Care Home Accused in Suit of Negligence

A North Hollywood nursing home’s negligence led to the rape of a semi-paralyzed patient who became pregnant, a lawyer argued Monday in San Fernando Superior Court.

Elian Rose, of North Hollywood, is seeking $20 million to $30 million from the Laurelwood Convalescent Hospital on behalf of her granddaughter, a long-term patient who suffered massive brain damage in a 1969 car accident. The woman became pregnant in 1982, had an abortion and was sterilized to prevent further pregnancies. Authorities say it is not clear who assaulted the woman. No one has been charged criminally.

During the opening argument of the civil trial, Alan Jule Schultz, representing Rose and her granddaughter, said that Laurelwood’s insufficient security, negligent hiring practices, and indifference toward a sexually aggressive patient, one of several suspects in the case, led to the woman’s rape--perhaps repeatedly over a period of time--and eventual impregnation.

But lawyers for the nursing home and its parent company, ARA Services, said they took reasonable security precautions and argued there was no way absolutely to have prevented the rape.

Paralyzed on the left side of her body, the woman requires total nursing care, is unable to communicate and must be fed through a tube.