Sufficiency of Evidence

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Rosewood Care Center of Swansea v. Thomas E. Price, Secretary of the United States Department of Health & Human Services

Case No.: 16-3368

Officials: POSNER, RIPPLE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Sufficiency of Evidence

Rosewood Care Center is a skilled nursing facility participating in Medicare and Medicaid. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services assessed a civil monetary penalty against Rosewood on the grounds that it had failed to protect a resident from abuse, failed to timely report or to investigate thoroughly allegations of abuse, and failed to implement its internal policies on abuse, neglect, and misappropriation of property. CMS determined that these deficiencies placed residents in “immediate jeopardy.” After a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, both the ALJ and, later, the Department Appeals Board affirmed the $6,050 per day penalty imposed by CMS. Rosewood now seeks review of that penalty. It contends that the $6,050 per day penalty cannot be imposed because substantial evidence does not support CMS’s immediate jeopardy determination. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we conclude that substantial evidence supports the Agency’s findings and therefore deny the petition.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.