PORTLAND, Ore. — Four years later, 13 people who lost loved ones to COVID-19 at a Portland nursing home have reached a settlement with the company that owned it.
In just the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Healthcare at Foster Creek quickly became the state's largest outbreak site. Thirty residents died from COVID-19, and nearly 120 were infected before the state shut down the facility on May 4, 2020.
The plaintiffs sought $1.8 million in damages.
Bonnie Richardson, an attorney for the families that sued, said that the care home, in addition to operating on a for-profit basis, was chronically understaffed and did not have proper infection protocols.
"They treated a lot of these residents as if they were just going to die anyway," she said. "So, in that way, it was, in my opinion, a very poor negligent treatment of all of these individuals and led to a massive disaster."
Richardson said that family members could not visit with their loved ones, so they knew "very little that was going on," even when the state shut down the facility.
"There were no records, nothing," she said. "All of these 13 brave families that came forward ... what they were doing was wanting to make sure that the people were held accountable and to find out what happened to their loved ones when they died."
The details of the settlement are confidential, so the amount of money is unknown, but attorneys for the plaintiffs said they hoped the settlement gives the families closure after years of legal battles.
The company that owned Healthcare at Foster Creek initially declined to comment on the lawsuit. Its leadership said as of April 16 that "a confidentially agreement was signed along with the settlement agreement. The plaintiff’s attorneys did as well."