A Las Vegas jury awarded James Flavy Coy Brown $250,000 as part of a class-action lawsuit against a state-run psychiatric hospital in Nevada that bused mental health patients out of state without providing proper care or discharge planning, reports The Sacramento Bee.
The class-action lawsuit identified 371 patients, including 11 who testified during the trial, according to Mark Merin, a civil rights attorney based in Sacramento, Calif., who filed the lawsuit.
A previous investigation by The Sacramento Bee found Las Vegas-based Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital bused about 1,500 patients out of Nevada between 2008-13. One-third of these patients were sent to California, including Mr. Brown. The hospital failed to organize any type of follow-up care or housing for these individuals once they got off the buses, causing many to become homeless, arrested or rehospitalized.
The jury determined each patient involved in the class-action suit should receive the same amount as Mr. Brown, which could equate to a multimillion-dollar penalty for the state. The jury is also requiring Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital to update its discharge policies to ensure patient safety.
Martha Framsted, a spokesperson for Nevada's Department of Health and Human Services, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the department plans to appeal the decision with the attorney general's office.
"Rawson Neal hospital continues to be committed to providing safe and appropriate discharges," she told the publication.
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