Hundreds of Bob Dean's former nursing-home patients seek settlement money

Nearly 400 former patients of Bob Dean's shuttered nursing homes or their survivors have filed claims under a class-action settlement over Dean's botched evacuation of seven south Louisiana facilities for Hurricane Ida, according to the special master overseeing the case.

They are among 843 patients sent by Dean to a warehouse in Tangipahoa Parish where conditions swiftly turned squalid, with too few toilets and showers and spotty air conditioning.

Some of Dean's patients relieved themselves in buckets or cried for help from deflated air mattresses. Several would die, including five deaths that state officials deemed "storm-related," and more than 50 were hospitalized.

A deadline that was extended by a month ended Thursday for Dean's patients or their survivors to lay claim to a pot of money that includes insurance proceeds, but none of the former nursing home magnate's shriveled assets.

Attorneys for Dean, who lived a lavish lifestyle that included a taste for classic cars, claim there aren't any left, and little evidence of available assets was revealed at a hearing last fall before 24th Judicial District Judge Michael Mentz approved the settlement.

State health officials shut down the warehouse and removed all of Dean's patients days after the storm as Dean balked. The state then revoked his nursing home licenses. Dean has since been diagnosed with dementia. His wife now controls his affairs under court order.

Dean still faces state criminal charges in Tangipahoa Parish for cruelty to the infirm and Medicaid fraud. In January, the U.S. Justice Department alleged in a lawsuit that Dean lined his pockets while misallocating $4 million from his nursing homes.

The feds say Dean siphoned about $1 million that he required four of his nursing homes to pay to the warehouse to prepare it for a disaster. Instead, Dean pocketed most of it while doing little more than rip out some metal shelves and install a few showers, the feds claim.

Rusty Knight, a retired judge who serves as special master in the class action, said Friday that he expected it will take most of the summer to review the claims of Dean's former patients and divvy them into subgroups based on the severity of harm. Mentz must approve the amounts, which claimants can challenge.

"I'm going to have to go through every one of those and manually break them out to these silos. My hope would be 45 days, maybe 60 days and I will be in a position to make a recommendation to the court," Knight said.

Those who accept will tap a fund that totals about $12 million but could increase by $2 million depending on the outcome of a drawn-out legal fight with one of Dean's insurers. A state appeals court last week kept the fight over that money alive. Knight said there also may be more than $1 million to divvy up from trust accounts that Dean held for each of his patients.

Even former patients who didn't file claims are eligible for a base amount under the settlement.

Knight said some may have declined to file a claim out of fear the payments would compromise their Medicaid eligibility. The whereabouts of others isn't certain, he said.

"It may well be that money goes to a state or a charity if we never find those people," Knight said.

A chunk of the settlement pot -- at least $2.7 million – will go to the lawyers under a payout plan that Mentz approved last week, granting 22.5% to the lawyers. The bulk will go to a steering committee led by attorneys Rob Couhig and Don Massey. Though it's approved, Knight said that money won't be paid to the lawyers until checks are mailed to Dean's former patients.

He and others administering the class action also will take a cut – Knight said his own budget is $150,000. That will leave about $9 million for the claimants, or $11 million if the insurer loses in court.

One plaintiff's lawyer who opposed the settlement last year, Madro Bandaries, said he feared the process "could penalize people that had severe damages as compared to others."

Bandaries also said he knows of several of Dean's patients who weren't aware of the claims deadline even with the extension, at least until recently.

"I'm not sure the word got out to everybody," he said.

His client, Lisa Renard, was a former patient at Dean's West Jefferson Nursing Home. Renard awoke in the hospital after the evacuation to find her remaining leg amputated, according to her claim.

A New Orleans native, Renard told an interviewer at the hospital that she couldn't use the mats or cots on the floor at the warehouse and was left sitting for four days in a fetid wheelchair.

Peanut butter and jelly, crackers and hot dogs were the provided fare, she said.

Renard, 63, has deteriorated since, according to a recent letter from her doctor.

More than 100 of Dean's former patients have died since the Ida evacuation, say attorneys involved in the case.