2020 COVID-19 deaths of 24 patients.
Another upcoming case involves 78-year-old Barbara Pendley, who allegedly died after suffering severe dehydration at North Point Healthcare & Wellness Centre in Fresno.
And trial is scheduled to begin next spring in the case of a 79-year-old dementia patient, referred to as Cheryl Doe, who was allegedly raped twice at Windsor Healthcare Center of Oakland; a second case against the same facility alleges that excessive sedation of 64-year-old Alando Williams led to his death.
Rechnitz and his companies have denied allegations in all of these cases.
“It is accurate that nursing homes are the target of abusive lawsuits that accomplish nothing but depleting resources for patient care,” said Mark Johnson, an attorney for the facilities and their holding company, Brius.
On average, more citations at Rechnitz homes
A CalMatters analysis of data from both the state health department and the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services found 78 California facilities in which Shlomo Rechnitz or his wife, Tamar, were listed among the owners. On average the facilities fared poorly on several key quality metrics compared to the state overall.
- In the past three years, these 78 nursing homes received an average of 12.4 citations for facility-reported incidents, compared with 6.1 for all nursing homes statewide.
- A higher proportion of the facilities has received a federal fine in the last three years than the state’s overall rate. Two-thirds of these facilities received at least one federal fine in the last three years, compared to half of all facilities across the state.
- The facilities have been fined an average of $47,897 during the last three years, compared to an average of $29,573 for all California facilities.
Johnson, the attorney for Rechnitz’ facilities, said in his email that a large percentage of these facilities are located in Los Angeles County, which issues deficiencies at a higher rate than any county in California, many of which are overturned on appeal.
He also said that “Mr. Rechnitz’s facilities self-report at a significantly higher rate than other comparable facilities,” which, in turn, could lead them to have a higher number of deficiencies.
Rechnitz is wealthy
In August 2024, an Alameda County jury found that Alameda Healthcare & Wellness had violated the rights of 71-year-old James Doherty, Sr. more than 1,400 times.
