The American Association of Retired Persons, better known as AARP, is urging the Louisiana House to reject Senate Bill 134 that has advanced to the lower chamber. Andrew Muhl with the AARP of Louisiana says the bill would effectively get nursing homes off the hook for damages caused by abuse and neglect. Similar legislation failed during last year’s legislative session, which critics called the ‘Bob Dean Protection Act.’
And, as the Louisiana Radio Network reports, Muhl also points to the incident involving Bob Dean in August 2021. Dean evacuated 840 residents from seven nursing homes he owned to an old pesticide warehouse in Tangipahoa Parish during Hurricane Ida, in which seven of the nursing home patients died. After Dean’s 2022 arrest, he pleaded no contest to 15 criminal charges related to those deaths.
Dean had faced eight counts of cruelty to the informed, five counts of Medicaid fraud and two counts of obstruction of Justice. Judge Brian Abels handed down prison sentences totaling 20 years in prison but deferred them, instead placing Dean on nine years of probation.
Dean still faced separate class action lawsuits. Muhl cited this case as a cautionary example of the potential effects of HB134. “The damages that he was responsible for were in the millions. But if this law was on the books when that incident happened, he would have been responsible for $100,000 total.”
According to a statement by the U.S. Justice Department from October 9, 2024:
Bob Dean Jr. and several companies that he owned and operated have agreed to an $8.2 million consent judgment to resolve allegations that they violated the National Housing Act of 1934 (NHA), by misappropriating and misusing the assets and income of four nursing homes in Louisiana before and after Hurricane Ida’s landfall in August 2021.
Republican Shreveport Senators Alan Seabaugh and Thomas Pressly sponsored HB134, which the Louisiana Senate approved by a vote of 26-to-11 on April 30. Seabaugh says the measure is not intended to rewrite law but to clarify existing law that he says was always intended to include nursing homes in the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act: “Some lawyers have come in from out of state and tried to twist and tried to find a little nuance to create chaos in our nursing home industry.” Supporters say the bill is also intended to get healthcare providers to continue providing essential services in the state. It is now awaiting debate in a House committee. The Louisiana Nursing Home Association (LNHA) claims the 66 civil cases now pending in the state for alleged neglect and abuse threaten to put their industry out of business.
