A family has won a nursing home negligence lawsuit in Cook County.

In the summer of 2017, the family of 89-year-old Dolores T. was awarded $4.1 million. Once this original verdict was given, a subsequent process began to determine the losing party’s financial obligation for plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees and court costs.

A Cook County judge declared that Clare Oaks Senior Living is required to pay an extra $1.5 million to the family. The amount breaks down to an additional $147,472 to Dolores’s family and almost $1.4 million to the family’s lawyers from the nursing home negligence lawsuit.

The judgment is believed to be a record amount awarded thus far through the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The nursing home negligence lawsuit stems from a series of incidents that began in February 2011. Dolores was 85 years old at the time and had fractured her left hip. She was admitted to Clare Oaks for physical therapy.

Her doctor had given her several prescription medications to take during her recovery. Court records indicate that one of her prescriptions was for blood thinner Coumadin, an anticoagulant that helps prevent blood clots and strokes.

Dolores’s family alleged that she was not given her Coumadin for at least two weeks in March 2011. The nursing home negligence lawsuit alleges that because Dolores missed two weeks of the blood thinner, she suffered a stroke at the end of March 2011. The circumstances prompted her family to file the nursing home negligence lawsuit in 2013.

Dolores lived for four more years after suffering the stroke, which left her unable to speak and unable to walk. These limitations dramatically reduced her ability to enjoy life, insisted the family’s attorney.

Nursing Home Negligence Lawsuit Faults Clare Oaks

Clare Oaks’ insurance company, Markel Corporation, intends to appeal the decision.

How and why Dolores’s blood thinner was discontinued remains a mystery. Dolores’s family alleges that Clare Oaks employees stopped giving the elderly woman her Coumadin for 14 days without receiving a doctor’s order to do so. The nursing home negligence lawsuit alleges Clare Oaks has a procedure that requires a daily audit of medications that should have ensured the error of discontinuing Coumadin was detected on a timely basis.

Dolores’s own doctor denied he ordered the Coumadin discontinued. In fact, shortly after being admitted to Clare Oaks, Dolores had allegedly undergone lab tests that indicated she needed an increased dose of Coumadin to maintain the drug’s effectiveness. Instead of increasing the dosage, Clare Oaks staff allegedly stopped administering Coumadin at all.

Clare Oaks is located in Bartlett, Ill. The facility opened in 2008 and includes a variety of elderly care lifestyle choices. Options include assisted living, memory care assisted living, skilled nursing care services, short-term rehabilitation and adult day services. According to the company’s website, the facility earned a 5-Star rating from Medicare in 2013, which means Clare Oaks “achieved the highest ratings for health, staffing and quality measures.