Nursing Home Lawyers San Diego

Woman Sentenced For Crash That Killed Birthday Celebrant

SAN DIEGO - A nursing student who was found fatally off after a man walking on a highway on a rainy night in Rancho Penasquitos was sentenced Friday to one year in county jail and three years probation.

Nicoll Koval, 23, pleaded guilty in March to the crime hit-and-run causing death.

It was taken in handcuffs after Judge Theodore Weathers denied his request to serve his detention in a work-off.

Deputy Prosecutor John Pro said some witnesses saw the victim, Albert Holman, walking on the side of State Route 56 just east of Black Mountain Road and some saw him walking in the middle of the highway to three hours of last October 19.

Holman, who was celebrating his 34th birthday with his sister, had left his car with two flat tires nearby, the prosecutor said.

Pro - who pleaded unsuccessfully for a term of three years in prison - said Koval went home and waited until 2:30 p.m. the next day to contact the California Highway Patrol.

The prosecutor said Koval was not forthcoming with authorities initially, then admitted being at two bars before hitting Holman and driving home.

Sometime after 5 a.m., Koval texted her brother, saying, "I think I did something horrible," Pro told Weathers.

In 2008, Koval crashed her car into a fence along the same freeway but didn't report it until the next day, the prosecutor said.

"It is irresponsible," Pro told the judge.

But defense attorney Michael McGlinn said Holman was walking in the middle of the road, wearing dark clothing, and ignored warnings from other motorists before he was hit.

"She (Koval) didn't see anything. She didn't know what happened," McGlinn told the judge.

McGlinn said Koval was three blocks from her home when the accident happened. He said she called her dad and told him it wasn't her fault.

There was no blood or hair on her car, but investigators found one of the victim's shoes under the vehicle when they came to investigate the next day, McGlinn said.

The attorney said Koval, at 3:19 a.m., called a San Diego police officer she'd played pool with earlier and asked him what she should do. The officer friend told Koval to take a bath, go to bed and report the accident in the morning, her attorney said.

Nursing Home Residents Are Very Often Overmedicated Says San Diego ...

Nursing homes are unnecessarily administering powerful antipsychotic drugs to many elderly residents, including residents with dementia according to a new report by the Health and Human Services inspector general says California Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect lawyer Steven Peck.

The Food and Drug Administration in 2005 mandated that drug makers issue warning labels on atypical antipsychotics, noting that the drugs--which are generally FDA-approved for treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder--increase the risk of death for elderly patients with dementia. Yet when the government examined 1.4 million Medicare claims from 2007 for atypical antipsychotics for elderly nursing home residents, the government found that 88 percent of the time, the drugs were prescribed to individuals diagnosed with dementia indicates Los Angeles Elder Abuse Attorney Steven Peck.

Despite the fact that it is potentially lethal to prescribe antipsychotics to patients with dementia, there's ample evidence that some drug companies aggressively marketed their products towards such populations, putting profits before safety, says Peck.

Peck notes that a number of drug companies have been accused of illegally promoting these drugs off-label to doctors and pharmacies, including those that serve nursing home residents.

The report also faulted the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, for failing to hold nursing homes accountable for unnecessary use of antipsychotic drugs. Unnecessary uses can include inadequate rationale for using the drug as well as excessive doses, excessive duration, and inadequate monitoring of patients to whom the drug was given.

The report notes that the federal government paid more than $116 million for claims that violated Medicare reimbursement criteria. These claims were only for the first half of 2007.

The inspector general recommends that CMS assess its safeguards for preventing unnecessary antipsychotic drug use in nursing homes. The agency acknowledged that better controls were needed.

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