People who are awarded a judgment after a legal action may yet have a legal means to recoup the money even if the defendant declares bankruptcy. It's called an adversary proceeding, Raleigh bankruptcy lawyer David Warren said.
In Cooper's case, she could ask a judge to find that the defendants' actions were willful and malicious, and that they should not be allowed to have the judgment discharged, or set aside.
"If you are a 'bad actor,' you're not going to get a discharge," Warren said.
Even though people who petition for bankruptcy may be trying to use the system to escape judgments, the procedure remains a last resort for those who hit bottom financially, said Margie Lynch, the Bankruptcy Administrator for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
"You are kind of throwing up your hands and saying, 'I need this fresh start.'" Lynch said. "It's a legitimate purpose of the bankruptcy code."
Staff writer Thomas Goldsmith
Barbara Cooper thought justice for her late father was finally just a day away.
A judge had already found that the owners of an assisted living home in Cumberland County owed $1.2 million in compensatory and punitive damages for the "egregiously wrongful acts" their employees committed while caring for her father, Marine veteran Joe Cooper, in 2002 and 2003.
Superior Court Judge James F. Ammons ruled in 2006 that negligence by the defendants - who didn't show up for a hearing - caused Joe Cooper to suffer a head injury and concussion, respiratory failure that required a breathing tube, and the loss of several upper and lower teeth - all in one January 2003 incident. Ammons also found that the veteran's bad health stemmed from "a greater pattern of neglect" by an undertrained and too-sparse staff who called Cooper a racial epithet, hit him and let his diabetes and other ailments get worse.
But before a hearing set for last Monday could squarely place responsibility for the judgment on company owners John and Janice Weeks, the Weekses filed for bankruptcy, listing more than $4 million in debt compared to more than $2million in assets.
The likely result for Barbara Cooper - failure to receive any recompense despite a clear legal finding in her favor - is far from uncommon in North Carolina, where long-term care centers aren't required to carry liability insurance and legal maneuvers often shield individuals from actions against their companies. The Cooper case is unusual only because of the level of detail that's publicly available - many such suits are settled privately, out of court.
"I was mad, and it's not because I stood to lose," Barbara Cooper, 46, a 25-year state employee, said about the bankruptcy filing. "What I'm mad about is that he is still operating. ... He's gotten away with it. It's another way for him to thumb his nose at people and say he doesn't care."
In an interview Wednesday, John Weeks said that Joe Cooper had been a "difficult resident." And like many other assisted-living center owners, Weeks says low state reimbursements make it nearly impossible for centers like his to provide high-level care. The couple's bankruptcy petition cites an annual income of $330,706, along with expenses within a few hundred dollars of that amount.
"I did not have money to hire lawyers to fight the lawsuit," John Weeks, 67, a 30-year veteran of the long-term care industry, said Wednesday. "I've never been able to tell my side of the story, and I think the whole thing would have been different."
The bankruptcy filing, which a federal judge must approve, left Cooper frustrated, but determined to spread her message: that people who neglect and abuse older people shouldn't go unpunished.
"I wanted to bring attention to the fact that I placed my dad in a facility expecting them to treat him like a human being," said Cooper, who transferred her father out of Countryside.
'Not a small incident'
A North Carolina native and father of three, Joe Cooper served in the Marines for 20 years, including three tours in Vietnam. Ending his service as a gunnery sergeant, he worked in the cement industry until health problems, including dementia, left him in need of daily care in the early 2000s, Barbara Cooper said.
After a stint in another facility, Joe Cooper entered the 80-bed Countryside Villa in 2002. Barbara made repeated visits and complained often about the quality of care during his nine months there.
"Each time I would complain, they would promise to take good care of him," she said. "A lot of time, he was complaining to me that he was hungry or that he wasn't clean. It was hard for me to tell if it was his mental process or if there were truth to his complaints."
Weeks countered that Joe Cooper, who later died in a different facility, had been a difficult resident. "He was not compliant; he would not take his medicine like he should," Weeks said. "We did our very best to give him care."
Piercing the veil
Angered by the treatment her father received and by the facility's failure to apologize for it, Cooper retained Henson Fuerst, a Raleigh-based law firm with a large practice in personal-injury and long-term care litigation.
Taking the case on a contingency basis, lawyers at Henson Fuerst have pursued it through government documents and a focus on "piercing the corporate veil." The term refers to making officers of corporations individually liable, in certain situations, for the actions of their companies. A corporation cannot exist only to shield its officers from judgment.
Henson Fuerst gathered reams of documents and depositions for introduction at the hearing over whether the Weekses would be made liable for her father's injuries despite the interlocking webs of companies. In one instance, the lawyers found a lease on which the Weekses were both landlord and tenant.
Weeks said Wednesday that he and his wife filed Friday for bankruptcy partly because of the news of the coming hearing. In addition, they face a $250,000 federal tax lien.
Countryside Villa is still in operation; after a sale to another owner fell through, John Weeks had to repossess it, he said.
Cooper's attorneys said Wednesday they are mulling whether to continue the suit, given its ongoing costs and uncertain outcome.
Getting someone to take responsibility, not the money, was the real issue for Barbara Cooper.
"I wanted to say to people, 'Look, don't let what happened to my dad happen to you,'" she said.