Alabama Family Awarded $400K in Wrongful Death Lawsuit

The family of a 101-year-old man who died of pneumonia after being housed in a Montgomery nursing home has been awarded $400,000.

AL.com reports that an arbitrator awarded the money to the estate of John A. Garrett on Jan. 10.

Lawyers representing Garrett’s family have said nurses at Capitol Hill Nursing Home were told to keep Garrett’s head elevated so that his feeding formula would reach his stomach. A friend visited in September 2010 and found Garrett lying flat with feeding formula coming out of his mouth.

After he was hospitalized, doctors found that the formula was in his lungs instead of his stomach, and he died days later.

Representatives of the nursing home have said the man’s age and pre-existing conditions likely factored into his death.