'Her skin was peeling off.' Family gets $10.6M settlement for Stark woman's painful death
JACKSON TWP. ‒ In death, Margaret Weyrauch's name will live for ages.
She was 84 years old when she died in 2019 at Akron Children's Hospital. It was a slow, painful demise for the mother, grandmother and great grandmother who loved to garden and bake.
Her death was caused by a condition which, by all accounts, was brought on by a toxic reaction to a prescription drug. It was an affliction that could have been stifled if caregivers at an assisted living home where she stayed on occasion, then known as The Landing, or her doctor, helped her sooner.
"Margaret was burning from the inside out ... her skin was peeling off," Canton attorney Lee Plakas, of the Plakas Mannos Law Firm, told Stark County Probate Judge Dixie Park during a hearing on Wednesday.
A legal team led by Plakas, on behalf of her family, sued those who cared for Weyrauch. By the time a civil trial wound to a finish last fall in Stark County Common Pleas Judge Chryssa Hartnett's courtroom, Weyrauch's family had reached confidential settlement agreements with those involved.
However, those terms aren't always secret in probate court. Such wrongful death settlements often must be evaluated and approved by a probate judge as part of administering an estate.
The now-public financial details: Weyrauch's family and attorneys will get a combined $10.6 million from three defendants. More important, Plakas said, is a newly-created document dubbed "The Margaret Policy."
He said Weyrauch's family hopes the policy prevents anyone else from dying under similar circumstances at The Landing (now operating as Aviva Hills), or in any communities under control of former operator Northstar Senior Living Community of California.
"While I miss my mom every day, I am so proud that through her policy — The Margaret Policy ― my mom and I will protect residents of assisted living facilities across the country and ensure that when residents cannot advocate for themselves, the facility’s employees will advocate for them," Weyrauch's daughter, Darlene Castillo, executrix of her estate, told The Repository.
As terms of employment, current and future Northstar employees must sign The Margaret Policy, which includes these acknowledgements:
"That's not my job" is not an acceptable answer.
"I checked the box" is not enough.
When a resident cannot advocate for themselves, we expect our team members to step up and be their advocate.
At least one Landing employee had tried to intervene, Plakas told Park. As a skin rash spread across Weyrauch's body and her health deteriorated, one employee did speak up.
"Somebody, please do something," she pleaded.
Ultimately, it was too late.
Margaret Weyrauch's medical spiral at The Landing assisted living
The payout to Weyrauch's estate will come from The Landing ($7.5 million), her physician Dr. Joshua Harbert and Aultman Medical Group ($3 million), and Absolute Pharmacy ($85,000).
Attorneys for those defendants did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Filings in court cases detail why Weyrauch was on a temporary stay at The Landing; why she had recently been prescribed the drug Lamotrigine; how she began to exhibit classic symptoms of toxic epidermal necrolysis, caused by the drug; and how those symptoms and the drug's own FDA "black box" warning were seemingly ignored.
Weyrauch, who was born in Corona, California, spent much of her life in the Wintersville, Ohio, area. She'd developed Alzheimer's disease and for the last seven years lived with her daughter, Castillo, in Plain Township. When Castillo and her husband, Robert, went out of town, they'd often place Weyrauch at The Landing, at 4550 Hills and Dales Road NW, until they returned.
In the summer of 2019, Weyrauch experienced seizures. After a trip to Aultman Hospital's emergency room on Aug. 19, Weyrauch was prescribed Lamotrigine to combat them.
The Castillos, planning a mid-September trip, took Weyrauch to Harbert for a checkup before placing her at The Landing for a respite.
Within days, a rash developed over her body. Staff at The Landing contacted Harbert. He prescribed cortisone cream to treat the rash. It didn't help. Weyrauch then got a fever.
Still, she got her daily dose of Lamotrigine. After a week, she got sicker. Her body ached. Her throat hurt. Staff reached out to Harbert again. He increased the dosage of Lamotrigine. By Oct. 2, Weyrauch was worse. Nurses at The Landing noted a greenish watery discharge from her eyes. Harbert didn't respond to an inquiry from Landing staff. Later that day, Weyrauch fell.
A nurse noted Weyrauch "doesn't appear to be herself."
The Landing staff called 911 to take Weyrauch to Aultman Hospital.
Records from that visit indicated the rash may have been caused by the increased dose of Lamotrigine. The dosage was scaled back to the original amount. She was prescribed eye drops and discharged.
The next day, on Oct. 3, Landing nurses sent her back to the hospital.
"At this point, for the last 18 days Margaret had exhibited a continuous and visible rash on her face, arms, legs and torso, and for the last 11 days had suffered symptoms of [Stevens-Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis, a rare, serious acute and potentially fatal skin reaction]," the family's complaint in the civil lawsuit stated.
Still, she continued to get Lamotrigine.
It was on that return visit to Aultman that a physician realized what was happening. She was sent to the burn unit at Akron Children's, where her diagnosis was confirmed on Oct. 7.
"At this point, 84-year-old Margaret's skin had deteriorated, was detaching from her body in sheets, and was peeling and falling off her body," the complaint in the civil lawsuit stated. "What was left of her skin was blistered, raw, bloody and oozing."
During the next week, physicians put Weyrauch under anesthesia for three full body debridement procedures to remove dead skin. After the last one on Oct. 14, her body began to fail. Her breathing became labored. Her blood pressure plummeted. Her body temperature sank.
Weyrauch's death and long legal road
"Margaret's family stayed by her bedside, playing her favorite songs as she passed away later that day," the complaint stated.
The trip to Probate Court this week was the final step in a four-year legal battle for Weyrauch's family.
"This has been an iconic case ... we can all be proud," Plakas told Judge Park during Wednesday's hearing, adding the settlement "recognizes and protects the elderly in our community."
Medical malpractice suits, he told her, are difficult, expensive, stressful and time-consuming. Nearly nine times out of 10, Plakas added, patients or their families are on the losing side.
About $200,000 in expenses and another $800,000 in attorney fees were invested in the Weyrauch case ― one reason attorneys will get $4.2 million of the $10.6 million settlement.
Pretrial groundwork included depositions from 42 people and trips to Florida and California, according to a court filing. Three separate mediation efforts failed. So, that meant trial preparation, such as securing expert witnesses and exhibits and issuing subpoenas.
"Throughout the litigation, the defendants repeatedly delayed in responding to plaintiffs' discovery requests and made baseless objections requiring plaintiff to file motions to compel to obtain basic documents such as emails, phone records, personnel files ..., " the Plakas team wrote in a narrative statement for the Probate Court.
Northstar Senior Living, former operator of The Landing, has a portfolio of 37 senior living communities in Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oregon and Texas, according to information on its website.
Park approved the settlement.
Money will be distributed among Castillo, her brother and grandchildren. The judge offered Castillo condolences for the loss of her mother as Wednesday's hearing closed.
Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 or tim.botos@cantonrep.com. On X: @tbotosREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Stark County family awarded settlement in assisted living death case
