Nursing Home Stripper Theft Case Continues

Yes, you read that right. The case is Youngblood v. East Neck Nursing Home, decided by the Supreme Court, Suffolk County on December 3, 2014.

Here are the facts, according to the court:

[Plaintiffs’] verified complaint alleges that Bernice Youngblood, an 85-year-old resident of the Center, suffered injuries … when the Center hired male strippers to perform for its nursing home patients as part of a planned “entertainment event.” The complaint alleges that plaintiff Franklin Youngblood, Bernice Youngblood’s son, learned of the incident when he discovered a photograph among his mother’s belongings that depicted “a muscular, almost entirely nude male, wearing revealing skinny white ‘briefs’, with his legs straddling over the lap of a seated Bernice Youngblood with his right hand leaning over the torso and head of Bernice Youngblood and resting on the back of the wheelchair of Bernice Youngblood, clutching a wad of bills.”

Plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that Bernice Youngblood suffers severe cognitive impairment as a result of Alzheimer’s, advanced dementia, immobility of the lower extremities confining her to a wheelchair, and is a three-time stroke survivor, and that “while sometimes lucid,” she “lacks the mental and physical capacity to competently, intelligently, knowingly, and voluntarily care for and protect herself” and that “when she is not lucid,” she “cannot give informed consent or otherwise make any decisions about her personal state.”

In holding that the complaint stated a cause of action for conversion, the court stated:

Plaintiffs’ third cause of action alleges that defendant, through its agents and employees, took an unknown amount of money belonging to plaintiff Bernice Youngblood from a locked commissary account at the head nurses’ station, without plaintiffs’ knowledge, permission or consent; and that defendant put the money towards its own use and enjoyment [i.e., the hiring of the male strippers] without the permission and consent of plaintiff. Accepting the allegations of the complaint as true, and affording plaintiffs all favorable inferences, plaintiffs’ complaint sufficiently states a cause of action for conversion.

The court, however, dismissed the claims asserted by Bernice’s son, Franklin, since he “did not attend or witness the complained-of incident and that he was not subjected to, inter alia, assault or battery or any of the other intentional acts alleged on behalf of his mother”.

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